Habetrot the Spinner

Long ago, in the hills of the Scottish Borders, a mother lived with her daughter. The girl loved to run in the meadows and pick flowers, but she did not like spinning at all. One morning, her mother gave her seven bundles of flax. “Spin all of this into yarn in three days,” she said firmly.

The girl tried her best, but the thread kept breaking, and by the second evening she had spun only a tiny bit. On the third morning, she sat sadly by a stream, next to a big stone with a hole in it.

Beside the stream sat an old woman, spinning in the sunshine. Her lips were long and floppy, and she smiled at the girl in a friendly way. “Why are your lips so long?” the girl asked politely. “From spinning, my dear,” said the old woman. “I wet the thread with my lips as I spin.” The girl sighed and told her all her trouble. “Fetch me your flax,” said the old woman, “and I will spin it for you.”

The girl ran home for the flax, and the old woman took it and vanished among the bushes. The girl waited by the stream until she fell asleep in the warm grass. When she woke up, the evening star was shining, and she heard a voice coming up through the hole in the stone. She peeked inside and saw a room full of little old women, all spinning away. “Quick, quick, Scantlie Mab!” called her old friend. “The yarn must be ready tonight, because Habetrot never breaks her word!” So now the girl knew the old woman’s name.

Soon Habetrot came out with seven shiny hanks of yarn. “Take them home,” she said, “but do not tell your mother who spun them.” The girl went home and found a plate of puddings her mother had made, and she was so hungry that she ate them all.

In the morning, her mother saw the beautiful yarn on the table. She ran out into the road, singing, “My daughter’s spun seven, seven, seven!” “My daughter’s eaten seven, seven, seven!” A young laird was riding by, and he stopped to see the wonderful yarn. He liked the girl even more than the yarn, and soon they were married.

But the bride was worried, because she still could not spin. So Habetrot told her to bring her husband to the stone by the stream. He peeked through the hole and saw all the little old women with their long lips. “Spinning made our lips like this,” Habetrot told him with a wink. “Then my wife shall never spin again!” said the laird. And from then on, Habetrot spun all the flax at the castle, and the young bride ran in the meadows as much as she liked.