One of the the fairy tales that I associate with knitting is "The Wild Swans" by Hans Christian Andersen. In this story Elise, a young maiden, must rescue her 12 brothers from the spell cast by a witch. The brothers turn into wild swans and return to their original bodies only at a certain time and place.

In order to save her brothers Elise must weave 12 tunics out of grass for them. Yes, the word is "weave", but my common sense leads me to believe that the tunics were more realistically knitted rather than woven on a (presumably large) loom which is not mentioned in the story.

Several items in this fairy tale are of interest to me:

--Transformation into swans means, to me, the ability to astral-travel.

--A piece of knitting can be an instrument of salvation.

--Knitting must be performed in silence (a restriction imposed on Elise), and seems to indicate that knitting can be used magically, as a parallel act that ensures the safety of astral travelers--or something else, depending on one's intent.

--The youngest brother retains his ability to astral-travel in the end, because Elise, unable to meet her deadline, misses completing one of the sleeves of his tunic.

--The use of grass implies that royalty or aristocracy must don the tunics of the poor in order to be complete human beings.

--The female within every man is his source of integration toward complete manhood.

Sometimes, when I am knitting, I think of Elise.