Rope: take thin fresh spruce-roots and scrape the bark off them using the back of the knife against your thigh. Now cut them into 3 to 5 strips with the knife – or split them like spills – and wind them round your fist like a skein and knot them together. Boil them in a pan for one or 2 hours with a good deal of ash and afterwards, while they are still soft from being boiled, run them 3 or 4 times across the back of the knife over your knee. Now twist them into small ropes. The same is done with birch-roots, but less commonly.