Nettle Spinner
Once upon a time there lived at Quesnoy, in Flanders, a great lord whose name was Burchard, but whom the country people called Burchard the Wolf. Now Burchard had such a wicked, cruel heart, that it was whispered how he used to harness his peasants to the plough, and force them by blows from his whip to till his land with naked feet.
His wife, on the other hand, was always tender to the poor and miserable.
Every time that she heard of another misdeed of her husband’s she secretly went to repair the evil, which caused her name to be blessed throughout the whole countryside. This Countess was adored as much as the Count was hated.
One day when he was out hunting the Count passed through a forest, and at the door of a lonely cottage he saw a beautiful girl spinning hemp. “What is your name?” he asked her. “Renelde, my lord.” “You must get tired of staying in such a lonely place?”
“I am accustomed to it, my lord, and I never get tired of it.”
“That may be so; but come to the castle, and I will make you lady’s maid to the Countess.”
“I cannot do that, my lord,” she said. “I have to look after my grandmother, who is very helpless.”
“Come to the castle, I tell you. I shall expect you this evening,” and he went on his way.
But Renelde, who was betrothed to a young woodcutter called Guilbert, had no intention of obeying the Count, besides she had to take care of her grandmother. Three days later the Count passed by again.
“Why didn’t you come?” he asked the pretty spinner. “I told you, my lord, that I have to look after my grandmother.”
“Come tomorrow, and I will make you lady-in-waiting to the Countess,” and he went on his way.
This offer produced no more effect than the other; Renelde did not go to the castle.
“If you come,” said the Count to her when next he rode by, “I will send away the Countess, and marry you.”
But two years before, when Renelde’s mother was dying of a long illness, the Countess had given help when they sorely needed it. So, Renelde would always have refused the Count.
Some weeks passed before Burchard appeared again. Renelde hoped she had got rid of him, when one day he stopped at the door, his duck-gun under his arm and his game-bag on his shoulder. This time Renelde was spinning not hemp, but flax.
“What are you spinning?” he asked in a rough voice. “My wedding shift, my lord.” “You are going to be married, then?” “Yes, my lord, by your leave.” At that time no peasant could marry without the leave of the master.
“I will give you leave on one condition. Do you see those tall nettles that grow on the tombs in the churchyard? Go and gather them, and spin them into two fine shifts. One shall be your bridal shift, and the other shall be my shroud. For you shall be married the day that I am laid in my grave.” And the Count turned away with a mocking laugh.
Renelde trembled. Never had such a thing been heard of as the spinning of nettles.
Besides, the Count seemed made of iron and was very proud of his strength, often boasting that he would live to be a hundred.
Every evening, when his work was done, Guilbert visited his future bride. That evening, Renelde told him what Burchard had said.
“Would you like me to watch for the Wolf, and split his skull with a blow from my axe?” he asked.
“No,” replied Renelde, “there must be no blood on my bridal bouquet. And then we must not hurt the Count. Remember how good the Countess was to my mother.”
Then the mother of Renelde’s grandmother, who was more than ninety years old, spoke.
“My children,” she said, “all the years that I have lived in the world, I have never heard of a shift spun from nettles. But what God commands, man can do. Why shouldn’t Renelde try it?”
Renelde tried, and to her great surprise the nettles when crushed and prepared gave a good thread, soft and light and firm. Very soon she had spun the first shift, which was for her own wedding. She wove and cut it out at once, hoping that the Count would not force her to begin the other. Just as she had finished sewing it, Burchard the Wolf passed by.
“Well,” said he, “how are the shifts getting on?” ‘Here, my lord, is my wedding garment,” answered Renelde, showing him the shift, which was the finest and whitest ever seen.
The Count grew pale, but he replied roughly, “Very good. Now begin the other.”
She set to work. As the Count returned to the castle, a cold shiver passed over him, and he felt, as the saying goes, that someone was walking over his grave. He could not eat and went to bed shaking with fever. He did not sleep, and in the morning could not manage to rise.
This sudden illness, which every instant became worse, made him very uneasy. No doubt Renelde’s spinningwheel knew all about it. Was it not necessary that his body, as well as his shroud, should be ready for the burial?
The first thing Burchard did was to send word to Renelde to stop her wheel, which she did.
That evening Guilbert asked her: “Has the Count given his consent to our marriage?”
“No,” said Renelde.
“Continue your work, sweetheart. It is the only way of gaining it. He told you so himself.”
The following morning, as soon as she had put the house in order, she sat down to spin. Two hours later some soldiers arrived, and when they saw her spinning they seized her, tied her arms and legs, and carried her to the bank of the river, which was swollen by the late rains.
They flung her in, watched her sink and left. However, Renelde rose to the surface, and though she could not swim she struggled to land, went home, sat down and began to spin.
The soldiers returned, seized her, carried her to the river bank, tied a stone to her neck and flung her into the water.
The moment their backs were turned the stone untied itself. Renelde waded the ford, returned to the hut, and sat down to spin.
This time the Count resolved to go to himself; but, as he was very weak and unable to walk, he had himself borne in a litter.
When he saw her he fired a shot at her. The bullet rebounded without harming her and she spun on.
Burchard fell into such a violent rage that it nearly killed him. He broke her wheel into a thousand pieces, and then fell fainting on the ground. He was carried back to the castle, unconscious.
The next day the wheel was mended, and Renelde sat down to spin. Feeling that while she was spinning he was dying, the Count ordered that her hands be tied, and the soldiers not lose sight of her for one instant. on.But they fell asleep, the bonds loosened, and she spun Burchard had every nettle rooted up for three leagues around, but scarcely had they been torn from the soil when they sowed themselves afresh, and grew immediately.
They sprung up even in the floor of the cottage, and as fast as they were uprooted the distaff gathered to itself a supply of nettles, crushed, prepared, and ready for spinning.
Every day Burchard grew worse, and watched his end approaching.
Moved by pity for her husband, the Countess at last found out the cause of his illness, and entreated him to allow himself to be cured. But the Count refused more than ever to give his consent to the marriage.
So, without his knowledge she went to beg for mercy from Renelde, and in the name of her dead mother begged her to spin no more. Renelde promised, but in the evening Guilbert arrived at the cottage. Seeing that the cloth was no farther advanced than it was the evening before, he inquired the reason. Renelde confessed that the Countess had begged her not to let her husband die.
“Will he consent to our marriage?”
“No.”
“Let him die then.”
“But what will the Countess say?”
“The Countess will understand that it is not your fault; the Count alone is guilty of his own death.”
“Let us wait a little. Perhaps his heart may soften.” They waited for one month, two, six, a year. The Count ceased to persecute Renelde, but he still refused his consent to the marriage. Guilbert became impatient.
Renelde loved him and she was more unhappy than she had been when Burchard was tormenting her.
“Let us be done with it,” said Guilbert.
“Wait a little,” pleaded Renelde.
But Guilbert grew weary. He rarely went to visit and soon stopped completely. Renelde felt as if her heart would break, but she held firm.
One day she met the Count. She clasped her hands as if in prayer, and cried:
“My lord, have mercy!”
Burchard the Wolf turned away his head and passed on. Not long after, Guilbert left the country. He did not say goodbye to her, but she knew the day and hour of his departure, and hid herself on the road to see him.
Back home, she put her silent wheel into a corner, and cried for three days and three nights.
Another year went by. Then the Count fell ill, and the Countess supposed that Renelde, weary of waiting, had begun her spinning anew; but when she went to the cottage, she found the wheel silent.
However, the Count grew worse and worse till he was given up by the doctors. The passing bell was rung, and he lay expecting to die. But Death was not so near as the doctors thought, and still he lingered.
He seemed in a desperate condition, but he got neither better nor worse. He could neither live nor die; he suffered horribly. In this extremity he remembered what he had told Renelde long ago. If Death was slow in coming, it was because he was not ready, having no shroud for his burial.
He sent to fetch Renelde, placed her by his bedside, and ordered her at once to go on spinning his shroud.
Hardly had she begun to work than the Count began to feel his pains grow less. Then at last his heart melted; he was sorry for all the evil he had done and implored Renelde to forgive him. She forgave him, and went on spinning.
When the thread of the nettles was spun she wove it with her shuttle, and then cut the shroud and began to sew it. The Count felt his pains grow even less, and the life sinking within him, and when the needle made the last stitch he gave his last sigh.
At that same hour Guilbert returned to the country, and, as he had never ceased to love Renelde, he married her eight days later.
He had lost two years of happiness, but comforted himself by thinking that his wife was a clever spinner, and, what was much more rare, a brave and good woman.
From Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books edited by folklorist Andrew Langby published 1898. Reprinted from Fairytalez.com