Habetrot (''Habitrot'', ''Habtrot'' and ''Habbitrot'') is a figure in

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...

of the Border counties of

Northern England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...

and

Lowland Scotland The Lowlands ( sco, Lallans or ; gd, a' Ghalldachd, , place of the foreigners, ) is a cultural and historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Lowlands and the Highlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lo ...

, associated with spinning and the spinning wheel.''Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders'', William Henderson, Longmans, Green, 1866. pp. 4-5''Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders'', William Henderson, Longmans, Green, 1866. pp. 221-226''A companion to the fairy tale'', Hilda Ellis Davidson, Anna Chaudhri, DS Brewer, 2006, , . page. 107

Folktale

Habetrot appears in a

Selkirkshire Selkirkshire or the County of Selkirk ( gd, Siorrachd Shalcraig) is a historic county and registration county of Scotland. It borders Peeblesshire to the west, Midlothian to the north, Roxburghshire to the east, and Dumfriesshire to the south. ...

folktale which is a variant of the

Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index (ATU Index) is a catalogue of folktale types used in folklore studies. The ATU Index is the product of a series of revisions and expansions by an international group of scholars: originally composed in German by ...

tale type ATU 501, "The Three Old Spinning Women". She is an old, deformed woman who lives underground with a group of other

spinster ''Spinster'' is a term referring to an unmarried woman who is older than what is perceived as the prime age range during which women usually marry. It can also indicate that a woman is considered unlikely to ever marry. The term originally den ...

s, all disfigured by their work (some have splayed feet or flat thumbs). The only other named spinster is Scantlie Mab. Habetrot spun yarn for a local girl and then convinced the girl's new husband that she should never spin again. Similar tales appear in countries such as Germany (such as The Three Spinners) and Norway (

The Three Aunts "The Three Aunts" is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in ''Norske Folkeeventyr''.George Webbe Dasent, ''Popular Tales from the Norse''"The Three Aunts" Edinburgh: David Douglass, 1888. Synopsis A p ...

Other Legends

According to the folklore of the borders, it was considered unlucky to step upon "unchristened ground" (the graves of stillborn or unbaptised children) and any who did were said to catch "grave-merels" (or "grave-scab") an illness that causes difficulty of breathing and trembling limbs as well as the burning of the skin as if touched by a hot iron. The only way to relieve this was for the afflicted to wear a sack made from linen grown in a field using manure from a farmyard that has not been disturbed for forty years, spun by ''Habetrot'', bleached by an honest bleacher in an honest miller's

milldam A mill dam (International English) or milldam (US) is a dam constructed on a waterway to create a mill pond. Water passing through a dam's spillway is used to turn a water wheel and provide energy to the many varieties of watermill. By raising t ...

and sewed by an honest tailor.

References

* Katharine Briggs, ''An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures,'' "Habetrot", pp213–216 .

External links

Habetrot and the Scantlie Mab (folktale)
Northumbrian folklore Northumbrian folkloric beings Scottish folklore English legendary creatures Textiles in folklore Female legendary creatures {{legendary-creature-stub