An instrument of torture used in Stephen’s reign, and thus described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: “It was fastened to a beam, having a sharp iron to go round the throat and neck, so that the person tortured could in no wise sit, lie, nor sleep, but that he must at all times bear all the iron.”
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.