e spindle and spinning a thread at her feet. This form of work was
considered to belong only to women, and by spinning for her in this
position he was thought to have greatly humiliated himself.

If Hercules were back again, and could stand between two modern mules
and see the men and boys engaged in spinning hundreds of threads _at
once_, no doubt he would wonder, just as we do to-day at his fabled
feats.

It is not difficult to imagine that very early on in the world's history
the twisting together of strands of wool and cotton would force itself
upon the attention of the ancients. If the reader will take a little
cotton wool in the left hand and by means of the first finger and thumb
of the right take a few cotton fibres and gently twist them together and
at the same time draw the thread formed outwards, it will be seen how
very easy it is (from the nature of the cotton) to form a continuous
thread.

What would very soon suggest itself would be something to which the
thread, when twisted, could be fastened and, according to Mr. Marsden
(who supposes the first spinner to have been a shepherd boy), a twig
which was close at hand would be the very thing to which he could attach
his twisted fibres. He also supposes that, having spun a short length,
the twig by accident was allowed to dangle and immediately to untwist by
spinning round in the reverse way, and ultimately fall to the ground.

He further adds, the boy would argue to himself "that if this revolving
twig could take the twist out by a reversion of its movements, it could
be made to put it in." This would be the first spinning spindle. The
explanation is probably not very far wide of the mark.

A weighted twig or spindle would next be used, and as each length of
spun thread was finished, it would be wound on to the spindle and
fastened.

As it would be extremely awkward to work the fibre up without a proper
supply, a bundle of this was fastened to the end of a stick and carried
most probably under the left arm, leaving the right hand free, or in the
belt, much in the same way as is done in some country districts in the
North of Europe to-day.

The modern name for this stick is _Distaff_, a word which is derived
from the Low German--_diesse_, the bunch of flax on a distaff, and
_staff_. Originally it would be the staff on which the tow or flax was
fastened, and from which the thread was drawn. The modern representative
of the spindle with the twisted thre