There is a whole code of penalties drawn up for those who presume to outstep the limits of proper familiarity, and the exact distance a youth is allowed to approach the spinning-wheel of any girl is in some villages regulated by inches. A fine of ten kreuzers is attached to the touching of a maiden’s breastpin, while stealing a kiss always proves a still more expensive amusement. As we see by ancient chronicles, these spinning meetings (which formerly used to be held in the towns as well) had sometimes to be prohibited by the clergy when threatening to degenerate into indecorous romps in any particular place; but this custom, so deeply inrooted in Saxon village life, was always resumed after an interval, and, thanks to the vigilant watch kept up by the heads of the Brotherhood, it is seldom that anything really objectionable takes place. The men are allowed to join the girls in singing the Rockenlieder (spinning songs), of which there are a great number. No man may accompany a girl to her home when the meeting breaks up, but each must go singly, or along with her companions. Many superstitions are attached to the spinning-wheel in Saxon households besides the one which is mentioned in the chapter on weddings. So on Saturday evening the work must be desisted with the first stroke of the evening bell, and there are many old pagan festivals which demand that the reel be spun empty the day before. The girl who sits up spinning on Saturday night is considered as sinning against both sun and moon, and will only produce a coarse, unequal thread, which refuses to let itself be bleached white. The woman who spins on Ash-Wednesday will cause her pigs to suffer from worms throughout the year. An amulet which preserves against accidents and brings luck in love matters may be produced by two young girls spinning a thread together in silence on St. John’s Day after the evening bell has rung. It must be spun walking, one girl holding the distaff while the other twirls the thread, which is afterwards divided between the two. Each piece of this thread, if worn against the body, will bring luck to its wearer, but only so long as her companion likewise retains her portion of the charm. For the twelve days following St. Thomas’s Day (21st of December) spinning is prohibited, and the young men visiting the spinning-room during that period have the right to break and burn all the distaffs they find; so it has become usual for the maidens to appear on the feast of St. Thomas with a stick dressed up with tow or wool to represent the distaff in place of a real spinning-wheel.