Once upon a time, a woman had a very lazy daughter who wouldn’t spin. So one day, her mother beat her. The girl howled loudly.
The Queen who was passing by heard her and stopped to ask what the matter was. The woman was so frightened that she lied to the Queen.
“My daughter spins beautifully,” she said, “But we are too poor to buy flax, so she is crying.”
The Queen was so impressed that she took the girl to the palace, saying, “I’ll give her enough flax to spin.”
The Queen showed her three rooms full of flax and gave her a spinning wheel.
“If you spin all this, I’ll know you are hard-working,” said the Queen, “and you shall marry my eldest son!”
As soon as the Queen left, the girl sat down and wept. How would she spin all this?
Suddenly, she saw three women at the window. One had a large, flat foot; the second one had a huge lower lip and the third one had a big, flat thumb.
“What has happened to make you cry?” they asked.
The girl showed them all the flax and explained her problem.
“We can help you, my dear,” said the women, “But you have to promise us something.”
The girl was willing to promise them anything.
“You must invite us to your wedding feast and introduce us as your cousins. You must not be embarrassed if we sit at your banquet table,” they said.
The girl promised and the three women came in through the window. One used her big foot to move the treadle of the spinning wheel. The second one wetted the flax with her lip and the third one twisted the yarn and held it flat with her thumb.
Whenever the Queen came, the women hid themselves. In a few weeks the flax in the three rooms was spun into fine yarn. The three women climbed out of the window, telling the girl to keep her promise.
The Queen was delighted with the hard-working girl. The eldest prince fell in love with her too. So preparations for the wedding began.
“May I invite my three cousins too?” asked the girl and the prince agreed.
When the prince saw them during the feast, he wanted to know how each one had a strange feature: a large foot, a massive lower lip and a flat thumb.
“From spinning, dear Prince,” said the three women.
The prince never let his beautiful wife spin after that!
