The Three Spinners (Grimm)
Division into chapters is editorial.
The lazy girl and the Queens offer
A young girl lived with her mother and refused to spin despite all her mother's efforts to make her work. The girl was completely idle and would not be persuaded to take up the spinning wheel no matter what her mother said or did.
One day, the mother became so overcome with anger and impatience that she beat her daughter, causing the girl to weep loudly. At that very moment, the Queen happened to drive by in her carriage and heard the crying from the road.
The Queen stopped and entered the house to ask why the mother was beating her daughter so severely. Ashamed to reveal her daughter's laziness, the mother lied and claimed she could not get her daughter to stop spinning.
There is nothing that I like better to hear than spinning, and I am never happier than when the wheels are humming. Let me have your daughter with me in the palace.
An impossible spinning task
The Queen took the girl to her palace and led her to three rooms filled from bottom to top with the finest flax. She promised that if the girl could spin all the flax, she would marry the Queen's eldest son, regardless of her poverty.
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. I care not for that, thy indefatigable industry is dowry enough.
The girl was secretly terrified, for she could not have spun the flax, no, not if she had lived till she was three hundred years old, and had sat at it every day from morning till night.
Left alone, the girl began to weep and sat for three days without moving a finger. When the Queen returned and saw nothing had been spun, the girl excused herself by saying she was too distressed from leaving her mother's house to begin work.
The three mysterious women and their help
In her distress, the girl went to the window and saw three strange women approaching. The first had a broad flat foot, the second had a great underlip that hung down over her chin, and the third had a broad thumb.
The women asked what was wrong, and when the girl explained her trouble, they offered their help. They would spin all the flax for her in a very short time, but only if she agreed to their conditions.
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.
The girl eagerly agreed and let the three women into the palace. They seated themselves in the first room and began their magical work. One drew the thread and trod the wheel, another wetted the thread, and the third twisted it and struck the table with her finger. Each time she struck, a perfectly spun skein fell to the ground. The girl concealed the spinners from the Queen and showed her the great quantity of spun thread whenever she visited.
The completed task and wedding preparations
The three women worked through all three rooms, quickly clearing each one of flax and producing enormous heaps of perfectly spun yarn. When they finished their work, they reminded the girl not to forget her promise to them, saying it would make her fortune.
When the Queen saw the empty rooms and the great heap of yarn, she was amazed and immediately ordered preparations for the wedding. The bridegroom rejoiced that he was to have such a clever and industrious wife and praised her greatly.
The girl asked permission to invite her three aunts to the wedding, explaining that they had been very kind to her and she did not want to forget them in her good fortune. The Queen and bridegroom readily agreed to allow this.
The wedding feast and the spinners revelation
When the wedding feast began, the three women entered in strange apparel. The bride welcomed them as her dear aunts, but the bridegroom was shocked by their appearance and called them odious friends. Curious about their deformities, he questioned each woman about how she came by her unusual features. The first explained her broad foot came from treading, the second said her falling lip came from licking, and the third attributed her broad thumb to twisting thread.
On this the King's son was alarmed and said, Neither now nor ever shall my beautiful bride touch a spinning-wheel. And thus she got rid of the hateful flax-spinning.