Tusker
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When the gentleman with the thistle-down hair spirits Stephen away to Scotland so that he may dig up the piece of moss-oak which is to impersonate Arabella Strange, he encourages him to use a tool called a "tusker"[42]. An obliging old Scots gentleman of my acquaintance tells me this is most likely a tairsgeir, an implement he has often seen used by the Scottish islanders to cut peat out of the fields for their fuel. (The lack of woodland in the more remote parts of Scotland and Ireland is no bar to the ingenuity of the inhabitants: they cut, dry and burn peat, and I am assured the resulting fire burns very well.)
I believe one of the tools in the picture on the right is a tairsgeir, or tusker. Alas, my informant was unable to make clear to me precisely which it is. He did add, however, that the tool described as being "something between a spade and a scythe" was 'very likely a cas-chrom'. He smiled a little when told that the tools used by Stephen were composed of quicksilver* and starshine. Wood and iron, he says, are much the more common.
*liquid mercury
When the gentleman with the thistle-down hair spirits Stephen away to Scotland so that he may dig up the piece of moss-oak which is to impersonate Arabella Strange, he encourages him to use a tool called a "tusker"[42]. An obliging old Scots gentleman of my acquaintance tells me this is most likely a tairsgeir, an implement he has often seen used by the Scottish islanders to cut peat out of the fields for their fuel. (The lack of woodland in the more remote parts of Scotland and Ireland is no bar to the ingenuity of the inhabitants: they cut, dry and burn peat, and I am assured the resulting fire burns very well.)I believe one of the tools in the picture on the right is a tairsgeir, or tusker. Alas, my informant was unable to make clear to me precisely which it is. He did add, however, that the tool described as being "something between a spade and a scythe" was 'very likely a cas-chrom'. He smiled a little when told that the tools used by Stephen were composed of quicksilver* and starshine. Wood and iron, he says, are much the more common.
*liquid mercury