A small early 19th century Scottish bicker.The word bicker stems from the root word beaker. A Scottish bicker is a circular staved vessel with two of the staves extending out to for lugs or handles.The staves are made from sycamore and alder. The really skilled part is the feather banding between each stave, perfectly cut to fill the gaps in order to make the vessel watertight. This would have been done by hand with a knife. Each stave is grooved horizontally on the inside near the base to take the bottom. The vessel would then be bound with willow, carefully chosen for its size and would be laced meticulously to hold the staves in position. This small example measures 5.5cm w excl the lugs x 5cm h.C1820.