The Three Spinners

"The Three Spinners" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. It is tale no 14 and Aarne-Thompson type 501. It is widespread throughout Europe.

It has obvious parallels to Rumpelstiltskin and Frau Holle, and obvious differences, so that they are often compared.

Giambattista Basile includes an Italian literary fairy tale, The Seven Little Pork Rinds, in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone.

Italo Calvino's Italian Folktales includes a variant, And Seven!.

The first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales contained a much shorter variant, Hateful Flax Spinning, but it is "The Three Spinners" that became well-known.

Synopsis

Once there was a beautiful-but-lazy girl who would not spin. While her mother berates her for it, the Queen, passing by, overhears and asks the reason for the scolding. Ashamed to admit that her daughter is lazy, the woman replies that the girl spins so much that her mother cannot afford to buy enough flax to keep her occupied. The Queen, impressed by such industry, offers to take the girl with her.

David's Mighty Warriors

David's Mighty Warriors (also known as David's Mighty Men or the Gibborim) are a group of men in the Bible who were singled out by an appendix of the Books of Samuel. The text (2 Samuel 23:8–39) divides them into the "Three", of which there are three, and "Thirty", of which there are more than thirty. The text explicitly states that there are 37 individuals in all, but it is unclear whether this refers to The Thirty, which may or may not contain The Three, or the combined total of both groups. The text refers to The Three and The Thirty as though they were both important entities, and not just an arbitrary list of three or 30-plus significant men.

Some textual scholars regard the passages referring to The Three and The Thirty as having come from either a source distinct to the main sources in the Books of Samuel, or being otherwise out of place. Since parts of the text have distinct stylistic differences from other portions—appearing as a list, as a series of character introductions, or as a flowing narrative—Some suspect that the passages may themselves be compiled from multiple source documents. Further, as 2 Samuel 23:23–24 reads "...David put him in command of his bodyguard. Asahel, brother of Joab. Among the thirty were...", the text is regarded as corrupted, and the middle of verse 23:24 (between the words Joab and Among) is generally presumed to have been lost (some translations move Among the thirty were to be before Asahel, which smooths over the issue).