The Dirk. This european knife can be traced back to the 12th
century. The blade was thin, sometimes triangular in profile. One source
suggests it was originally designed to pierce armor, or more specifically
to perform the coup de grace on a wounded Knight. The earliest examples
have handles of wood or horn with two prominences in place of a guard
or bolster. 
These
Ballocks knives were the precursors of the Dirk, and were variously
called Dague, Dagne a Couilettes, or phallic knives, until the 19th
century, when they were given the Elizabethan euphemism of Kidney knife.
The term Durk, or Dirk was used with greater frequency from the 16th
century on, when it was often constructed with a thin, two-edged blade.
Influence of the Dirk can be seen in the19th century Arkansas Toothpick,
and in the modern "survival knife."
Arcadia Forge accepts:
