The Three Spinners
Once upon a time there was a girl who was very lazy and would not do her spinning. Her mother tried all sorts of things to get Belinda to spin but none of them worked, and Belinda sat in her room, doing nothing. Finally, her mother had had enough, and began to beat her lazy daughter. Just then, the Queen was walking by — the queen regularly went on walks down the main shopping streets of the city, and Belinda’s family owned a high-end thread shop — and heard the sounds of the loudly-crying girl. The queen walked into the house (which was open because it doubled as a shop) and saw the woman beating her daughter.
“Why are you beating your daughter? Don’t you know that everyone on the street can hear her cries?” Now, you see, no one really cared that the girl was being beaten (for in Fairytale Land it is ok to spank your children, because if you are a wicked-type person you will be punished in the end, but if you are a good-type person you will live happily ever after, thus good parents can beat their children with no fear) but they did care that her cries were disrupting their morning shopping.
“Your Majesty, I apologize for disrupting your morning shopping, but I had to do something to stop my daughter from spinning.” This was a complete lie of course, but the Mother of Belinda was really embarrassed by her lazy daughter.
“Why is that a problem? Who wouldn’t want a daughter who is so willing to help her family.”
“Your Majesty, the problem is that I cannot get her to stop, and I will soon run out of flax for her to spin.”
“Well,’ said the Queen, “I like nothing better than the sound of the spinning wheel, and always feel happy when I hear its humming; let me take your daughter with me to the castle- I have plenty of flax, she shall spin there to her heart’s content.”
The mother was torn, she wanted to get rid of her lazy daughter, but she didn’t want the Queen to know that she had lied. “Well, umm…” She began, but the Queen stopped her: “I know that you will miss your daughter horribly, so I will offer you 100 gold coins for her services.”
The mother couldn’t pass up that generous offer, and soon the girl was sent off to the castle.
Once the Queen and Belinda arrived at the castle, the girl was hurried off to a set of rooms that contained more flax than she had ever set eyes on. In the center of the very large room (in the only clear space) sat a sinning wheel. Belinda stood there in shock for a few moments staring at all the flax.
The Queen squeezed into the room behind Belinda and said, “Now spin me this flax, and when you have spun all of it into the finest thread, you may marry my eldest son, Francois.”
“Really?” asked Belinda. “I am poor, and I thought that only a princess could marry a prince.”
“As there are no Princesses available for my son to marry, I am a little bit desperate, and if you manage to spin all this flax, I will consider it dowry enough.”
The queen left the room, and Belinda continued to stare at all the flax. The room was as big as three regular-sized rooms, and the flax was piled all the way up to the soaring ceiling. There was no way she could spin all that flax even if she spent every minute of every day and night for the next three hundred years spinning, that is, if she had done as her mother had asked and learned to spin.
Once the shock of the sheer volume of flax wore off, Belinda broke down and sobbed. And cried. And wailed. And made quite a ruckus. For three entire days Belinda wept. One the third day, the Queen came in and saw that Belinda had not spun a singe bit of flax.
“What have you been doing these past three days?” inquired the slightly annoyed Queen.
“I have not been able to work, Your Majesty, for grief of leaving my mother.”
“Well, she isn’t dead. She may come to the wedding. Tomorrow you will spin the flax.”
Once the Queen left her alone, Belinda sat on the floor wonder what to do. If only she had learned to spin! But alas, she was a lazy girl, and had not. She soon got bored of sitting on the floor, and climbed over all the flax to look out the window. A few minutes passed, then Belinda saw three women passing by. They were hideous — one had a huge foot, one had an enormous thumb, and the last had a giant lip.
Belinda was still weeping, and her sniffles attracted the attention of the three women. They asked her what the matter was, and Belinda told them of her troubles with the room full of flax and the Queens outrageous expectations. The three women offered to help her spin the flax, on one condition: that Belinda invite them to the wedding as her aunts, have them sit at the familial wedding table and not be ashamed of their hideous figures.
“Yes! Yes! Of course!” Cried Belinda.
The three women came in and began to work. One drew the thread and trod on the wheel with her huge foot, one moistened the thread with her enormous lip, and the last pressed it and beat it on the table with her giant thumb and every time she did so, a pile of fine thread fell on the floor.
Every day the Queen came in to check on the progress of the spinning. When she arrived, Belinda hid the three women, and sat at the spinning wheel herself. The Queen praised her for her excellent work. After a week all the flax was spun, and the three spinner women left, reminding Belinda to remember their bargain.
The Queen came in to the empty room, and was very impressed at the speed and skill with which the girl had spun the flax into thread. The wedding was arranged, and Belinda remembered to invite the three spinners and seat them at the table with Belinda and her new Husband, Prince Francois.
When the three hideous women arrived, Belinda exclaimed “Oh, Welcome, my dearest aunts! What fine dresses you have.”
The Prince looked at the women, and looked at Belinda, and then leaned over to her and whispered “How is it you have such ugly relations, when you are so beautiful.”
Belinda just smiled, and went off to do the Father-Daughter dance. While Belinda was off dancing, Prince Francois approached the three hideous spinners. “Why is it you have such a large foot?” He tactlessly asked the first woman.
“It is from threading and treading a spinning wheel,” she responded.
“Why is it you have such an enormous lip?” He again tactlessly asked the second woman.
“It is from moistening the thread for spinning,” she replied.
He went up to the third sister, and, with just as little tact as before, asked “Why do you have such a gigantic thumb?”
“From pressing the thread after spinning it,” she cackled.
The Prince panicked at the thought that his lovely wife could turn out to look like these revolting women. Belinda came to him after her dance with her father. Francois grabbed her shoulders and said “I forbid you from ever spinning ever ever again! I couldn’t bear for you to end up looking like those… spinner women.” His revulsion suited Belinda’s laziness quite well, and she lived happily ever after with her Prince. The three spinners also lived happily ever after, with a nice supply of fine flax donated from the happily married couple.
THE END.
If you would like to check out an original version of the story go to http://www.bartleby.com/17/2/8.html
Not Quite 1001 Nights 
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