Object Description
A most attractive Scandinavian folk art scutching or swingling knife, having painted floral decoration, initialled F.E.H.P. and dated 1861. Scutching or swingling kives were used after pounding the flax straw into flexible fibres, when it was beaten with a scutching knife to remove the last particles of broken chaff, so as to prepare it for spinning and then weaving into linen. Scandinavian knives are sometimes elaborately carved or decorated as in this example, which probably was given as a presentation to commemorate a special occasion.