I wanted my wife to do what the other women do: spin, but she wouldn’t. Whatever I gave her to spin, she never finished, and whatever she spun, she didn’t wind, but left it tangled on the bobbin.

One day when I had gone into the forest to chop some wood to make her a reel, I heard a voice in the tree that cried out, “He who chops wood for reels shall die. She who winds yard shall be ruined all her life.”

After I heard that cry three times, I thought better of chopping wood. I went home, and soon decided that I had better stop telling my wife what to do.

If she doesn’t want to spin, she doesn’t have to.

Husband of a Woman Who Doesn’t Want to Spin, in The Lazy Spinner, Grimms. Painting by Frank Cadogan.