The girl saw her mother was in earnest, so she plied her distaff as well as she could; but her hands were all untaught, and by the evening of the second day only a very small part of her task was done.
When the other one sees this, it runs off as fast as it could, and the old wife after it, with the spindle in the one hand, and the distaff in the other.
Then looking down the hole saw her friend, the old dame, walking backwards and forwards in a deep cavern among a group of spinsters all seated on colludie stones, and busy with distaff and spindle.
When she awoke, she thought for a moment that she still held the stone, but it was the knob of her distaff that she was grasping.
During the long nights she had spun incessantly, and round the distaff was turned a thread, finer than the finest web of the spider; human eyes were unable to distinguish the separate threads.
The stepmother's daughter purposely let herdistaff fall and it rolled into the hole.
Once her distaff fell from her hand and rolled into a cavern.
With her distaff in her bosom, and her spindle in her hand, she plied lazily and mechanically the old-fashioned Scottish thrift, according to the old-fashioned Scottish manner.
The appearance of excitation, which the conversation had occasioned, gradually left her features; she sank down upon her accustomed seat, and resumed her mechanical labour of the distaff and spindle, with her wonted air of apathy.
She is sitting with a spear in her right hand, and in her left a distaff and spindle.
She was present at births, and held the distaff from which was spun the thread of life.
The Distaff and the Spindle, without a Change from Ancient Days to Middle of Fourteenth Century.
Every advance toward the goal of social and intellectual equality was strenuously contested by the men, who wished to limit the activities of their wives to the spindle, the distaff and the loom and the other occupations of the household.
With these and her distaff she spun thread, and from the thread thus obtained she was by means of her primitive loom--likewise her invention--able to provide all kinds of textile fabrics for clothing for herself and family.
The distaff or rock could on occasion serve the purpose of a weapon of offence or defence.
As late as 1757 an English poet writes: And many yet adhere To the ancient distaff at the bosom fixed, Casting the whirling spindle as they walk; At home or in the sheep fold or the mart, Alike the work proceeds.
The "wild women" or spirits associated with wells or springs are frequently represented in legends as spinning; they come to weddings and spin, and their worship is closely connected with the distaff as a symbol.
You didn't be thinking your grandmother's distaff good enough for you when you bought that spinning-wheel.
Satisfying figures in the niches, the Woman with the Distaff and the Man with the Sledge-Hammer, continue the same idea.
It represented the goddess as holding a spear in her right hand, and in her left a distaff and spindle.
She held the distaffin her hand and spun the thread of life.
This was of old, in no inglorious days, The mode of spinning, when the Egyptian prince A golden distaffgave that beauteous nymph, Too beauteous Helen; no uncourtly gift.
Dyer, in his poem of The Fleece, thus alludes to the incident: "many yet adhere To the ancient distaff at the bosom fixed.
This maiden had never accustomed her fingers to the distaffor the loom, but had learned to endure the toils of war, and in speed to outstrip the wind.
Your distaff is only of wood; If it had silver or gold on't, I'd have made a better rhyme on't.
Aloys released the distaffand received as ransom a hearty kiss.
Mary Ann had received a fine new distaff set with pewter.
Philothea plies her distaff as busily as Lachesis spinning the thread of mortal life.
Away thy needle, web, and distaff thrown, Thou hop'st thy work by Hebrus will be done.
The ambling nurse runs out and leaves the cradle, 3890 And the awed midwife flies the teeming wife; Old grandsire greybeard his tuff bilbo gets, And grandame Grissel with her distaff jets.
The distaff was a larger, stouter stick, around one end of which the material to be spun was wound in a loose ball.
The improvement on the distaffand spindle was the spinning wheel.
What followed the distaff and spindle in the development of spinning?
It thus appears that the primitive spinners with distaff and spindle had nothing to learn in point of fineness from even the most advanced methods of spinning by machinery.
The spinner fixed the end of the distaff under her left arm so that the coil of material was in a convenient position for drawing out to form the yarn.
Then the spinner drew from the distaff an additional amount of fiber, which was formed by the right hand into uniform strands.
Yarn for the making of cloth was spun in the earliest times by the use of the distaff and spindle.
Septimine held her distaff in one hand and in the other a little wooden casket.
The young girl returned to her seat, took up her distaff and observed in great excitement: "Something unusual is going on outside of the abbey.
