Spinner's End ---- From a different perspective

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 143765

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lealess" <lealess at y...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
> wrote:
> >
> > --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ceridwen" 
> <ceridwennight at h...> wrote:
> > 
> > > Ceridwen, finally remembering spinning one's wheels (spinning 
> > > wheels?) after how many months? and wondering if there are any 
> > > other possibilities we haven't explored.
> > >
> > 
> > Pippin:
> > Remember the  Sphinx's riddle in GoF?
> > 
> > 'First think of the person who lives in disguise
> > Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.
> > Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend,
> > The middle of middle and end of the end?
> > And finally give me the sound often heard
> > During the search for a hard-to-find word.
> > Now string them together, and answer me this,
> > What creature would you be unwilling to kiss?'
> > 
> > The riddle ties together 'spy', 'spider' and 'end'.
> > 
> > Pippin
> >
lealess:
> I like the spider anologies best, however.
*(snip)*
> a "widow" who turns against a would-be male suitor.  There's the 
> sitting in wait for prey, controlling the more destructive insect 
> population.  There's the trickster, Anansi, who can convince larger 
> animals to do his work and then "steals their glory," primarily 
> through exploiting their character faults.

Ceridwen:
There's the story of the first Christmas tinsel: frosted spider webs 
to punish a frugal woman who kept her house cold and usually swept it 
clean of spiders.  I don't recall it too well, otherwise I'd tell it.

lealess:
> My favorite spider story...
> six disastrous battles...
> spider fails six times, but on the seventh attempt, succeeds...
> king goes back into battle a seventh time and wins.  I know 
> it's wishful thinking that this story could apply to HP, but, oh 
> well...

Ceridwen:
Heh-heh, six disastrous battles, six books out in the series where 
Voldemort escapes again and again; a seventh book coming and we know 
it'll be the last; Robert Bruce being Scotish and isn't JKR?  Or, she 
lives in Scotland (and Hogwarts is in Scotland) so she'd know the 
story?  Could apply.

Back to spiders and spinners.  Spinner's End, the chapter, street, 
clue; Slughorn like a spider in the web of his Slug Club network; the 
widow Zabini, likened by some to a black widow spider, weaving her 
web for each new husband in turn; Snape the mirror to Anansi as 
described, getting others to do his work, slithering out of his DE 
obligations according to Bellatrix.  There's a lot of spider imagery 
in HBP, not to mention the actual appearance of the late Aragog...

Other spinners:

The evil witch, sitting in the tower spinning on an illegal spinning 
wheel when Sleeping Beauty comes along, giving her the spindle so she 
can prick her finger and die.  Only, she doesn't die.  Because of the 
seventh fairy's gift being bestowed after the curse, she falls into a 
slumber for a hundred years, and wakes to a prince's kiss...

Rumplestiltskin, spinning straw into gold for the farmer's daughter 
so she can prove her father's untruthful boasts (and not be killed), 
demanding her firstborn son for his efforts, with the impossible way 
offered of getting the child back, that of knowing Rumplestiltskin's 
name.  He is undone by his own solitary boasting in the forest, 
overheard by the maid.

These are the only spinning stories I can think of. They're deceitful 
or manipulative.  They both seem to be the downfall of the spinner.  
They both seem to have a hopeless situation tied to them, and both 
have a desperate woman, or desperate parents, pleading for help.  
Both have to do with saving a child.  One involves a 
sleeping 'death'.  The same one involves magical spells spoken, the 
gifts of the fairy godmothers and the wicked one who was not invited.

I can probably go off on several tangents here.  How does Snape play 
into either fairy tale?  How does Bellatrix?  Narcissa is a given - 
the desperate queen (and king) hearing the death curse on their 
newborn child; the farmer's daughter now married to the king, who 
longs to save her son from being taken from her.

Does Voldemort fit in at all?  He could be the absent but malicious 
wicked fairy who curses death to Draco (then offers Draco the means 
to his death, his mission to kill Dumbledore, parallel to the spinner 
in the tower, the same wicked fairy in disguise, who offers Sleeping 
Beauty the spindle).  He could be Rumplestiltskin, whose solitary 
bragging is his own downfall - if it was Draco's mission alone, why 
even tell his mother and his aunt?  Could 'spinner' refer to 
Voldemort, and his spun straw or wool, the plot to kill Dumbledore?

Am I getting to into this?

Ceridwen.