Sickle and Pitchfork

The sickle is a farm implement made of steel and used for cutting, reaping the wheat and other crops and grass. It has wooden handle, the blade is curved in a semicircular shape and is sharp on the inside. Sickle is one of the oldest and simplest farming tools. Reaping is done in the way that a bunch of grass/crop is held with one hand and cut with sickle with the other. The the harvester is bent forward so the activity is very hard

The pitchfork is a farm implement with a long wooden handle and three or four metal prongs on its top. It is used for lifting and pitching hay and grass. Hay is the basic winter food of cattle and horses. When hay is pitched, it is then pressed into square bales and tied with a rope or wire, or is left as haystacks.

RELIGION AND TRADITION

In the mediaeval popular images, the two implements were a symbol of death.

In more recent times they are the symbol of farming. A communist symbol of a sickle and a hammer represent the two motive powers of the movement: farmers and workers.