A Spiral Thread Is Spun
Storytelling from the Wheel
Video Series
For Those Curious about Spinning Related Tales
All kinds of mysteries in these Scottish tales ...
- Whuppity Stoorie / Whuppity Stoorie — the Lowland Scots analogue of Rumpelstiltskin. A supernatural woman helps with an impossible task, and the secret of her name becomes the key to escaping the bargain. There are several Scottish tellings and spellings.
- The Habitrot — probably the great Scottish spinning tale. Habitrot is a supernatural spinner associated with a group of uncanny spinning women. A girl who cannot or will not spin encounters her, and the grotesque physical effects supposedly caused by constant spinning become the reason the girl is ultimately excused from spinning.
- The Three Spinners — closely related to Habitrot, with supernatural women whose bodies have been distorted by spinning: enlarged foot, lip, thumb/finger, etc. Scottish versions overlap strongly with the Habitrot tradition.
- Habetrot and Scantlie Mab — Habetrot/Habitrot is sometimes accompanied by Scantlie Mab, another supernatural spinner. These traditions are particularly associated with the Borders and with wells, caves, and liminal places.
- The Goodwife and the Fairies / Fairy Spinners — there are a number of Scottish fairy traditions rather than one canonical tale, involving women hearing or encountering fairies spinning at night, sometimes with prohibitions against disturbing them.
- The Fairy Spinning-Wheel traditions — Scottish folklore has several stories in which spinning wheels, distaffs, thread, or unfinished spinning attract fairy interference, especially when work is left out at particular calendrical or liminal times.
- The Witch of Fife traditions — not strictly a spinning story in the way Habitrot is, but Fife witch/fairy lore sometimes intersects with women's domestic textile work, night gatherings, and supernatural transformation.
- The Elfin Knight — better known as a ballad (Child 2), but extremely relevant to textile folklore. Impossible tasks are exchanged between lovers/adversaries, and versions include making a sark (shirt) without cutting or sewing and washing it in impossible circumstances. It's part of the same broad family as Scarborough Fair.
