Household Tales · Chapter
The Three Spinners explained
A lazy girl who refuses to spin is taken to the palace by the Queen, who promises her marriage to the prince if she spins three rooms full of flax.
What happens
A lazy girl who refuses to spin is taken to the palace by the Queen, who promises her marriage to the prince if she spins three rooms full of flax. In despair, the girl receives help from three strange women with deformities caused by spinning. They spin the flax quickly in exchange for an invitation to the wedding. At the feast, the prince is horrified by their appearance and, learning their deformities came from spinning, forbids his bride ever to touch a spinning wheel.
Themes in this chapter
Virtue Rewarded and Vice Punished
The girl's laziness is hidden, but she ultimately avoids punishment and gains a husband through deception and the help of the spinners.
Social Class and Marriage
A poor girl marries a prince despite her low status, with industry (or its appearance) serving as her dowry.
Promises and Their Consequences
The girl promises to invite the three spinners to her wedding and honor them as aunts, a promise she keeps to secure her fortune.
Characters to notice
- the girl
The idle protagonist who avoids spinning and later becomes the bride of the prince.
- the maiden
The girl is referred to as the maiden after she is taken to the palace.
- the young King
The prince who marries the girl and is horrified by the three spinners' deformities.
- Unknown
The three strange women who help spin the flax; their individual identities are not given.
Key passages
“There was once a girl who was idle and would not spin, and let her mother say what she would, she could not bring her to it.”
A girl was lazy and refused to spin, ignoring all her mother's attempts to make her work.
Introduces the central conflict of the story.
“Now spin me this flax, and when thou hast done it, thou shalt have my eldest son for a husband, even if thou art poor.”
The Queen promises the girl marriage to her son if she spins all the flax in the three rooms.
Sets up the reward for completing the impossible task.
“If thou wilt invite us to the wedding, not be ashamed of us, and wilt call us thine aunts, and likewise wilt place us at thy table, we will spin up the flax for thee, and that in a very short time.”
The three strange women offer to spin the flax quickly if the girl invites them to her wedding and treats them as honored relatives.
The bargain that enables the girl to fulfill the Queen's demand.
“Neither now nor ever shall my beautiful bride touch a spinning-wheel.”
The prince declares that his bride will never have to spin again.
The ironic resolution where the girl's laziness is permanently rewarded.