Weapons & Warriors: The Morning Star of the Europeans

Art by Steven DeVon Jones

Many people have always confused the Morning Star with a mace or flail. Even I used to do it when I was first learning about bludgeoning weapons while playing Dungeons & Dragons as a kid. I knew a mace had a metal shaft with a balled end for crushing things, and I knew the flail had chains. When I ran across the morning star, I was lost. Over the years I’ve stumbled across various people calling a mace a morning star, and sometimes a flail.

In truth, the Morning Star is not the same thing. It isn’t anything like a flail because the Morning Star does not have any chains. It is more closely related to the mace in shape, but that’s where the similarities end. Instead of nubs or angles around the balled end, the Morning Star has a large spike protruding from the top and the ball is covered in smaller spikes or sharpened edges.

There is no uniform version of a Morning Star because it is simply a club-like bludgeoning tool with spikes. They vary in size, from small easily held in one hand types to long heavy two handed shafts with a massive spiked head. While the mace evolved into a steel shaft with a rounded head, the Morning Star retained its wooden shaft. The spikes could be made from virtually anything, but in Europe it was generally steel or iron. 

Weapons & Warriors: The Flail of the Hussites

There are many different variations of the Flail, but one of the most vicious and deadly was one of the earliest versions. The Flail’s original design was based from an agricultural tool of the same name. One of the earliest people to turn the tool into a devastating weapon were the Hussites in the early 1400’s. This group of people was not actually made up of warriors, but was driven into a civil war over religious beliefs.

Hussite Flail Art by TL Jeffcoat

The Hussites were one of the earliest groups to turn against the Roman Catholic Church in an attempt to return to a strictly bible based religious culture. This meant they did not accept several doctrines they felt were not originating from the bible that the Roman Catholic Church practiced. In a way, the Hussites were the harbingers of what Martin Luther eventually founded as the Lutheran Church, although there were several similarities, the Hussites were not early Lutherans. I’m not going to go into detail on the religious differences of these three churches, but anyone who knows history, knows the old Roman Catholic Church had a tendency to be influential in creating armies to fight religious wars (I.E. The Crusades).

After the execution of the Hussites religious leader Jan Hus, and then the death of King Wenceslaus a few years later, the Hussites claimed the lands they occupied for their own and did not acknowledge their late king's brother and the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, as their emperor. A war erupted and Sigismund, backed by the Pope, sent Crusaders to quell the uprising. The Hussites united through their religious beliefs and national pride and fought defensively for a dozen years. After defeating and tossing out the Crusaders multiple times, they had begun to attack their Catholic neighbors.

Fantasy Weapons Lore: Grond of Morgoth

Some of you have heard the name Grond. For those three people left in the world that hasn’t seen the Return of the King, then you have now met one version of the weapons known as Grond. This is the massive flaming wolf headed battering ram that Sauron’s army of orcs used to smash the magic gates once built by an ancient race of men with elven blood and long lives. That’s a mouthful. Throughout the thousands of years of history in Middle-Earth, Grond has taken a few forms that are suspected to be designs of Sauron’s masterful engineering and magic.

During the time of the Return of the King, Grond was a one hundred foot battering ram that stood sixty feet tall. The head was forged from black iron. In the movie, the mouth was filled with fire, but I don’t believe Tolkien envisioned it that way. About the only use fire would have coming from the mouth is intimidation. Tolkien was an experienced military man who served during World War 1, and although the orcs are a flashy raging mass of unthinking hate, they weren’t unorganized when directed by Sauron’s generals like Gothmog. I would assume that just the sheer size would be enough to scare the Gondorians. Hauling fuel for the fire would be an unnecessary additional resource to be carried across rivers and mountains all the way from Mordor. That said, it did add some nice cinematography for the film so it got two thumbs up from me, no matter how impractical it was.

Weapons & Warriors: The Kanabō of the Samurai

Art by TL Jeffcoat

Although the Katana and other smaller blades were the most famous and most common weapons a Samurai used, they weren’t the only weapons in his arsenal. The Kanabō was probably the heaviest of the weapons a Samurai trained in. This two handed monster varied in actual length and weight, but there were those made that were the length of a man and were heavy enough that when swung down in a chopping motion they were powerful enough to destroy what they hit.

The thick club-like shaft was usually made with a very strong heavy wood, and sometimes with iron. Then one end was studded with iron spheres. The studs were inserted in rows along the length of each side of the shaft. Once completed it looked like a giant baseball bat with iron balls lined along its length.

There is a saying in Japan that goes “Like giving a Kanabō to an Oni.” What is an Oni you ask? It is basically a mythological Japanese demon that was supposed to be very strong. Strong enough that artistic depictions of them often had them wielding the Kanabō with only one hand. So the saying basically means giving someone an advantage while they already had the best chance; never a good idea.