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Guest - Katrin Sprang Discussion
18 September 2026
Hi Rachel, I have looked for more photos of you, but that was not very successful. I found a link on...
Guest - Beatrix Sprang Discussion
15 September 2026
That lozenge pattern element is not a photograph, but a scan. So it should be to scale. But I pinned...
Guest - Katrin Sprang Discussion
15 September 2026
I was not referring to Rachel's reconstruction (is the reconstruction you refer to the one photograp...
Guest - Beatrix Sprang Discussion
14 September 2026
There is something Rachel did not mention. She told me: "Well, I worked with the measurements we too...
Guest - Katrin Sprang Discussion
14 September 2026
Well, this is certainly developing into an interesting discussion. Firstly, going from that lovely l...

Finger pricking.

If you've ever done a spinning demonstration, you will probably have heard the Sleeping Beauty question at least once. If I had a Euro for every time that I've heard it... well, I'd be a good bit richer than I am.

Especially for people who only know a (flyer) spinning wheel as handspinning tool, the question about where you could prick your finger is a vexing one. Then, when people see a hand-spindle, they sort of jump on the possibility that this could be The Thing! My usual reaction is to offer them a glass of beer and a band-aid if they manage to draw blood using my spindle. Up until now, nobody has taken me up on it...

A while ago, the question also came up on a German facebook group page that I'm in. I'm not on FB much, mind you - but occasionally I check stuff, and even more occasionally, something makes me feel the urge to write an answer. In that case, I did a short bit on the topic and put it on my website, and now I've finally translated it into English. So if you feel like reading a bit more about it, you can go here and check out The Sleeping Beauty Question. And of course, please feel free to link to this if the question pops up in your bit of the internet, and you think it would be helpful!
0
Old things, new things.
Texts, pictures, sighs.
 

Comments 4

Miriam (website) on Friday, 02 March 2018 12:54

In old versions of the story, she gets a splinter in her finger from 'pricking' it. The prince does not wake her with a kiss, he rapes her in her sleep. She is woken after she gives birth to twins and one of the children, trying to find his mother's milk, instead finds her fingertip and sucks on it, removing the splinter...

Yeah, old versions of fairytales are nasty.

In old versions of the story, she gets a splinter in her finger from 'pricking' it. The prince does not wake her with a kiss, he rapes her in her sleep. She is woken after she gives birth to twins and one of the children, trying to find his mother's milk, instead finds her fingertip and sucks on it, removing the splinter... Yeah, old versions of fairytales are nasty.
Katrin on Tuesday, 06 March 2018 15:14

So they are. Not intended for children... or, well, very useful in showing the young ones how the world works.

So they are. Not intended for children... or, well, very useful in showing the young ones how the world works.
Olga on Monday, 16 November 2020 21:31

I pricked my hand (palm, not finger, though) and drew some blood with a homemade drop spindle once, while catching it clumsily. That was because the shape of my spindles was wrong - I had made them pointy like pencils.

I pricked my hand (palm, not finger, though) and drew some blood with a homemade drop spindle once, while catching it clumsily. That was because the shape of my spindles was wrong - I had made them pointy like pencils.
Katrin on Monday, 23 November 2020 15:03

Ouch! That sounds painful.
Did you blunt the end of the spindle afterwards?

Ouch! That sounds painful. Did you blunt the end of the spindle afterwards?
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Monday, 21 September 2026

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