In the final chapter of his novel, The First
Circle, Alexander Solzhenitsyn extols the
virtues of the felt boot: “A pair of felt boots are
the two best friends a prisoner will ever have … Woe
then to anyone whose feet are not shod in felt
boots! … But the prisoner wearing his own felt boots
has not a care in the world.” Solzhenitsyn writes
for those unfamiliar with the extremes faced by the
society he is describing. Similarly, but far removed
in time, we are accustomed to learning a great deal
more about the uses of felt among nomadic peoples
from travellers who have purportedly visited them
than we do from such rare accounts as The
Secret History of the Mongols
(SH) which emanate from sources
close to the nomads themselves.