Kiki-Gonn

14 hours ago, peter monahan said:

How can anyone pass by a post labelled 'Bludgeons and Flails'?  

I began my formal history studies in the Medieval period and recall somebody in a tutorial make a slighting, or at least pitying remark about poor peasant levies 'armed with flails and scythes and things'.  To which the obvious response is 'Have you ever seen what a flal does with a stout two armed swing? Or a scythe with the blade turned parrallel to the shaft'  

BTW, we'll let this blatant self-promotion go once, but next time we expect a cut of your no doubt huge income from this must-read volume! [wink wink].

Peter

Much appreciated

Saps, Blackjacks & Slungshots:  A History of Forgotten Weapons is what the research project above turned into.

And, I actually did plan on spending time here 2 years ago when I posted but life outside of my family and day job pretty much became a non-stop marathon to create the book.  It's the first ever of it's kind, I have positive advanced reviews from published weapons authors and a history professor.  Print edition should soon be added to Amazon and other book retailer sites. For your consideration...

https://www.amazon.com/Saps-Blackjacks-Slungshots-History-Forgotten-ebook/dp/B07C85JKMC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525888729&sr=8-1&keywords=saps%2C+blackjacks+and+slungshots%3A++a+history+of+forgotten+weapons

p.s. Mods- I hope this is OK, if not I understand..   

Thanks!  I have my eye on a nice baleen bosun cosh similar to the ones above.  I thought my pre-leather & lead collection would be decently representative then but it looks like I need me one of them pocket flails too (sic).

I'm on it.  Was focusing on other precursors but am realizing the flail plays a bigger part than I realized.  Here's my fruit cosh/bludgeon.

On December 5, 2009 at 09:13, Mervyn Mitton said:

Even today you can often read, or, hear referred to in converstion, that someone was 'bludgeoned unconcious' or, ' badly bludgeoned in an attack'. The expression comes from an early club , where the head was separate from the handles but, joined by lengths of rope. This gave a greater force to the blow and they were often used to give a fatal knock.

 

They come-in different shapes and woods - but all have the head separate from the stick.

Oh my, this site is a bit of a revelation for me as someone researching what we in the U.S. call saps and blackjacks.  Do you know roughly when this very particular (I call it the Easter egg) kind of configuration began to be used?