pitchfork
{{Short description|Agricultural tool}}
{{Other uses}}
File:Two men loading hay onto a rack drawn by tractor (20886793451).jpg]]
A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to the garden fork. While similar in appearance, the garden fork is shorter and stockier than the pitchfork, with three or four thicker tines intended for turning or loosening the soil of gardens.
Alternative terms
In some parts of England, a pitchfork is known as a prong.{{cite book|url=https://www.abebooks.com/Song-Season-Hundred-Years-Sussex-Farming/18616217008/bd |last=Copper |first=Bob |date=1975 |pages=112 |title=A Song for Every Season: A Hundred Years of a Sussex Farming Family |publisher=Paladin, St. Albans, Hertfordshire |access-date=August 26, 2019}} In parts of Ireland, the term sprong is used to refer specifically to a four-pronged pitchfork.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XwAoI3gso1gC |author=Joyce, P. W. |author-link=Patrick Weston Joyce |date=2009 |title=English As We Speak It in Ireland |pages=832|publisher=Read Books |isbn=9781443791649 |access-date=August 26, 2019}}
Description
File:CompostBinTube wb.jpgs next to a compost bin. In this configuration, the pitchfork resembles a garden fork.]]
The typical pitchfork consists of a wooden shaft bearing two to five slightly curved metal tines fixed to one end of a handle. These are typically made of steel, wrought iron, or some other alloy, though historically wood or bamboo were used. Unlike a garden fork, a pitchfork lacks a grab at the end of its handle.
Pitchforks with few tines set far apart are typically used for bulky material such as hay or straw; those with more and more closely spaced are used for looser materials such as silage, manure, leaves, or compost.{{cite web|url=https://www.farmcollector.com/steam-traction/why-all-pitchforks-are-not-alike |title=Why All Pitchforks Are Not Alike |date=October 1996 |last=Rhode |first=Dr. Robert T. |work=Farm Collector |access-date=February 4, 2016}}
History
In Europe, the pitchfork was first used in the Early Middle Ages, at about the same time as the harrow.{{cite book |last1=McNeill |first1=J. R |last2=Stewart Mauldin |first2=Erin |title=A Companion to Global Environmental History |date=November 2012 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |isbn=9781118977538 |page=342 |edition=1st}} These were made entirely of wood.
In the Middle Ages, pitchforks might on occasion be employed as an improvised weapon in battle by peasants unable to obtain a proper weapon.{{cite web |url=http://medieval-period.com/medievalmen.html |title=Medieval Men |publisher=Medieval-Period.com |access-date=February 13, 2014 |archive-date=August 12, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170812011048/http://www.medieval-period.com/medievalmen.html |url-status=dead }} The visual idiom of a mob of peasants staging a revolt while armed with just torches and pitchforks is well-known, if not necessarily historical, and seen or parodied in several works.
In popular culture
=Artwork=
File:Grant Wood - American Gothic - Google Art Project.jpg, by Grant Wood, 1930]]
Paintings by various artists depict a wide variety of pitchforks in use and at rest.{{cite web|last=Ritch |first=Alan |url=http://www.hayinart.com/002613.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020154940/http://www.hayinart.com/002613.html |archive-date=October 20, 2021 |title=Resting in the hay (1592-1900) |publisher=Hay In Art |date=February 6, 2006|access-date=February 13, 2014}} A notable American work is American Gothic (1930) by Grant Wood, which features a three-pronged tool.
=Politics=
File:Buonaparte, 48 Hours after Landing. (BM 1868,0808.7157).jpg (1803) showing British icon John Bull holding the head of Napoleon Bonaparte on a pitchfork after a conjectured French invasion of Great Britain]]
Because of its association with peasantry and farming, the pitchfork has been used as a populist symbol and appended as a nickname for certain leading populist figures, such as "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman and "Pitchfork" Pat Buchanan.{{Cn|date=March 2021}}
The Gangster Disciples, a street gang in the Midwestern United States, use a three-pointed pitchfork as one of their symbols.{{cite web |last1=Gutierrez |first1=Carl D. |title=Asset Protection for the 21st Century |url=https://www.fmi.org/docs/loss/Gangs_and_the_Food_Industry.pdf |website=Food Marketing Institute |publisher=Food Marketing Institute |access-date=27 August 2019}}
The New Order, a Venezuelan far-right political party, used a three-pointed pitchfork as their symbol.{{Cn|date=March 2021}}
=Religious symbolism=
The pitchfork is often used in lieu of the visually similar weapon, the trident, in popular portrayals and satire of Christian demonology. Many humorous cartoons, both animated and otherwise, feature a caricature of a demon ostensibly wielding a "pitchfork" (often actually a trident) sitting on one shoulder of a protagonist, opposite an angel on the other.{{Citation needed|date=October 2013}}
The Hellenistic deity Hades wields a bident, a two-pronged weapon similar in form to a pitchfork but actually related to the trident in design and purpose.{{Cn|date=March 2021}}