And Then We Have Sticks...
- Thread starter mtngunr
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One of my favorites....the other being a longer oaken stick i made back in 1973...
Often all it takes is a kind word....but a kind word and a shillelagh is better...
Nice looking stick. What's on the end?
That is the integral root knob of the blackthorn....and cane tip far end...the cane tips can be had with a retractable side folding ice spike but Dobe and i need those the way a New Yorker needs a beach towel and bottle of sunscreen....but if intending to actually lean on a stick or cane, a real cane tip far better than something found at a hardware store which slips on hard/slick/wet surfaces....it is steel reinforced and is not soft on that end either, and neither is the heavy brass ferrule on wood under the tip.
Col. Rex Applegate may be familiar to some here....as an old and overweight man just a few years before he passed on to the next life, he was leaving a grocery store and leaning heavy on his cane by then......two young thugs thought the fat old man with cane to be easy money....the author of "Kill Or Get Killed" put them both in the ER with his cane.
Where i am from, no able bodied male would think of taking wimmen folk and kids to a Mardi Gras parade or blessing of the shrimp fleet without a good walking stick in hand, ....generally family safe, but gangs and grudges hang around crowd edges and often bump into one another and i have more than once found myself in the middle of a knife fight i was not even invited to.....you can laugh at a knife if you have a stick...and firearms in a crowd are totally untenable and undefendable.
Col. Rex Applegate may be familiar to some here....as an old and overweight man just a few years before he passed on to the next life, he was leaving a grocery store and leaning heavy on his cane by then......two young thugs thought the fat old man with cane to be easy money....the author of "Kill Or Get Killed" put them both in the ER with his cane.
Where i am from, no able bodied male would think of taking wimmen folk and kids to a Mardi Gras parade or blessing of the shrimp fleet without a good walking stick in hand, ....generally family safe, but gangs and grudges hang around crowd edges and often bump into one another and i have more than once found myself in the middle of a knife fight i was not even invited to.....you can laugh at a knife if you have a stick...and firearms in a crowd are totally untenable and undefendable.
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They are made by Ingrid of Sweden and an online search should find them for about $7 plain or circa $10 with ice spike....the tread radiates from center and a convex head which grips at an angle even on linoleum...a softer polyurethane which grips well....if you deal with icy steps or walks, the spike is the way to go...with the pleats, an easy swap and long lasting anyhow....but biggest pain with others is not replacing them as for cost, but getting hard old ones off a cane or crutch...these are easy to expand at the pleats for removal...
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A little history on the shillelagh, which is what this is....Irish blackthorn cured for years....originals were generally oaken, and famous ones from the forest of Shillelagh.....the cudgels/clubs many think of when Shillelagh mentioned actually were an 1800's London thing of street thugs...all often loaded with molten lead.
Irish lads were marked as men when they could carry and wield a stick with far above average skill. It was a preferred weapon back to pre-historic times....and them famous for friendly bouts at the slightest excuse....even into the 1800's any county faire was like to be a riot of rival clans or political factions....and always young men looking for challengers and announcing "who will be the one to call the white of me eye black?", and much of moviedom such as "The Quiet Man" based on truth except it was generally with a stick and not fists....a typical "good luck charm" in Ireland was a shorter one with hammer shaped head hanging over a doorway....good for luck and handy if needed....the blackthorn popular due to light weight and strength probably better than modern composites....
We grew up with them so that nobody need be unarmed...feral dogs, and sometimes worse people, not to mention plenteous poisonous snakes.....we sparred as children and i raised children myself and us training....the key to such is simply to go very slow, and more as a measured breathing Tai Chi sorta thing while fighting the tendency to speed up.....you will be suprised how quickly you and yours become proficient....and it is loads of fun, especially when you find your favorite movie martial arts move does not work at all because you are on the wrong end of the stick....
Strangely enough, when i went through basic training, i was the undisputed king of pugil sticks, go figure?
Irish lads were marked as men when they could carry and wield a stick with far above average skill. It was a preferred weapon back to pre-historic times....and them famous for friendly bouts at the slightest excuse....even into the 1800's any county faire was like to be a riot of rival clans or political factions....and always young men looking for challengers and announcing "who will be the one to call the white of me eye black?", and much of moviedom such as "The Quiet Man" based on truth except it was generally with a stick and not fists....a typical "good luck charm" in Ireland was a shorter one with hammer shaped head hanging over a doorway....good for luck and handy if needed....the blackthorn popular due to light weight and strength probably better than modern composites....
We grew up with them so that nobody need be unarmed...feral dogs, and sometimes worse people, not to mention plenteous poisonous snakes.....we sparred as children and i raised children myself and us training....the key to such is simply to go very slow, and more as a measured breathing Tai Chi sorta thing while fighting the tendency to speed up.....you will be suprised how quickly you and yours become proficient....and it is loads of fun, especially when you find your favorite movie martial arts move does not work at all because you are on the wrong end of the stick....
Strangely enough, when i went through basic training, i was the undisputed king of pugil sticks, go figure?
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I would opine everybody needs a good stick....one of few such things allowed even on planes today.....will be forthright and state a crook is handy for hanging over arm, shopping cart, chair, bench or pew when both hands needed, i simply prefer
smaller ends on both ends for strikes and shaka zulu....if desiring a stout crook cane, a livestock show cane is hard to beat.....bent hickory....and quite cheap....ones for pigs run just under an inch in octagon cross section and under $10, while one for elephant (remember those?) approach 1 1/4" diameter...stout cane, that, and maybe a whopping $13...
http://www.enasco.com//c/showing_grooming/Swine/Canes+&+Show+Sticks/?ref=breadcrumb
smaller ends on both ends for strikes and shaka zulu....if desiring a stout crook cane, a livestock show cane is hard to beat.....bent hickory....and quite cheap....ones for pigs run just under an inch in octagon cross section and under $10, while one for elephant (remember those?) approach 1 1/4" diameter...stout cane, that, and maybe a whopping $13...
http://www.enasco.com//c/showing_grooming/Swine/Canes+&+Show+Sticks/?ref=breadcrumb
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That's a nice shillelagh! This is my walking stick. Obviously not a shillelagh, though.
I got it about 25 years ago at Busch Gardens. I have no idea what kind of wood it's made of, but it's nice and heavy and I like the little wood spirit guy. I've never had to hit anything with it but I always take it with me when I hike on the Appalachian Trail. It's heavier than those telescopic hiking poles everybody takes with them but it's much more useful.
I got it about 25 years ago at Busch Gardens. I have no idea what kind of wood it's made of, but it's nice and heavy and I like the little wood spirit guy. I've never had to hit anything with it but I always take it with me when I hike on the Appalachian Trail. It's heavier than those telescopic hiking poles everybody takes with them but it's much more useful.
A good staff on the trail is why i started carrying large belt knives as a kid....so i could make a staff when i wanted one...the more uneven the terrain, the longer one needs...
The light poles are nice but when a hollow tube collapses, it does so in no halfway manner....and a bad ding seriously weakens one...and ok for poking things but useless for whacking....
The shillelagh term is actually a slang term, and actual name is a bata, which is simply a (fighting) stick or staff....just as with Robin Hood and Friar Tuck....if you want to call yours a shillelagh, then it's a shillelagh....
I suppose i should add that for any inspired by comments as to loading a stick or knob with molten lead, apart from what it does to structural integrity of smaller shafts and knobs, most readers here should be unsuprised to discover a lead loaded stick or club to be an illegal weapon in many states and localities...it ceases to be a legal cane when that is done....
As for hitting anything with a stick, the punch and jab with the end quite effective to face, ribs or hip, and generally in mine own redneck way, the buttstroke moves just to open up someone for a punch....and circular moves against arms or another stick, only to clear a path for a punch with end, or break a hold on the stick followed again with a punch...all this becomes apparent with slow motion practice...including hold breaking as you learn the leverage to tie their arms in backwards knots, and not your own.
And always remember, the greatest of all, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, was a master of one-stick fighting....as were many gentlemen of the age who trained....most old drawings which come up will show it being used in quite a few defense situations...and often using the end to keep the attacker off of you, even a larger attacker....most folk are adverse to impaling themselves...
The light poles are nice but when a hollow tube collapses, it does so in no halfway manner....and a bad ding seriously weakens one...and ok for poking things but useless for whacking....
The shillelagh term is actually a slang term, and actual name is a bata, which is simply a (fighting) stick or staff....just as with Robin Hood and Friar Tuck....if you want to call yours a shillelagh, then it's a shillelagh....
I suppose i should add that for any inspired by comments as to loading a stick or knob with molten lead, apart from what it does to structural integrity of smaller shafts and knobs, most readers here should be unsuprised to discover a lead loaded stick or club to be an illegal weapon in many states and localities...it ceases to be a legal cane when that is done....
As for hitting anything with a stick, the punch and jab with the end quite effective to face, ribs or hip, and generally in mine own redneck way, the buttstroke moves just to open up someone for a punch....and circular moves against arms or another stick, only to clear a path for a punch with end, or break a hold on the stick followed again with a punch...all this becomes apparent with slow motion practice...including hold breaking as you learn the leverage to tie their arms in backwards knots, and not your own.
And always remember, the greatest of all, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, was a master of one-stick fighting....as were many gentlemen of the age who trained....most old drawings which come up will show it being used in quite a few defense situations...and often using the end to keep the attacker off of you, even a larger attacker....most folk are adverse to impaling themselves...
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The favorite memory I have of my staff was when I was walking the Appalachian Trail one day and came across a creek. The water was deep enough to go up to your knees but it was fairly fast running and you'd want to avoid walking through it if you could. A tree had fallen (or was moved) across the creek so you had a nice convenient way of getting across without getting your shoes wet.
Me and the wife were easily able to cross the tree because if you held the staff by the very end it was long enough to hit the creek bed. Easy peasy. After crossing we decided to take a break to fill up our canteens and whatnot. While we're sitting there we see a couple few people try to walk across that log. They're overloaded with equipment and only have those aluminum walking poles (the ones that look like ski poles) that weren't nearly long enough to hit the ground, so they fell off and got their fancy goretex hiking boots and microfiber socks wet.
After watching a few fall in and one guy crawl across on all fours I started loaning folks my staff, and they all made it across without getting their knees wet.
Me and the wife were easily able to cross the tree because if you held the staff by the very end it was long enough to hit the creek bed. Easy peasy. After crossing we decided to take a break to fill up our canteens and whatnot. While we're sitting there we see a couple few people try to walk across that log. They're overloaded with equipment and only have those aluminum walking poles (the ones that look like ski poles) that weren't nearly long enough to hit the ground, so they fell off and got their fancy goretex hiking boots and microfiber socks wet.
After watching a few fall in and one guy crawl across on all fours I started loaning folks my staff, and they all made it across without getting their knees wet.
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I must admit the ones that I watched fall in were cute young girls. I knew if I offered to help them my wife would have killt me and they'd never find the body. I waited until some feeble old men came along before I offered to help.
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Cool sticks! I used to do a lot of hiking in the west Texas desert near Big Bend Nat'l Park and the perfect stick came from the flowering stalk of the century plant. They called it Sotal. It was about the only straight stick like piece of wood you could find that didn't stick, bite, or scratch. I also used them to make a tripod to hang my flax drinking bag off the ground to keep it from emptying out overnight. You couldnt set it on the ground or it would be wicked dry by morning and water was at a premium. It was so hot you couldnt use metal canteens or they'd burn your lips terribly. Sotal aint necessarily the prettiest wood but sure made a good walking stick and in a pinch it made a great fire making spindle. I never kept them because they were so plentiful but I wish i had a few now.
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i have the odd stick or two. they range from cherry to lignum vitae to blackthorne, assegai wood, ebony, one or two are 'loaded', the spirally one is bog oak with an L shaped grip covered in a heavy brass sleeve and cap. the taiaha is not really a walking stick tho. one has a 'bone' grip, twist & pull reveals a nice long surprise inside. there's even an ebony stick with a 9k gold knob & a gold plated steel end ferrule. my 'dress' cane. 
does not include a few fokos/ciupaga, the knobkerries, a couple of shorter bata. i have a blackthorne knob headed stick in the car trunk (or 'boot' over here) with a brass and steel ferrule tip for emergencies. "when my knee is acting up, officer".
a cane made from hickory & a brass horse collar 'hame' knob. kind of a less obvious and more heavy duty version of my EDC. for more serious emergencies.
my EDC is the bronze headed one at the bottom. great for propping me up while bending over to pick up poppy's doggy landmines. or other emergencies.note the braided grip wound midway down the shaft of the walking stick length knobkerrie. allows a grip with the remainder of the shaft laid along your forearm arm for parrying.
does not include a few fokos/ciupaga, the knobkerries, a couple of shorter bata. i have a blackthorne knob headed stick in the car trunk (or 'boot' over here) with a brass and steel ferrule tip for emergencies. "when my knee is acting up, officer".
a cane made from hickory & a brass horse collar 'hame' knob. kind of a less obvious and more heavy duty version of my EDC. for more serious emergencies.
my EDC is the bronze headed one at the bottom. great for propping me up while bending over to pick up poppy's doggy landmines. or other emergencies.note the braided grip wound midway down the shaft of the walking stick length knobkerrie. allows a grip with the remainder of the shaft laid along your forearm arm for parrying.
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Here's the old stick i made back in '73....it has been places...the small end only for scale....a bit much unless in the middle of nowhere or places where it might be needed and where it has shown it will not bend, break, splinter, chip, or crack when called upon...it has more than a couple of blade nicks on the shaft...and even the odd brownish stain.....but entirely unsuited for daily use due to obvious "carry a big stick" appearance....we have lost something in this country when nobody carries any manner of cane or staff except the infirm and elderly....
And then the jen-u-wine hiking staff of laminated birch which has only been retipped once as i prefer my old oak stick when in the middle of nowhere....and the staff entirely inappropriate for most other places....and a very beefy stick it is....
And then the jen-u-wine hiking staff of laminated birch which has only been retipped once as i prefer my old oak stick when in the middle of nowhere....and the staff entirely inappropriate for most other places....and a very beefy stick it is....
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