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Flax has been grown in Europe since neolithic times for the fiber to produce cloth, and flowering flax plants are pictured on the tomb and temple walls in Thebes. Flax fiber is used in the production of rope as well as in the production of fine linen fabrics such as damasks and lace.

Before flax can be spun it must be retted, broken, scutched, and finally pulled through hackles. Retting is the process by which the inner core is rotted away by exposure to water leaving the outer fibers intact. Different means of retting produce different qualities of flax from pond retting which produces the worst but is fast to dew retting which is slow but gives the best quality flax fiber. Breaking the flax by beating it helps separate the straw from the fiber. The flax is then hung vertically and a wooden scutching knife is drawn down through the fibers scraping off most of the straw. The final step is pulling the fibers through a series of hackles. A hackle is a bed of "nails"- sharp, long-tapered, tempered, polished steel pins driven into wooden blocks at regular spacing. Now you can spin the flax fiber. More detailed information is in Wikipedia.

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