As “the tale was spun out”—that is, prolonged to a disproportionate length. It is a Latin phrase, and the allusion is to the operation of spinning and weaving. Cicero says, “Tenuʹo deducta poemata filo”—that is, poems spun out to a fine thread.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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