Curious construction, fantasy

[Jim McDougall]

Ahah!!! the true origins of the shotel!!! Ancient druids in Abyssinia !

[fearn]

Actually, there are thousands of druids worldwide, and there have been for centuries. The modern English druids started off as fraternal societies around the same time the Freemasons appeared, and for much the same reason. Some have stayed around as fraternal groups, even providing insurance, some have become pagan worshipers at Stonehenge, and some are both. Around 1900, the druids were largely in fraternal orders, and they used sickles as regalia. There's even a photo of Winston Churchill in one of those funny white robes.

So the bottom line is, yes, this is probably a genuine druid's sickle, and yes, it probably was cobbled together out of an old farmer's sickle and a carving knife handle, although it may have been purpose-built. While it perhaps isn't as classy as a freemason's sword or some such, it is likely a genuine piece of regalia from a fraternal order. For those who care about such things, I'd also speculate that those who made and used it were good, church-going Christians, too.

My 0.02 cents,

F

[Jim McDougall]

Thanks Fearn for the most interesting historical information on the Druids. My frivolous comment was meant only as that, and as a comparitive jest with thoughts of discussions on shotels recently. I hope I didnt offend anyone with Druid associations, and if so, I heartily apologize.

Actually the item is quite attractive, though admittedly thought the description misperceived. I guess I'm getting too used to the sometimes bizarre auction descriptions often posted here.

With your notes I decided to look more seriously at what you described and found that the sickle (though typically stated to be gold), was indeed used to harvest mistletoe and herbs in Druid ritual. It is apparantly termed a 'boline' and I did discover mention of the fraternal order you have described having organized in 1717 with many distinguished members.

Best regards,
Jim

[fearn]

Not a problem, Jim. We're all used to weirdness on eBay.

Every once in a while, it's genuine weirdness.

So far as I know, the term "boline" seems to show up more in Wicca and ritual magic than druidry. There everyone knows the story about the golden sickle (I think it was a "falx" in Pliny) and thinks of druids together with their sickles, as in the Druid Getafix in The Adventures of Asterix. It's reportedly possible to harvest mistletoe with a golden sickle (low carat gold), but I've never hard the money to try that particular experiment.

Given the mix of modern pagans and old fraternal orders, it's likely that we're going to see more and more of these ritual items showing up, along with the Keris and African knives that we normally put in this categoy. While I'm not an expert, I suspect that an older item with a decent provenance would be fairly valuable.

[kronckew]

had a couple of seax* made by a guy who also does bolines,
his 'golden sickles' are actually made of bronze, which i'd guess is more likely for the early pre-roman druids.
the blades are a bit smaller than the ebay one.

you can get them in the traditional rowan wood hafts.
bronze athames also

bronze does not poison the magic, the fey folke are poisoned by steel and iron.
pentagrams a common motif: (esmerelda dagger thread?)

steel, stainless, and pattern welded steel blades also available as well.

* my seax, just because i like them

[Tim Simmons]

Hmm, not that different from many hunting style and pocket knives. I know the Druid order does have some history and its origins are not solely connected with make believe. All the rest and some more conventional distractions are to me rather like dungeons and dragons role playing gone mad. Just call me Stalin

[Pusaka]

I think the handle is taken from the fork of a meat carving set or perhaps the knife sharpener, I have a carving set with similar handle.

In my mind I distinguish Druids into two groups, the real (ancient)and the modern. Truth is we dont know much about the ancient druids but many of the modern drudic societys have been built on the few craps we do have, People then improvise to fill the gaps.

[fearn]

It does get hard to distinguish between role-playing and serious religion, to outsiders on any religion. We could probably get this thread locked down quickly by arguing about who is a real representative of a religion vs. who is play-acting (for political purposes, say...)--and I have NO desire to go there.

Nonetheless, there are serious western religions and fraternal groups that use ritual bladed implements, and there are people who collect such "weapons." As such, they are as legitimate a part of this forum as any other "weapon" whose primary use is not cutting people or things. It's easy enough for people who don't want to talk about them to avoid such threads.

Getting back to the druid's sickle/falx... I agree that the druids may well have used a gold-plated bronze sickle to cut the mistletoe on the summer solstice. It's all a symbolism thing: the sickle crescent is a moon symbol, the gold is a sun symbol, the mistletoe is an "unearthly" plant (that rarely grows on European oaks, BTW), and mistletoe has some fairly explicit sexual symbolism, which is why people kiss under it at Christmas... You get the idea. However, a couple of years ago, I read about a guy who got curious, made two sickles out of nine carat gold, and found out that you can, in fact, harvest mistletoe with such an implement, although the golden sickle is destroyed in the process. Mistletoe wood is pretty brittle. So the legend is plausible, but whether the druids actually did things that way is questionable. It's a great story, though.

F