swipple

It consists of a short thick club called a “swingle” or “swipple” attached by a rope or leather thong to a wooden handle in such a manner as to enable it to swing freely.

He paused, also, at this and that farm-house, evidently having a pleasure in the sight of good fat cattle, and in the flocks of poultry—fowls, ducks, geese, and turkeys, busy about the barn-door, where the sound of the flail, or the swipple, as they there term it, was already heard busily knocking out the corn of the last bountiful harvest.