Happy Distaff Day!

Happy Distaff Day!

Distaff Day is the day after Twelfth Night, and, during the Middle Ages, it was the day when spinners had to go back to work after the Christmas holiday.

For any of you who are not spinners, maybe I should explain. The long stick-like thing the woman in the picture is holding in her right hand is a distaff, and it holds the fiber she's going to spin on the spindle that's hanging from her left hand. That's a drop spindle she's got. Between her two hands, is the singles she's just spun and is ready to wind onto the spindle to store while she twirls the spindle and spins some more.

Since I'm a spinner and interested in the Middle Ages, I tend to keep track of, and enjoy these things, and I thought you might, too.

It's also, by the way, Pearl Harbor Day.

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There's currently a Merlin marathon on Syfy, and they're going to show the new season premier of Merlin this evening. If you think of it as something that happened on some other planet at some other time, it holds up well, and has some good stories. It is not, however, anything like the Arthurian legend in any way, except that they used the names of the characters from Arthur. That's where the similarity ends.

Have a wonderful weekend!