The day when Spinners would get back to spinning after the Christmas break from work. Apparently, the men were still off work and would ‘harass’ the women by messing with their spinning equipment. Somethings never change, lol.

The distaff was a stick used to hold the unspun fibers, either wool or flax, although flax is the usual fiber on a distaff. The distaff kept the fibers orderly for pulling off and spinning. Since mostly women (but not exclusively) did the spinning, the ‘distaff’ side of a family came to mean the women’s relatives or side of the family tree.

Tow was the shorter pieces of flax that had been ‘combed’ out of the flax in preparing it for the distaff. Tow was still spinnable, although the fabric made from it was not as fine, but nothing would be wasted considering all the work that went into preparing linen.

So, ‘now you know.’