The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wadmol \Wad"mol\, n. [Of Scand. origin; cf. Icel. va?m[=a]l a
woollen stuff, Dan vadmel. Cf. Wad a small mass, and
Woodmeil.]
A coarse, hairy, woolen cloth, formerly used for garments by
the poor, and for various other purposes. [Spelled also
wadmal, wadmeal, wadmoll, wadmel, etc.]
--Beck
(Draper's Dict.). Sir W. Scott.
Wiktionary
n. Thick coarse heavily napped wool mostly used in winter clothing for the poor.
Wikipedia
Wadmal ( Old Norse: vaðmál; Norwegian: vadmål, "cloth measure") is a coarse, dense, usually undyed wool fabric woven in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, and the Orkney, Faroe and Shetland Islands from the Middle Ages into the 18th century. Wadmal was woven on the warp-weighted loom used throughout these areas of Norwegian influence, and was usually a 2/2 twill weave, although some medieval sources outside Iceland describe wadmal as tabby or plain-woven. In remote regions, wadmal remained the primary fabric for working people's clothing into the 18th century
Wadmal was a medium of exchange throughout Scandinavia. Wadmal was accepted as currency in Sweden, Iceland, Shetland, and Ireland, and exchange rates defined the equivalent of various grades of wadmal (measured in ells) in silver and in cows. Wadmal was the main export of Iceland, where length, width, thread count, and weight for different grades were fixed by law.
Usage examples of "wadmal".
Grim was quieter, a certain air of satisfaction about him as he readied a pallet, then fetched blankets of best wadmal cloth, far finer than any of them was used to.
There would be a fine paid in ells of wadmal cloth or bags of silver, or they might forbid him to return to the home shore of Freyrsfjord, or to his birthplace in Halogaland.
The man staggered sideways and Macurdy was on him, grabbed him by his waistband and his wadmal shirt and slammed him head first against the log wall.
Dressed again in wadmal, leather gloves, leather apron, and wooden shoes, beard and mane full of the soot that blackened his skin, the dwarf gripped a piece with tongs and banged it into shape.
The young man was naked under a wadmal cloak, his hands bound with a belt, his wrists and bloody fingers swollen.
There were the women in their kerchiefs and linen aprons over wadmal gowns, and there the roughly carved image of the Goddess, without its necklace now.
Then she pulled her black shawl over her head, veiling her cap of silver hair, and abruptly her grey skirt and sweater took on the appearance of a wadmal gown, and the pleasant, maternal face she had worn during dinner became the classic mask of a priestess, an empty vessel waiting to be filled.
They unloaded two large chests while Kivrin and the girls watched, several wadmal bags, and an enormous wine cask.
There was a round of cheese and plently of manchets left -- she stacked them like plates in a wadmal sack, put in the cheese, and carried it out to the well.
They were manned by fighting men, retainers of great lords, who stalked those stout decks wearing wadmal, heavy homespun tweed, meant for long use and severe weather.
Squinting through the dusk, he saw the peasants were a sturdy, fair-complexioned folk, bearded and long-haired, clad in rough wadmal coats and cross-gartered pants.
They threw off their wadmal cloaks, and seated themselves with a creak and chime of battle-harness.
Skallagrim is always worth his weight in wadmal, whatever wadmal may be.
The clothes he had worn beneath his mail linsey-woolsey shirt, leather doublet, coarse hose of blue wadmal, knee-length flare-topped bootshad undergone a hasty cleaning which left faintly visible stains of grass, soil, sweat, and blood.
Leif gave her a gold finger-ring, a Greenland wadmal mantle, and a belt of walrus-tusk.