Hello, this is Alan, your storyteller, welcoming you to the story home, with a tale of love's

magic that spins out its golden thread and weaves together the lives of two young people.

This story is a valentine gift to all our listeners.

Now let us take our places to enjoy the spindle,

the shuttle, and the needle, written by the brothers Grimm, and read by Alan Schofield.

There was once a girl whose father and mother died while she was still a little child. All alone, in a small house at the end of the village, lived her godmother, who supported herself

by spinning, weaving, and sewing.

The old woman let the sad child live with her to help her with her spinning and taught her all

that is good.

When the girl was fifteen years old, the old woman became ill, called the child to her bedside

and said,

Dear daughter, I feel my end drawing close.

I leave thee the little house, which will protect thee from wind and weather,

and my spindle, shuttle, and needle, with which thou canst earn thy bread. Then she laid her hands on the

girl's head, blessed her, and said, Only preserve the love of God in thy heart, and all will go

well with thee. Thereupon she closed her eyes. And when she was laid in the earth,

the maiden followed the coffin, weeping bitterly, and paid her the last mark of respect.

And the maiden lived quite alone in the little house, and worked hard, spinning flax, weaving

the linen cloth from it, and sewing, for the blessing of the good old woman was upon all

that she did.

As she was spinning, it seemed as if the flax in the room increased of its own accord. And whenever she wove a

piece of cloth or carpet, or had made a shirt, she had once found a buyer who paid her handsomely

...