Tirling pin

A tirling pin or risp and ring (chiefly Scottish) is an archaic device that was used to announce a visitor's presence at a door, in lieu of a door-knocker. It consisted of a ring and a serrated rod, along which the ring could be rattled.^[1] A visitor using such a device was said to be "tirling the pin".

This sense was referred to by R.O. Heslop in his Northumberland Words (1894): "Doors were formerly provided with a long, notched, iron handle on which a loose iron ring was hung. Instead of rousing the house with a knock, the caller tirled the ring up and down the notches of the ‘tirling pin’, or handle".^[2]

Earlier uses of "tirling (at) the pin" may have been slightly different, however. As the Oxford English Dictionary observes, the 'pin' of a door was the latch or handle to be turned or lifted to gain entrance, whereas a fixed serrated bar was known as a 'risp'.^[3] Thus, "to tirl at the pin" was to make a noise by moving the latch up and down rapidly. The OED speculates that the 'risp and ring' was a later device that erroneously became associated with the older action of ‘tirling at the pin’.^[4]

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) is consistent with this, noting that "the pin is the door-latch, and before a visitor entered a room it was, in Scotland, thought good manners to fumble at the latch to give notice of your intention to enter".^[5]