| At first glance this would appear to be another example of a castle wheel. But it bears a different name: bride's wheel. When a man and woman married, the woman left her family and moved to a new home, which was the choosing of the man. Oftentimes, the young couple did not have a tract of land in the immediate vicinity of their families, and needed to travel a distance to start their home. The family might have only a single wagon on which to haul all of their possessions. The bride's wheel was created as a small, easily carried spinning wheel. Because of its small size, the bride's wheel is often mistaken for a child's toy. But it is fully functional. The young bride would use this type of wheel until the family could afford to purchase a larger, 'full size" flax wheel. The distaff on this spinning wheel is beautifully turned and interesting in its combination of brown and black colors. In the images below, notice the small white balls on the ends of various turned parts of this wheel. The white balls are actual ivory. Also notice, in the images of the wheel, there are turned half-spokes of ivory between the wheel's black painted wooden spokes. |
| The images below show the screw by which the spindle's tension could be increased as the cords would stretch. |
