Edith Fairhair's spindle was made out of a bit of that wonderful Star.
Ulf made it, and gave it to her in his silent, boyish way. Many and
many a yard of warm, thick yarn she had spun with it before the early
winter came. Then came out the precious knitting needles; and really
it seemed as though there was magic in them, so all the women said.
The yarn slipped along them so smoothly, never catching and only now
and then dropping stitches! Altogether, it was a very happy winter,
and a very busy one for Edith Fairhair; and if her mother helped her
now and then over the hard places, what then? Is not that what mothers
are for, and what they love to do? Still, the most of the great work
Edith did herself. She only asked to be shown how, and very
contentedly did the rest.

Then, winter was the time for weaving. This Edith could not do, as
yet. She was not quite strong enough. One had to sit in a frame that
had a row of threads stretched across it, with another row running the
same way but so fastened that at one end they could be either raised
up above the level of the first row or dropped beneath it. Sitting at
the tied end her mother would throw a little wooden boat skimming
between the two sets of threads, from one side to the other, the boat
being laden with a spool of yarn and dragging a thread behind it. When
the boat reached the other side, the thread would be drawn tight. Then
with the foot in a strap the loose bar would be drawn down, taking one
set of threads with it, and there would be the boat's thread caught as
in a trap. Then the boat would come flashing back on its return
voyage, up would go the bar again, and that thread would be fast, too,
just as the other was; and so the cloth would grow, by just the width
of the boat-thread, with each trip.