be hard to say whether the sheep or Edith was the more weary of it
when the task was done. She could say how she felt, and spoke her
small mind about it with great freedom. As for the sheep, it gave a
bleat, a skip, and went off with a great tail-wagging, and would not
come near Edith Fairhair for a week, which is a long time for a sheep
to remember.

Meanwhile, Edith had the wool.

What a snowy, fleecy pile it made, to be sure! And what fun it was to
take up a handful of it, roll it into a string between her fingers,
then twist one end of it around a spindle which she would throw out in
the air with a twirl that would make it spin. Of course this would
twist the wool into a thread, fine or large, according to whether the
spindle was twirled strongly or not.

All the ladies that Edith Fairhair ever saw had just such spindles and
used them, too. Her mother had one of pure gold, which had been made
for a queen, and which the Jarl had brought from a far country; and in
the long winter evenings, when the storm howled without, and the huge
logs were piled on the fire, it was a beautiful thing to see the
little flashing darts flying out from the white hands toward the
darkness, each held by a white cord; and foot by foot, as the strong
yarn grew in length, it would be wound for safe keeping around the
little cross on the large end of the spindle until it would quite hide
it from sight. Then a slender stick would be bent up like a "U" and
tied so; and the yarn would be wound around the two arms in long
loops, all ready to be dipped in dye to colour it. If any one wanted
still finer thread, they could take this yarn and spin it still more,
and with stronger fingers.