Sorry - don't seem to see how to make a link, here.
Mine are a row of about 6 inches of *very* sharp steel teeth. Other, later models have multiple rows. They are used to prepare wool - align the fibers for spinning. They were used long before the cards we all saw as schoolchildren, and continued to be used professionally into the industrial age.
I used to be confused as a kid by seeing references to women in attacked villages defending themselves with their combs (as I also thought hair combs.) Made more sense when I saw these - a man would think twice about going against a desperate woman swinging a tool that would tear flesh!
Oh - Blaise is, of course, the patron saint of wool combers. The Medieval church had a rather interesting sense of the appropriate... *G*
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http://www.bountifulspinweave.com/images/forsyth_wool_combs.jpg
Sorry - don't seem to see how to make a link, here.
Mine are a row of about 6 inches of *very* sharp steel teeth. Other, later models have multiple rows. They are used to prepare wool - align the fibers for spinning. They were used long before the cards we all saw as schoolchildren, and continued to be used professionally into the industrial age.
I used to be confused as a kid by seeing references to women in attacked villages defending themselves with their combs (as I also thought hair combs.) Made more sense when I saw these - a man would think twice about going against a desperate woman swinging a tool that would tear flesh!
Oh - Blaise is, of course, the patron saint of wool combers. The Medieval church had a rather interesting sense of the appropriate... *G*