YOU would not think there could be much controversy about a kitchen implement, but the humble spirtle, spurtil(l), spartle, spirl, spurl or spruttle has several varieties and uses. My mother’s spirtle, a wooden stick worn to a third of its original size with stirring of porridge and soup, was never put to such violent use as that recorded in papers submitted in cases before the Court of Session: Cramond v Allan (1756), where we read: “She saw her father strike her mother...with the spurtle.”

A spirtle is described in the Scottish National Dictionary as a wooden or metal implement with a flat blade used in baking for turning oatcakes and scones. This is supported by the Transactions of the Dumfries and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society (1891): “ ‘Yere cake’s burnin . . .’ ‘Make us a spurtle tae turn it wi’, then.’ ”

A theekin spirtle is a flat-bladed instrument, sometimes forked, for pushing thatching straw into position on a roof and, in linen production, a spirtle is a flat stick or bat for beating flax.

A spirtle-grup or spirtle-shot is a sharp pain in the side for which Manuscript Notes on NE Scotland Folk-Lore (c1890) provides a folk remedy: “A child should receive the kidneys of a hare the first kind of flesh to eat. This prevents the child taking ‘the spurtle shot’, the sharp pain that strikes in the side when running or walking fast.”

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