Whatsit? Challenge
Put on your thinking cap and test your Heritage knowledge! Each month we feature a new Whatsit? Challenge to tickle your brain cells. Subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive the Whatsit? Challenge direct to your inbox.
This month our Whatsit? is from our varied collection of tools. See if you can guess what this item is!
Memorial Day has come and gone, which means that summer has arrived. As the weather warms and we trade in our turtlenecks for tank tops, we thought you might enjoy a Whatsit? dealing with that most summery of fabrics, linen. With that hint in mind, can you guess what this is?
A) Hectoring brush
B) Jeering scutch
C) Hassling rake
D) Teasing cull
E) Heckling comb
If you said E, you’re right! This tool, composed of sharply pointed spikes set in a block of wood, is called a heckling comb or heckle. A heckle is one of several tools used in the laborious process of converting flax plants into linen. After being harvested, threshed, retted, broken and scutched, flax must be heckled before its fibers can be spun. During heckling, flax fibers that have been loosened from the woody parts of the plant are separated from the straw by being drawn through the heckling comb. As the fibers become more refined, heckling combs with smaller and more numerous spikes are used to split and smooth the fibers. To see a heckling comb in use, click here.
Heckles like these have been used for thousands of years to make linen cloth. This comb from colonial Pennsylvania comes from our Aaron Rose Tool Collection. It dates to 1803, as the decoratively punched year on its side attests.
Incidentally, the word heckle derives from a Middle Dutch word hekelen, meaning to prickle or irritate, which is why it applies to both the flax comb and to a person who keeps interrupting!
Congratulations to those of you who guessed correctly. And for those who did not, there’s always next month to try the Whatsit? Challenge again!
