SPINNING IN FAIRY TALES by K.C. Shaw page 2/3
The Nettle Spinner
A number of fairy tales, such as The Seven Ravens and The Wild Swans, require the hapless heroine to spin stinging nettles into thread. Stinging nettles are called such for a reason--they have tiny poisonous hairs that cause a burning rash when touched. Imagine being told not just to handle nettles, but to make them into clothing meant to be worn next to the skin.
The task of spinning nettles makes for a powerful image even without knowing much about spinning. But nettles can be spun--in fact, the white fibers within nettle stems make a soft, warm thread similar to linen (which is spun from the flax plant). The trick is in preparing the nettles first.
The initial step, of course, is gathering the plants once they've grown about waist-high. After that, each stem has to be crushed slightly and slit open from top to bottom, and the fibers removed from the plant's pith, a process known as retting; often retting was made easier by pouring boiling water over the plants and letting them soak for up to a day. After the fibers have dried, they can be spun--but to spin any length of nettle thread requires massive numbers of nettle plants.
Nettle-spinning is difficult and time-consuming, but it has one great advantage. Nettles are weeds that grow in waste places. Even the poorest family could send the children out to gather nettles.
Rumpelstiltskin
In "Rumpelstiltskin," a miller boasts to the king that his daughter can spin straw into gold; she then has to prove it or die. In the story, a strange little man spins the straw in exchange for the girl's first-born.
I've often thought that spinning straw into gold is a metaphor for spinning flax into linen. Flax plants have to be retted (like nettles, above, but an even longer process), and the resulting raw fiber feels coarse and stiff. Once it's properly spun, though, the resulting linen thread can be woven into fine--and costly--cloth.
But the story of Rumpelstiltskin grew out of older stories, in which the daughter can spin nothing except straw into gold. She asks the little man to spin flax or wool for her so she can gain a husband, since in many communities a man would not marry a woman who couldn't spin well.
