Leggings could refer to most any lightweight trousers, where I come from. Does the word mean a specific garment here?
I was indeed fighting giant spiders. A nest of several of them had moved in under an outcropping of rocks close to the Sanctuary, where I live and work, and were doing their best to eat our sheep. That could not stand, and spiders are not capable of reason, so I went to clear them out, and it was indeed very messy.