Lying for the Whetstone: A Saying and its Links with Folk Life and Tradition

Abstract

Whatever their importance today, whetstones were once vital. Every so often, maybe four times an hour, the wielder of scythe or sickle would need to sharpen his blade. Without this, his work would have been impossible, and the crops on which all depended could not have been harvested. The names and types of whetstone and pouch varied from place to place. North Yorkshire and many adjacent areas knew the strickle, once described as ‘a four-sided implement of oak, some twelve or fourteen inches long (without the handle), and tapering to a point’. The sides were greased and then dressed over with lea-sand (‘fine gritty sand for sharpening scythes alias leas’). In some parts of Kent a distinction was made between a rubber and a rubber bat. The former was a round stone for sharpening the scythe, while the latter was a flat stone used when the metal was soft, so as not to tear it. In Gloucestershire a mower would use a riffle. This was a short wooden dagger or rapier, with which he smoothed the edge of his implement after applying the coarse whetstone. Your Dorset scythesman kept his daker in a budget, or leathern pouch, while in parts of Devon the balker alias Devonshire bat was carried in a balker-pooch at the back of the buckle strap, that is, the leathern strap worn about the waist.