ABSTRACT

Crabtree’s Cudgel has been my labour this year and my discoveries in libraries and archives, the length and breadth of two countries, form the substance of my Oration. A cudgel, gentlemen, is defined as ‘a short thick stick used as a weapon’ and cudgel-play ‘the art of combat with cudgels’. So how came Crabtree by his Cudgel-by this silverbound, blackthorn stick, with its zoomorphic head that might have been modelled on the prow of a Viking ship?