# The Three Spinners _Retold by Talerie (talerie.com) from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm_ · 5 min read · ages 5+ A lazy girl must spin three rooms of flax at the queen’s castle, and three odd women spin it for her if she will call them her aunts at her wedding. When the prince hears that their broad foot, hanging lip, and broad thumb come from treading, licking, and twisting thread, he forbids his bride ever to spin. --- Once upon a time there was a girl who was lazy and would not spin. Her mother could say whatever she liked; nothing would bring the girl to the wheel. At last one day the mother lost all patience and beat her, and the girl began to cry so loudly that people passing by could hear her. Just then the queen was driving by. When she heard the crying, she had her carriage stopped, went into the house, and asked the mother why she was beating her daughter so hard that people could hear the screams out on the road. The woman was ashamed to let anyone know how lazy her daughter was. “Your Majesty, I can’t get her to stop spinning,” she said. “She wants to spin morning, noon, and night, and I’m poor and can’t buy her enough flax.” “There’s nothing I like better than the sound of spinning,” said the queen, “and I’m never happier than when the wheels are humming. Let your daughter come with me to the castle, good woman. I have plenty of flax, and she can spin as much as she likes.” The mother was only too glad to agree, and the queen took the girl away with her. At the castle she led her upstairs to three rooms filled from floor to ceiling with the finest flax. “Now spin this flax for me,” said the queen, “and when you have finished, you shall marry my eldest son. It doesn’t matter to me that you are poor. Your hard work is dowry enough.” The girl was terrified, though she kept it to herself. She could never have spun all that flax, not if she lived to be three hundred years old and sat at the wheel every day from morning till night. As soon as she was alone she began to cry, and for three days she sat there without lifting a finger. On the third day the queen came, and she was surprised to see that nothing had been spun yet. The girl said she had not been able to begin because she was so homesick for her mother’s house. The queen accepted that, but as she left she said, “Tomorrow you must get to work.” Alone again, the girl was at her wits’ end. Miserable, she went to the window and saw three women coming toward the castle. The first had a broad, flat foot. The second had a lower lip so big that it hung down over her chin. The third had a broad thumb. They stopped under the window, looked up, and asked the girl what was the matter. She told them her trouble, and they offered to help her. “If you will invite us to your wedding,” they said, “and not be ashamed of us, and call us your aunts, and seat us at your table, we will spin this flax for you, and we’ll be quick about it.” “With all my heart,” she said. “Come in and start right away.” She let the three strange women in and cleared a space for them in the first room, and they sat down and began to spin. The first drew out the thread and worked the treadle with her foot. The second licked the thread to wet it. The third twisted it and struck the table with her finger, and every time she struck it, a skein of yarn fell to the floor, spun as fine as could be. The girl kept the three spinners hidden from the queen. Whenever the queen came, the girl showed her only the great heaps of spun yarn, and the queen could not praise her enough. When the first room was empty, the women moved on to the second, and at last to the third, and soon that one was cleared too. Then the three women said goodbye. “Don’t forget what you promised us,” they told the girl. “It will be your good fortune.” When the girl showed the queen the empty rooms and the great pile of yarn, the queen gave orders for the wedding. The prince was delighted to be getting such a clever, hardworking wife, and he praised her to the skies. “I have three aunts,” said the girl, “and they have been very good to me. I don’t want to forget them now that I’m so happy. Your Majesty, please let me invite them to the wedding and let them sit with us at the table.” “Of course you may,” said the queen and the prince. So when the feast began, in came the three women in their strange clothes, and the bride said, “Welcome, dear aunts.” “Goodness,” said the prince, “where did you find such ugly relatives?” He went up to the one with the broad, flat foot and asked, “Ma’am, how did you get such a broad foot?” “From treading,” she answered, “from treading.” Next he went to the second and asked, “Ma’am, how did you get such a hanging lip?” “From licking,” she answered, “from licking.” Last of all he asked the third, “Ma’am, how did you get such a broad thumb?” “From twisting the thread,” she answered, “from twisting the thread.” The prince was alarmed. “My beautiful bride shall never touch a spinning wheel,” he said, “not now and not ever.” And so she was rid of that hateful flax spinning for good. --- - Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/the-three-spinners - Also known as: The Three Spinning Women - Also in: [German](https://talerie.com/de/maerchen/die-drei-spinnerinnen.md) - Author's country: Germany (https://talerie.com/en/tales/country/germany) - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q222886 - Tale type: ATU 501 (per Wikidata) - Source: Household Tales by Brothers Grimm, trans. Margaret Hunt (Project Gutenberg #5314) (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5314) - Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: Household Tales by Brothers Grimm, trans. Margaret Hunt (Project Gutenberg #5314) — translation: author died 1859/1863 (+70 passed); translator Margaret Hunt died 1912 (+70 passed) - License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)