The Shepherd's axe (Slovak: valaška, Hungarian: fokos, Polish: depending on region - ciupaga, rabanica, uobuszek, cekanka, Czech: valaška, Romanian: baltag, Ukrainian: бартка, топірець) is a long thin light axe used in past centuries by shepherds in the Carpathian Mountains, especially in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine and Hungary. The features of a shepherd's axe combine a tool with a walking stick, that could be used as a light weapon. It has symbolic historical and cultural connotations and is still used as a prop in many traditional dances, for example the odzemok.
Read more about Shepherd's Axe: Appearance, History and Usage, Present-day Usage, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words shepherd and/or axe:
“The shepherd is the brain behind the dog’s brain,
But his control of dog, like dog’s of sheep
Is never absolute—that’s the beauty of it.”
—Cecil Day Lewis (1904–1972)
“He will not idly dance at his work who has wood to cut and cord before nightfall in the short days of winter; but every stroke will be husbanded, and ring soberly through the wood; and so will the strokes of that scholar’s pen, which at evening record the story of the day, ring soberly, yet cheerily, on the ear of the reader, long after the echoes of his axe have died away.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)