Spindle's End

Spindle's End

infobox Book |
name = Spindle's End
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = First edition, 2000
author = Robin McKinley
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series = Folktales
genre = Fantasy novel
publisher = Putnam Publishing Group
pub_date = May 2000
english_pub_date =
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages = 400pp
isbn = ISBN 0-399-23466-7
preceded_by = Rose Daughter
followed_by =

"Spindle's End" is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty by author Robin McKinley, published in 2000.

Plot summary

In McKinley's version of the classic fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty, a wicked fairy named Pernicia appears on the princess' name-day and places a curse on the baby, claiming that the child will, on her 21st birthday, prick her finger on a spindle and fall into deathly sleep. The cursed princess is rescued on her name-day and secretly taken away by a young fairy, Katriona, to her village, a town called Foggy Bottom, located in the damp and swampy section of the country known as The Gig. There Katriona and her aunt (affectionately known as Aunt) raise the princess as an ordinary village maiden, naming her Rosie after the last of the princess' twenty-one names.

Throughout the book, Rosie grows from a headstrong, stubborn child into an intelligent and courageous young woman. With the help of a rare talent--beast-speech, a small bit of magic unknowingly passed on from Katriona--and the silent encouragement of the town's taciturn blacksmith, Narl, Rosie becomes a talented and well-known horse leech, more inclined to wear breeches and whittle spindle ends than wear dresses and practice embroidery. However, when Rosie is 20 years old, Ikor, a mysterious powerful fairy, appears and reveals to Rosie that she is actually the country's hidden princess, and announces a plan to defeat Pernicia: a spell will be cast over Peony and Rosie which switches their identities, but only until Rosie turns 21 and Pernicia's spell is broken.

In addition to the magic that infuses almost every aspect of the book, "Spindle's End" deals with the importance of family love, especially that between Rosie, Katriona, and Aunt, (and, later, the love between these people and Katriona's husband and children, as the family grows) but also of Rosie's mother, the Queen, who longs for her lost daughter. Peony, Rosie's best friend, has a deep need to be loved, as in a family, but her adoptive parents don't love her that way, and she knows it.

Animals also play a central role in the book. Animals of various kinds help Katriona get Rosie to The Gig, a journey of about three months, and animals assist in the final defeat of Pernicia.

External links

* [http://www.robinmckinley.com/ Robin McKinley's website]
* [http://www.bookrags.com/Spindle's_End Study Guide to "Spindle's End"]
* [http://tlg.ninthwonder.com/rabbit/v8i3/curious.html Essay on "Spindle's End":] "Real-izing Fantasy: The Double-Sided Mirror of Magical Realism and "the other side of reality" in Robin McKinley's "Spindle's End" by Evelyn Perry, from "The Looking Glass", vol. 8 no.3, September 2004
* [http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA482572.html?industryid=47087&q=spindle%27s+end Review of "Spindle's End"] from School Library Journal, 2004


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