An oven fork is a device for moving oven pots. It is a long wooden stick with a metal slingshot-shaped endpiece made of a flat metal strip with gradually narrowing and slightly bent edges. The grip is inserted into a metal hollow cone-shaped socket.
An oven fork is a tool with which cast-iron or clay pots were put in the oven and taken out. Usually there were several such tools in the house: they were of different sizes, for small and large pots, and had handles of different lengths.
To move the biggest pots, the oven forks were equipped with a support bracket with two wooden wheels at the ends. As a rule, only women used the oven fork. Heavy red-hot pots with prepared food were difficult to get out of a deep oven without the help of this device.
Oven forks were stored in a niche behind the oven, or in a small space between the wall and the oven. They were also kept in the hall or in the pantry.
An oven fork was also used in ceremonial rituals. When a pregnant woman had to be protected from evil spirits, an oven fork was leaned up against the stove with the horns up and when leaving the house, she took it with her as a staff. According to another tradition, in order for the domovoy not to leave the house when the owner of the house went out, it was necessary to block the oven with an oven fork.
An oven fork was often mentioned in various folk sayings, for example: “Even an oven fork shoots once in a while”, “Grab the oven fork and run into people”, “With an oven fork a woman can handle even a bear!” and others.
