We’re listening to a sound which, since ancient times, has comforted people and accompanied their activities late on a winter’s night. It’s a spinning wheel, and spinning and storytelling seem to have always gone hand in hand.
I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
Author Boria Sax is a scholar of mythology and folklore.
“Since very ancient times the activity of spinning has been very closely associated with the telling of tales. A great deal of the day for women would be spent in the activity of spinning and since for somebody who is skilled in this it doesn’t require exclusive attention, this would also be a occasion for telling tales. In Greco- Roman mythology, there are the figures of the three fates– one who spins the thread, one who measures out the thread and one who cuts the thread– and the threads represent intersecting human destinies. I imagine the Greeks and Romans thought of the three fates as creating destiny not only through the act of spinning, but through talking as they would spin. What they would say as they would sit together spinning would be what would come to pass. The act of spinning has a certain rhythm and that rhythm would pervade the story as they would tell it.”
Additional funding for Pulse of the Planet has been provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.