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Spindle

Folklore
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A tool of spinning, often cursed in fairy tales to cause sleep or death, symbolizing fate, femininity, and the weaving of destiny.

Detailed Definition
Spindles in poetry represent the quiet violence of fate and the domestic as deadly. They appear in feminist and fairy tale verse as instruments of control—where a woman’s labor becomes a curse, and the thread she spins is the rope that binds her.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Macbeth, the witches speak of the spindle: “Though his bark cannot be lost, / Yet it shall be tempest-tossed”; in Grimm’s fairy tales, the spinning wheel is the spindle of fate; in Keats’ “The Eve of St. Agnes,” the maiden dreams of the spindle’s thread; in Tennyson’s “The Princess,” the spindle is the symbol of women’s silenced labor; in Emily Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” the spindle is the thread that snaps at death; in Sylvia Plath’s “The Applicant,” the spindle is the machine that spins the bride into conformity.
Additional Notes
Spindle is a tool of spinning, cursed in fairy tales to cause sleep or death, symbolizing fate, femininity, and the weaving of destiny. In folklore, it is the instrument of the Fates and the witch’s curse. In poetry, it represents time, labor, and the quiet violence of domesticity. Poets use it to explore female labor, inherited curses, and the thread of life.
Other Meanings of “Spindle”
Also Known As
Spinning Wheel Weaver’s Tool
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