Getting In a Spin On Saint Distaffs Day

 Posted on July 30, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  596 words  |  Martina Birk

January 7, 1 AD — January 7 is Saint Distaff’s Day – an event celebrated in the UK and other European countries – although to a lesser extent than in previous centuries. Strangely, there is no such person as Saint Distaff: never was and never will be.

A distaff is a tool which in the Middle Ages was used mainly by women in the process of spinning wool – or flax – into thread, which was the first step towards making cloth. The distaff and spindle were eventually displaced by the spinning wheel in the 16th Century.

Thousands of women were employed in the cloth-making process and St Distaff’s Day, which came 12 days after Christmas, traditionally marked their return to work. Men would generally return to their toil a few days later on Plough Monday, the first Monday after January 6.

Saint Distaff’s Day marked an occasion of mischief for many men who would have fun by setting fire to the women’s flax. The women retaliated by pouring buckets of water over the fires – and then over the men!

The English poet Robert Herrick*, who lived from 1591 to 1674, recorded the fun and games in his poem “St. Distaff’s Day" :

Partly work, and partly play
Ye must, on Saint Distaff’s Day:
From the plough soon free your team;
Then come home, and fodder them:
If the maids a-spinning go,
Burn the flax, and fire the tow.
Scorch their plackets, but beware
That ye singe no maiden hair:
Bring in pails of water, then,
Let the maids bewash the men.

Spinning was long associated with women’s work and words and phrases linked to it live on today, especially in legal documents. A spinster is an unmarried woman and the phrases “spear side” and “distaff side” are legal terms that describe inheritance by male or female inheritors.

*Herrick obviously believed in enjoying life. In his day all young unmarried women were called virgins, and he offered them advice in perhaps his most famous poem – “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.” It reads:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

Published: November 1, 2022
Updated: November 3, 2022


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