Mokosh

In Sweden, the stars of Orion's belt were called Friggarok, meaning Frigg's distaff, linking the Norse queen of the gods, who knows all fates, to the spinner's tool.

Among the Eastern Slavs, Mokosh, the only goddess named in Vladimir's pantheon of 980, became associated in folk practice with spinning, wool, and Friday taboos on women's work.

Seen against this background, a woman naming a goddess at her loom was working within one of the oldest spiritual ideas in Europe, that to spin and weave was in some small way to take part in the making of fate.

It's believed that the spinner's distaff, the vulva staff, and the witch's wand may all come from the same family of feminine spiritual symbols.