French Country · Encyclopedia · In the Fields
Cricket cage
A tiny cage of two wooden discs and wire bars with a simple trapdoor. Children caught crickets to watch them and listen to their song.
French: cage à grillons · Wood and wire
At a glance
- Materials: two wooden discs, wire bars
- Use: keeping a cricket for its song
- Owners: mostly children
- Appeal: a humble object valued for what it evokes
What it is
Two wooden discs, a ring of wire bars and a trapdoor as basic as it is clever were all it took. The book admits that the object has value mainly through the tender admiration we bring to it.
Children caught field crickets in summer and kept them for a few days to hear their chirping.
A wider tradition
Keeping singing insects is an old custom in many countries. In parts of southern Europe the cricket was considered a household companion and a bringer of good luck, and small cages were made from wood, wire, reed or even cork.
Homemade examples vary widely; factory-made versions also appeared.
Collecting it today
Choose a cage with its original trapdoor and bars that are not bent or replaced. Simple cages are fragile and few survive in good condition.
Set on a bookshelf or hung near a window, a cricket cage is a small, poetic accent, best left empty.
Source: Les Trésors de France: vieux métiers et objets d'autrefois (Éditions Rustica, Détours en France collection, 1995), pp. 108–111, with general background on the object. The book was published in 1995, so workshops, people and figures are described as they were then. Regional names and dates are given as the book records them; a style or a region of origin does not by itself date an individual piece.