selkrok

A simple selkrok or selbåge with the wooden pads in place

[Image source: https://vlh.kulturhotell.se/items/show/201579 .]


Today's obscure Swedish word. In the novel I'm currently absorbed in, Bo R. Holmberg's Dagsmeja (1989), which is set in the early 1960s in northern Sweden, there is this sentence about Edvin's father, a dealer in scrap.

På vintern samlade han, sålde och köpte batterier, bildelar, selkrokar, pumpar, fälgar och däck. (p. 18)

Which I translated:

In the winter he built up his stock, bought and sold batteries, car parts, harness fittings, pumps, wheel-rims and tyres.

A selkrok (literally "harness crook") is really something more specific than a "harness fitting", but there's no English word for it.

Also known as a selbåge (literally ”harness bow”), it was an old-fashioned part of the harness of a working horse in Nordic countries. It was an arch-shaped piece of wood or metal that rested on wooden pads on the horse’s withers; its function was to keep the reins high above the traces and to keep the harness straps aligned. It did not bear any part of the load strain, which was taken by the collar; it was basically a kind of harness saddle (not the kind you sit on). The older wooden selkrokar were often beautifully carved and decorated, and are now found in folk-museums. I imagine Edvin's dad was picking up the plain metal ones. They were used in the 1920s (see the photo below), but perhaps by the 1960s they were becoming farmyard clutter?

A selkrok in use by Lapland forest workers in the 1920s.

[Image source: https://www.storumansfotoarkiv.se/items/show/2392 . A photo from the 1920s, taken at Gunnarn in Storuman, Västerbotten (Lapland). ]

[Image source: https://digitaltmuseum.se/021028291451/selkrok . Wooden selkrok, carved and painted, from 1776. In the county museum at Gävleborg.]

More information:

About harness types and terminology (in Swedish):
https://korning.ifokus.se/articles/4daea25688f47226c5000e3a-olika-typer-av-selar

About harness fittings, including selkrokar, that became folk-art objects (post by Robert Pohjanen, in Swedish, on the Norbotten museum blog):
https://kulturmiljonorrbotten.com/2016/10/07/bogtran-och-selbagar/