After the twelve-day Christmas celebration ended on Twelfth Night or EPIPHANY, St. Distaff's Day was traditionally the day on which women resumed their chores, symbolized by the distaff, a tool used in spinning flax or wool. It was also called Rock Day, from the German word rocken -- "rock" being another name for the distaff. The "spear side" and the "distaff side" were legal terms used to distinguish the inheritance of male from that of female children, and the distaff eventually became a synonym for the female sex as a whole.