Threshing Flails 15 



houses, and is made use of in several ways. Most of the 

 farm-houses have a water wheel against one of their gables, 

 for the purpose of churning butter in the dairy, inside, and 

 too often it causes the dwelling to be very damp. Occasion- 

 ally the water may drive a threshing machine, but this is 

 very exceptional. Comparatively little corn is grown, and 

 for the most part it is still beaten from the straw by flails, 

 just as it must have been on the threshing floors of Egypt, 

 centuries before the time of Pharaoh. The form of flail, 

 or Blaen-ffust, in common use to-day is composed of two 

 stout stakes, one as long again as the other, joined together 

 by the simple arrangement of an iron staple driven into 

 the end of each, one interlocking the other, or being 

 connected thereto by a single chain-link. The longer of 

 the two stakes is the troed^ or handle, and may be the 

 branch of an oak, or the trunk of a young larch tree, 

 bearing considerable resemblance to the ordinary stake 

 used for holding up a sheep-net. The winnowing of the 

 grain is carried out by an equally primitive implement, of 

 home manufacture, consisting of a kind of windlass, made 

 by fixing two wooden hurdles across one another and 

 attaching a piece of sackcloth to each free arm. This is 

 fixed on rough trellis supports, so that the bottom of the 

 sheets, when it is revolved, may just sweep clear of the 

 ground, and being stationed before a heap of corn, it is 

 revolved by one man who rapidly turns the handle. His 

 companion, meanwhile, standing by the corn, and armed 

 with a pail, scoops up the grain and throws it towards the 

 machine, the wind caused by whose revolving wings blows 

 off most of the chaff and dust. This description is, I am 

 afraid, more complicated than the machine, but it may 

 suffice to convey to the reader some idea of the modus 

 operandi. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention ; 

 but the first time I saw corn being " dighted " in this 

 manner it struck me as being one of the best illustrations 

 of the proverb I had ever seen, and I greatly regret that, 

 owing to bad light, the photograph taken would not bear 

 reproduction. 



It may be permitted to refer to one or two other little 



