A flail is an
agricultural
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...
tool used for
threshing, the process of separating
grains from their
husk
Husk (or hull) in botany is the outer shell or coating of a seed. In the United States, the term husk often refers to the leafy outer covering of an ear of maize (corn) as it grows on the plant. Literally, a husk or hull includes the protective ...
s.
It is usually made from two or more large sticks attached by a short chain; one stick is held and swung, causing the other (the swipple) to strike a pile of grain, loosening the husks. The precise dimensions and shape of flails were determined by generations of farmers to suit the particular grain they were harvesting. For example, flails used by farmers in
Quebec to process
wheat were generally made from two pieces of wood, the handle being about long by in diameter, and the second stick being about long by about in diameter, with a slight taper towards the end. Flails for other grains, such as
rice or
spelt
Spelt (''Triticum spelta''), also known as dinkel wheat or hulled wheat, is a species of wheat that has been cultivated since approximately 5000 BC.
Spelt was an important staple food in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times. No ...
, would have had different dimensions.
Flails have generally fallen into disuse in many nations because of the availability of technologies such as
combine harvester
The modern combine harvester, or simply combine, is a versatile machine designed to efficiently harvest a variety of grain crops. The name derives from its combining four separate harvesting operations—reaping, threshing, gathering, and winnow ...
s that require much less manual labour. But in many places, such as
Minnesota,
wild rice can only be harvested legally using manual means, specifically through the use of a
canoe and a flail that is made of smooth, round wood no more than 30 inches long.
File:Dreschflegel.jpg, An example of a grain flail
File:Threshing Flail.jpg, Flail being used for threshing
File:Threshing-with-flail-RSJ.jpg, Flails used in Britain
File:Battage à Fléau.jpg, French peasants threshing with flails c. 1270.
File:Teuva.vaakuna.svg, Two flails pictured in the coat of arms of Teuva
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Non-agricultural uses
As with most agricultural tools, flails were often used as weapons by farmers lacking better weapons. The flail is proposed as one of the origins of the two-piece baton known in the
Okinawan kobudō weapon system as the
nunchaku. The first recorded use of a flail as a weapon was at the
siege of Damietta in 1218 during the
Fifth Crusade, as
depicted in the chronicle by Matthew Paris; tradition has it the man was the Frisian Hayo of Wolvega who bashed the standard bearer of the
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
defenders with it and captured the flag. Flails were also used as weapons by farmers under the leadership of
Jan Žižka during the 15th-century
Hussite Wars
The Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars or the Hussite Revolution, were a series of civil wars fought between the Hussites and the combined Catholic forces of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, the Papacy, European monarchs loyal to the Cat ...
in Bohemia.
In
ancient Egypt the
flail was a symbol associated with the pharaoh, symbolizing the monarch's ability to provide for the people.
See also
*
Gohei
*
Ōnusa
References
External links
{{Wiktionary, Flail
Antique Farm ToolsAgriculture in Victorian TimesPicture of one kind of rice flail
Egyptian artefact types
Threshing tools
Mechanical hand tools
Wands
Ritual weapons
Honorary weapons
Ceremonial weapons
