The first important folktale study made by the distinguished Swede, C. W. von Sydow, [37] concerned two tales of miraculous spinners. The first of these [p. 48] is known over most of the continent as Titeliture or Rumpelstilzchen, but in England as Tom-Tit-Tot (Type 500). The principal traits of the story are rather constant. A woman is compelled on account of her foolish boasting to give her daughter in marriage to a prince. She has actually made some silly remark about her daughter: "My daughter ate five pies today." But when the prince asks her what she said she misreports her remark as, "My daughter has spun five skeins today." The prince, anxious to have so skillful a wife, marries the girl and then commands her to carry out her mother's boast and spin an impossible amount in a single day. Sometimes the spinning is to be of yarn, but frequently she must spin gold. A tiny creature appears and agrees to help the girl, but she must promise to give herself (sometimes, her child) if within a certain time she fails to guess his name. The creature spins the required amount, but eventually the time is near when she must guess his name. In one way or another she discovers his secret. Usually he is over heard repeating a rhyme. In the English version it is:

Nimmy nimmy not,

My name's Tom-Tit-Tot.

When it comes time for her to guess his name, she deliberately guesses wrong the first two times, but at last she repeats the rhyme, pronounces his name, and saves herself. The story is well known in Germany and Scandinavia and all around the Baltic, but it is also told throughout the British Isles and as far south as Spain and Italy. It seems to have penetrated little, if at all, into Russia, and except for an obvious borrowing from the Spanish in Puerto Rico, has not been reported outside Europe. Von Sydow was convinced that the story developed in Sweden, and the distribution does give some grounds for such a conclusion. Recently he has announced his belief that his earlier conclusions were erroneous and that the tale has moved from the British Isles to Scandinavia. [38] A widespread legend concerning the making of a great building has the same motif of the supernatural helper whose name must be guessed, [39] but direct relation between the legend and the tale seems improbable.

The other tale handled in this study by von Sydow is that of The Three Old Women Helpers (Type 501). The opening of the story is almost the same as that of the one just treated. The girl is to marry the prince if she can spin the impossible amount which she has been assigned, either because of her mother's boasting or her own, or because of the false reports of jealous servants. In this tale she receives the help of three old women spinners. They have become terribly deformed on account of their excessive spinning. In return for their help the girl promises to invite them to her wedding. She is true to her promise and the old women appear at the wedding, so deformed [p. 49] that the prince cries out in disgust. They tell him that their evil shape has come from doing too much spinning. He thereupon decrees that his wife shall never have to spin.

These two tales are so much alike in their earlier parts that it is natural that there should be some mixing of the two. The Three Old Women Helpers received literary treatment in Germany as early as 1669 and has been well known in Germany at least since that time. Its distribution is almost the same as Titeliture, viz. all of Europe west of Russia, but particularly Finland, Germany, and Scandinavia. Von Sydow is undecided as to whether it may have first developed in Sweden or in Germany.