A skovorodnik pan gripper (blinnik, chapelnik, pechalnik, kocherga) is an iron spatula with a hook raised above it, put on a long wooden handle. The spatula with a hook was used to grab the edge of the pan (or several at once), put it in the oven, and then pull it back out. The pan gripper, along with the oven fork, broom, poker, and bread shovel, belonged in the woman’s corner by the oven.

The association with the oven determines the ritual functions of the pan gripper. It served as an amulet for women in childbirth: they went to banya with it, and before three ablutions they kept it near the bed, and during this period no one could touch it and use it for household needs.

After that, they listened: the ringing of bells meant marriage, and the sound of the axe meant death. For another divination, the delineation was followed by a call to all “forest, marsh and river devils” to join together and to answer whether to expect marriage or not. The sound of clattering hooves was regarded as a positive reply, after which the fortune-tellers released the spirits and drew a line anti-sunwise.

The Russian folklore reveals the “transport” semantics of the pan-gripper. At Christmas and wedding festivities, playing out the riddle “I will sit on a horse and go into the fire”, people rode this “iron horse”. In a wedding ceremony, the future mother-in-law lifted the bride’s shawl or headscarf with a skovorodnik and examined:

In addition to sacred protection, the pan gripper also provided the woman with domestic security, for which it was nicknamed “a common woman’s weapon”. In the humorous lyrics of the song: “Once on Good Friday // I came to the priest’s wife to drink milk, // and she beat me with a pan gripper” — it refers to exactly this, the non symbolic “chasing away” of intrusive guests.