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Abollock dagger orballock knife is a type ofdagger with a distinctively shaped hilt, with two oval swellings at the guard resembling male testes ("bollocks"). The guard is often in one piece with the wooden grip, and reinforced on top with a shaped metal washer. The dagger was popular inScandinavia,Flanders,Wales,Scotland andEngland between the 13th and 18th centuries, in particular theTudor period. Within Britain the bollock dagger was commonly carried, including byBorder Reivers, as a backup for the lance and the sword. Many such weapons were found aboard the wreck of theMary Rose. The bollock dagger is the predecessor to the Scottishdirk.
In the Victorian period, weapon historians introduced the termkidney dagger, due to the two lobes at the guard, which could also be seen as kidney-shaped, in order to avoid any sexual connotation.[1] The hilt was often constructed ofbox root (dudgeon) in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the dagger was sometimes called adudgeon dagger ordudgeonhafted dagger in this period.[2]
The dagger first started appearing on continentaleffigies around 1300–1350, and has one of the longest usage periods of any of the five main types of medieval daggers.[3]
Bishop Wilkins, in theAlphabetical Dict. appended to hisEssay towards a Real Character, 1668, gives "Dudgeon, root of box," and "Dudgeon-dagger, a small sword whose handle is of theroot of box."
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