The fairy tale that caught my eye this week was The Three Spinning Women.
The ending, in particular, made me laugh out loud.
Compared to the dark Hansel and Gretel or The Three Men in the Woods, this story was so refreshing!
I admit, I lean toward sunshine and unicorns in the kind of stories I like best. I’m not a fan of gore, even the fairy-tale kind (see the ending on Faithful John!). And so far, in our year of reading Grimm, there hasn’t been much mirth. Maybe that’s why this story took me by surprise. I hope there are more stories like this.
What made this one funny was the unexpected reversals.
The Set Up
“There once was a lazy maiden who did not want to spin.”
Oh boy. Sounds like we’re about to get a lesson in hard work. Our lazy maiden is being disobedient to her mother by refusing to spin. In frustration, the mother beats her until a passing queen stops to see why the girl is screaming.
Ashamed to say her daughter is lazy, the mother says, “I can’t get her to stop spinning. She does nothing but spin and spin, and I’m so poor that I can’t provide the flax.”
1st Reversal
The mother’s statement is humorous because it is opposite to what we just learned about the girl. After berating her daughter for the first part of the story, now she is praising her. It’s so unexpected, it’s funny.
Problem Escalates
The queen then offers to take the girl and put her to work. At this point, we can’t tell if the queen wants to take advantage of the girl by making her spin enormous amounts of flax, or if she is simply testing her as a potential match for her son.
Our lazy maiden, overcome with the task doesn’t even try to spin the mountain of flax.
So here she is under the care of the queen, with a promise to marry the prince if she would only spin. Why isn’t she even trying? She must be as lazy as her mother said. The story continues to tilt towards her laziness, compounded now with her fear.
The Bargain
Three odd-looking women come along and hear her crying. They each have an outrageous physical deformity—one a broad, flat foot, one a large thumb, and one on overhanging lip.
After listening to her story, they offer to spin for her. Their only requirement is that she not be ashamed of them, rather call them cousins and invite them to the wedding if they do all the work and she marries the prince.
Deal struck, they set to work. The reader wonders what kind of girl is our lazy maiden? Will she invite these three odd characters, claiming them as cousins at her wedding?
Foreshadowing
After the women finish spinning, they leave with a final reminder to remember her promise; “It will determine your good fortune.”
The Test
To her credit, the lazy maiden does remember them and asks they be invited to the wedding—“I have three cousins…since they’ve done so many good things for me, I’d like to remember them in my happiness”—and we are glad for them all.
The prince sees the “women who entered in bizarre costumes” and after his bride addresses them warmly, asks about them. “How did you ever come by such ghastly-looking friends?”
We hold our breath. Is this going to get ugly? Will our lazy maiden denounce them? She does not, and the prince goes to each one to ask about their prominent features. One by one they tell him their disfigurement was caused by spinning.
The Big Reversal
The prince is alarmed and declares “Never ever shall my beautiful wife touch a spinning wheel again.”
Ha, ha. The girl gets what she wants in the end—to never spin again. This has the makings of a happily ever after, with a prince who takes care of his wife.
(Side note: We are never told why the maiden didn’t spin. She might not have been good at it, the materials irritated her dry skin, allergic to flax, etc, etc. She very well could have been straight-up lazy. Unknown motivations are great opportunities for fairy tale re-tellers to change a story or expand the narrative.)
Back to the humor. When a story tilts in one direction, leading the reader to think one way (anticipation), then suddenly flips things to a new light (surprise)—the writer can build to a great punch line.
It’s all in the delivery.
