Habetrot
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Habetrot (Habitrot, Habtrot and Habbitrot) is a figure in folklore of the Border counties of Northern England and Lowland Scotland, associated with spinning and the spinning wheel.[1][2][3]
Habetrot appears in a Selkirkshire folktale which is a variant of the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index tale type ATU 501, "The Three Old Spinning Women".[2][3] She is an old, deformed woman who lives underground with a group of other spinsters, all disfigured by their work (some have splayed feet or flat thumbs; in one version of the tale, they all have "long and ugly [lips] because [they] have spun so much, for [they] always wet [their] fingers with them, the easier to draw the thread from the distaff,"[4]). 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).[3]
