[Todd Eriksen]

Okay, guys,
This may be the dumbest question ever posted here, but here it goes. What in the heck was a 'pricker' for? I have an Arms and Armor ballock dagger that includes a pricker, but come on. The stories I've heard (around drunken campfires). The ballock itself is enough to finish an opponent off if you got them down on the ground, and from what I've heard that was what the pricker was for. If you've ever tried to pull a pricker out of the scabbard before the long ballock dagger you know that it is too time consuming. So, what is the official use of the pricker?

[Nathan Robinson]

They were used for many random tasks such as that of an awl, or used for eating, cleaning stuff out of crevices, cleaning and preparing game, firearms, one's shoe, etc.

[Eric Allen]

Out of curiosity, what IS a "pricker?" Is this something like the toothpick on a Swiss Army knife?

[Tim Lison]

[Jean Thibodeau]

For eating I would think one could use it with the knife as a single point fork to hold the food while cutting.

Just a guess on my part so don't repeat it as if it came from a quotable source.

[Arne Focke]

[Chuck Russell]

dipping one's meat in souce, undoing knots on rope, fine holes in leather etc.

theres tons of uses i've seen them used for in camp.

[Wolfgang Armbruster]

[George Hill]

I've seen sets from later period replicas, with a little fork and knife rather then a skewer, (which is what I've always heard that thing called.)

[Chuck Russell]

hey, i cant rememebr where, but there is a 15thc law that said not to eat with ones knife to ones lips.

[Al Muckart]

[George Doby]

'pricker' on the scottish border was a rider/lancer/light cav/reiver.

[Peter Johnsson]

Fork and awl function is absolutely possible.
Seeing a fine early 16th C carving set (at the V&A in London) with serving knives of different forms, plus a fork (to be used with the carving knife), *plus* a skewer/prick with a short section with fine file cut teeth at the base made me think:
-Perhaps the most frequent use for this "awl" tool is as sharpening steel?
Perfect to touch up fine edges before more dedicated sharpening on a whet stone is needed.

The lesson is thus: to make sense as sharpening steel the edges of the knife need to be fine and thin and also not that extremely hard in temper (around HRC 55 perhaps?). This follows well with the impression you get looking at early eating(utility?) knives. The grind of the edge is often very precise and fine. Much thinner edges what you´ll find on contemproary eating knives (as we use them against china all the time instead of wood or in rare occasions silver, a fine edge like those found on historical eating knives would be wasted: hence the serrated edge found on modern eating knives).
The edge you see is not quite like that of a scalpel but not far from it. Very nice shallow hollowgrinds are quite common from the 15th C and onwards: a back thickness of some 3,5 to 5 mm ground down to nothing at the edge. Or of course a thin flat grind. The "secondary bevel" is just what you get from a few strokes at a honingstone: a hairline of an angle
Such a blade will be well served by a sharpening steel to be kept crisp and fine in the bite.