Modena frullo, the swineherds' whirled bone

frullo

Source term: frullo - 'l'os qui vire' (Fabre-Vassas 1987)

A bone on a cord, whirled until it hums — a sound likened to the rustle of the wings of a bird kept from flying. With the frullo the boy swineherds of the Modena plain drove pigs off the sown fields, scared away wild boar, and kept off the malefic beings that threatened herd and herdsman alike. Stock control and spirit control in one motion of the wrist.

Le vrombissement de l'os qui vire appelé frullo dans la région de Modène... permet aux jeunes porchers d'écarter les cochons des champs cultivés, de faire fuir les sangliers et aussi les « êtres malfaisants » qui menacent le troupeau et son gardien.

The droning of the whirled bone called frullo in the Modena region... lets the young swineherds drive pigs away from the cultivated fields, put wild boar to flight, and also the 'malefic beings' that threaten the herd and its keeper.

Claudine Fabre-Vassas, 'Du cochon pour les morts,' Études rurales 105-106 (1987), p. 204, after Vecchi 1964

Particulars

Object

A whirled bone on a cord. The hole position is not recorded.

Function

Herding and apotropaic in one motion: the frullo's hum drove pigs off the sown fields, put wild boar to flight, and repelled the 'êtres malfaisants' - the malefic beings that threatened herd and herdsman alike.