51/58

This is a fairly heavy man’s sickle with a wooden handle and a curved blade with no trace of a saw edge (a serrated blade). Sickles were used for manually cutting corn. The sickle was the earliest tool for reaping corn, with this shape dating to Saxon times, and was in common use until 1870. The reaper stooped and, grasping a bunch of corn in one hand, curved the sickle round it and cut the straw by drawing the sickle towards him. The blade is wider and less curved than other specimens in the collection.

1 sickle: metal; wood; good condition

Citation in publication [H. J. Massingham, 'Country Relics' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939)] – 'But the sickle is really a lightning saw and drew the corn towards the reaper (viz. the ripper) who grasped the ears or the straw low down with his left hand. It was an implement that required more individual management. If the handle was clutched too tightly, it slipped up the stalks and hurt your hand. The cut had to be made so as not to leave too ragged a straw, and, when a sheaf was severed, the sickle served as a kind of cradle for the ears nursed in its curving blade.' (p.116) [see also 51/59, 51/60, 51/61, 51/62], MERL list / description [Massingham Collection, October 1989] – 'ACC. NO.: 51/58 // NAME: SICKLE // NEG NO.: 35/62, 35/585 // STORAGE: '

Wood, Metal