fly-fan

Ivory handles were usual for the fly-fan, or flabellum, used at the altar, to keep flies and other insects away from the Elements.

Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages A Description of Mediaeval Workmanship in Several of the Departments of Applied Art, Together with Some Account of Special Artisans in the Early Renaissance Julia de Wolf Gibbs Addison

One entry in an inventory in 1429 might be confusing if one did not know of this custom: the article is mentioned as "one muscifugium de pecock" meaning a fly-fan of peacock's feathers!

Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages A Description of Mediaeval Workmanship in Several of the Departments of Applied Art, Together with Some Account of Special Artisans in the Early Renaissance Julia de Wolf Gibbs Addison

Virginia, much exercised over the health of Aberdeen Boy, had gone out to the barn to have a talk with Uncle Israel, who, with a peacock fly-fan moving majestically back and forth, was sitting up with eighteen hundred pounds of sick bull.

The Wrong Woman Charles D. Stewart