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I Forge Iron

Walking stick hawks


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  • 2 weeks later...

Check out any site for Polish Weapons from the Medieval period. These walking stick hawks were used by the Polish nobles of that period to beat the peasants with should they fail to pay their taxes. In fact the church outlawed the ax style head because the peasants were often killed. Instead they suggested a hammer type head so you could still punish the peasants rather than kill them. The nobles dont get paid,the church dont get paid.

This is of course only one of many stories you can find for the evolution of this type of 'walking stick'

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Here are some things which nowadays are being called "fokos" around here, Hungary.

The first pic shows a bunch made by a blacksmiths in Northeastern-Hungary. The 2. pic shows a permanent trend: brass or copper is likely used to make fokos-es. (The big axe is an other thing, not considered as fokos.)

 

The fokos [fockosh or fawckawsh] itself is a Hungarian word, it means "poll-y"/"poll-ish" or "butt-y"/"butt-ish" - as it has longer poll/butt than an axe.

 

Best wishes

 

Gergely

 

post-48601-0-92664800-1392300244_thumb.j post-48601-0-78541900-1392300256_thumb.j

 

 

BTW: I work on my first fokos right now.

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I enjoy making these, but folks around here just wont buy them. Apparently it appears to be too much of a weapon. 

I bill them as 'swamp sticks'. We have a lot of national forest and protected wetlands around here and anything from snakes to alligators can come out of nowhere on some of these hiking trails trails. The first one I sold was to a little old lady who had trouble with her neighbors rot weiler as she walked the neighborhood.

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I enjoy making these, but folks around here just wont buy them. Apparently it appears to be too much of a weapon. 

I bill them as 'swamp sticks'. We have a lot of national forest and protected wetlands around here and anything from snakes to alligators can come out of nowhere on some of these hiking trails trails. The first one I sold was to a little old lady who had trouble with her neighbors rot weiler as she walked the neighborhood.

I bet you would get lots of looks at them but I can see that someone would hesitate to buy one. However, I bet my brother in law would love to add one to his collection of walking sticks.

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