First of all, my sincerest apologies for the title. We were never given a proper name in the episode, but one of the Celts says that it poisons the light, and at one point the Doctor refers to it as a lollipop, so hopefully someone can come up with something better, or we can wait to see whether there is any concept art that may give us an official name.

I took the time to get some screengrabs from the episode, giving a clear view of what's on the middle part of the prop.




And the other side:



Finally, here are a few more photos from the BBC website:

It's hard to tell (because I don't think we get a decent close-up).. but based on the period, colour and ritual use, it's either thinly-polished stone, or amber. Either would be rare and prized, which makes it odd that they suddenly had a dozen of them at the end.  I mean, I was fully expecting something with the sonic amplifying whatever the 'lolipop' did to the light.

BTW, anyone else disappointed that The Doctor (with the magic translation, etc) wasn't mistaken for a druid/wizard?

Here is the pics of The14thDr's lightened up, they show a lot more detail.




Looks like a piece of cane wrapped around a chunk of molded acrylic, Cane would be soaked in water to make it pliable, then bent around the object & bound, then when dry, this would then keep its shape.

Hope this helps.

Chris.

I agree with Angelus; that middle part is definitely meant to look like polished stone or amber (most likely amber based on the colour) but I reckon they probably used acrylic for the prop.

Thanks for brightening those images Davros Skaro!! You can definitely make out more of the details now - and I think you're right about the wooden part being made from cane (in fact, that's a really great idea for making this prop; Thanks! )

A similar technique to the wet-bent cane method was also used with willow or hazel branches, particularly in building materials.
For prop-making purposes, you could get the same effect with some plastic tubing and a heat-gun/hair-dryer. I mean, that does look an unusually large/uniform diameter for cane.

Just a bit of info I found that might help someone do their own. I did a quick google (cane bending) this is just a bit, there is lots more, so do a bit of a search.
http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Bending_Hickory_for_a_Walking_Cane.html




So you don't soak it, you use steam.

Chris.

Thanks for the info, Davros Skaro - that should definitely be helpful to anyone wanting to build their own replica.

Here's is some concept art for the prop, which shows they did consider a few different designs (and thanks to the BBC gallery, we now know have an official name for the "Pict Mirrors", so I've edited the title of the thread accordingly.



And I believe that these are for the the mirrors used by the other Picts at the end of the episode to help the Doctor trap the beast back in the portal.



Hopefully these will be of some use to someone.
Kind regards, The14thDr

Just watching this one again, & noticed at (time) 24.46 the doctor has his fingers in front of the Mirror, sooo if the length of his fingers is roughly known or size of his hands, then we can work out the size (diameter) of this nice little prop.

Anyone with any ideas? I'm thinking about 5 - 6" maybe? Sorry I can't get any shots of it, the way the ABC here set it up, we can't.

Chris.

Well spotted Davros Skaro, I hadn't noticed that before! So I went back and got the screengrab you mentioned, cropped, enlarged and brightened for clarity.

Judging by Peter Capaldi's fingers, I'd say the mirror part is 6" (15.24cm), not including the wooden frame.



Kind regards, The14thDr

I've lightened it up some more for you.



It looks like the Doctor (Capaldi) has got very long fingers, longer than mine & my middle finger (with out being rude) is 3.5 " long so his must be about 4" to 4.5" long. WOW big mirror!

Chris.

Goodness! His fingers look nearly as long as a Silence!