Fairytales of Famous Authors Compared to Disney Cartoons with proper respect etc

Story 44: The Three Spinners Brothers' Grimm 1812

The Three Spinners

Once there was a lazy girl who didn't want to spin, and nothing her mother could say did a bit of good. In the end the mother became so angry and impatient that she beat her, and the daughter began to cry.
The queen happened to be riding past. When she heard the girl's cries, she stopped her carriage, went into the house, and asked the mother why she was beating her daughter so hard that her screams could be heard out on the road. The woman was ashamed to say that her daughter was lazy, so she said: "I can't make her stop spinning; all she wants to do is spin and spin, but I'm poor and I can't afford all that fax." The queen replied: "There's nothing I like more than the sound of spinning, and I'm never happier than when I hear the wheels whir, Let me take your daughter home with me to my palace. I've got plenty of fax, and I'll let her spin to her heart's content." The mother was delighted, and the queen took the girl away with her.
When they got to the palace, she took her upstairs and showed her three rooms that were full of the finest flax, from floor to ceiling.
"Just spin this flax," she said. "If you succeed, you shall have my eldest son for a hubsand. You may be poor, but what does it matter?
You're a good hard worker, and that's all the dowry you need." The girl was frightened to death, for she couldn't have spun all that flax if she lived to be three hundred and sat there from morning to night.
When she was left alone, she began to cry and she cried for three days wichout lifting a finger. On the third day the queen came in. She was surprised to see that none of the flax had been spun, but the girl explained that she hadn't been able to begin because leaving her mother had made her too sad. The queen accepted her excuse, but said as she was leaving: "I expect you to start working tomorrow." When the girl was alone again, she didn't know what to do. In her distress she stood at the window, looking out, and she saw three women coming down the road. The first had a broad, flat foot; the second had a lower lip so big that it hung down over her chin; and the third had a broad thumb. They stopped outside the window, looked up, and asked her what the matter was. She told them about the trouble she was in, and they offered to help her. "We'll spin all your flax for you, and quickly too," they said,
"if only you'll invite
us to your wedding and not be ashamed of us and introduce us as your cousins and let us sit at your table." "With all my heart," she said. "Come in. You can start work right away." So she let the three queer women in, and made a space in the first room for them to sit in and start spinning. The first drew the thread and plied the treadle, the second moistened the thread, the third twisted it and struck the table with her finger, and each time she struck the table a skein of yarn fell to the floor, and it was spun ever so finely. The girl hid the three spinners from the queen and showed her such a quantity of spun yarn every time she came in that she couldn't praise her enough.
When the first room was empty, they started on the second, and then on the third, and it too was soon emptied. Then the three women took their leave and said to the girl: "Don't forget your promise. It will be your good fortune."
When the queen saw the empty rooms and the enormous pile of yarn, she arranged for the wedding. The bridegroom was glad to be getting such a clever hard-working wife and praised her mightily. "I have three cousins," the girl said. "They've been very good to me, and it wouldn't be right to forget them now, in my happiness. Would you let me invite them to the wedding and ask them to sit at my table?" The queen and the bridegroom said: "Why on earth wouldn't we let you?" When the festivities began, the three old maids appeared in outlandish costumes, and the bride said: "Wel-come, dear cousins." "Good Lord!" said the bridegroom. "How did you ever come by such ungainly looking cousins?" He went over to the one with the broad, flat foot, and asked: "How did you get such a broad foot?" "By treading," she replied. "By treading." The bridegroom went over to the second and asked: "How did you ever get that hanging lip?" "By licking," she replied. "By licking." And he asked the third: "How did you get that broad thumb?" "By twisting thread," she replied. "By twisting thread." The prince was horrified.
"In that case," he said,
"my beautiful bride shall never touch a
spinning wheel again." From then on there was no further question of her having to spin that horrid flax.

That's the end of this story. And man is it very different indeed from most of the Brothers' Grimm stuff in their collections, Skylights.