Searching for the Zodiac killer, Part 3.

Part 3: Name search.

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
–excerpt from “The Tyger”, by William Blake.

First let us look at a quick summary from the killer’s profile of notable traits that we made.

  1. The killer longs for his real name to be known world wide.
  2. We should expect to find mention of the killer on the internet.
  3. The killer is clever and puts lots of thought into what he does.
  4. The killer likes and wants to be thought of as crazy and impulsive.
  5. The killer likes to collect, or is possibly to some extent a “hoarder”.
  6. The killer likes to construct dramatic theatrical events that put him at the center of attention.
  7. The killer has a soft spot for little girls.
  8. The killer has some experience with practical methods of disguise and altering of his appearance.
  9. The killer liked to create and role-play fictional personas.
  10. The killer is highly likely to have gravitated towards or even worked in or has some experience with at least some amateur theater or film productions.
  11. The killer had strong leanings towards advanced home built engineering and electronics.
  12. The killer may have had some previous experience with improvised explosives.
  13. The killer probably would have acquired the tools and the experience required to specially modify and rebuild his firearms to suit his needs.
  14. The killer probably likes cowboy gun-slinging.
  15. The killer may have owned a red van to travel or live in.

So we go online and enter this name “John Hutchison” into the Internet search engine, to see if it brings up any probable suspects that can be matched with the killers profile.


Pictured above is a screen capture of our first search try on Google for John Hutchison, could it really be this easy? It is the same name, and it looks like this person is the center of news media attention connected with hoaxes that he actually chose to name after himself.

Is this one of those weird one in a million chances?

Lets find a biography on this suspect to see if his age and history could be a possible match.

A little more searching turns up the Internet Movie Data Base, and the full biography for him, this biography is even written by himself.

IMDB_Bio_writen by him

If this suspect is the killer, then according to this self written biography, he would have been 18 at the time of the 1963 June 4th Domingos/Edwards Murders, that is old enough that he could have been involved in that crime.

It talks about his early 1965 hoaxes with hydrogen balloons in his hometown of Vancouver Canada (West coast city just across the boarder, on the coast up north of San Francisco, with fast easy access south to US via interstate and coastal highways), he then claims in 1969 he worked as a janitor at the Riverview Hospital and did what he vaguely calls “other adventures”…

Oh… My… God… Could this oddly vague “other adventures” be him referring to the Zodiac killings?

The bio also says he collected and ran his own firearms museum, another possible profile match.

How can this be real?

At the bottom of the biography I read his personal quote…


He says “Nothing is impossible”…

Searching the other internet links, we see that John Hutchison has his own video blog YouTube channel, I scroll through the videos to see what there is to find.


Screen shot from a video of John Hutchison, packing one of his Walker Colt pistols


“Lady Doom” all eyes turn towards the center of attention.

A video where he says he has lost his marbles, and likes to be thought of as crazy as a fox.

The YouTube video blog content shows that both the pinup-girl fixation and multiple personalities/personas used for public spectacle/attention matches with the killers profile.

One of his more favored personas is called “Karla Kniption” pronounced “Carla Conniption” (exchanged the C with a K, K=C), the spelling he uses in this name is a hidden backwards written wordplay of “No it Pink”. this wordplay fits with the Zodiac style, so it could be considered another match between this suspect and the killer.

Other videos on his channel features young girls that he has befriended and likes to hang out with, he clearly cares about or has a soft spot for little girls, this is another match with the killer’s profile.

A video showing an apartment stuffed with stuff he likes to collect, so he could be called a “hoarder”, this is another match with the killer’s profile.

An interesting profile video that was done on John Hutchison, in which he mentions that as a child, he set off homemade bombs in his backyard, and specialized in home built electrical apparatus.

So he has strong leanings towards advanced home built engineering and electronics, and previous experience with improvised explosives, this matches the killer’s profile.

It is interesting to note that some witnesses claimed that the killer had an notable odd lumbering gait. Video of this new suspect sightseeing and walking around.

It is noteworthy to mention that in the videos, the suspect shows off his current beachfront residence that is located up north of San Francisco, just off Highway 101, at Nesika Beach in Oregon. It was along this same coastal Highway 101, at a secluded section of beach, south below San Francisco, that the 1963 June 4th Domingos/Edwards Murders happened, this crime has been speculated by investigators to have possibly been the first Zodiac killing.

Possible Suspect and Zodiac Killer sketch

While this suspected person of interest has aged and grown his hair long, the chin, mouth, cheeks, and forehead are a good match with the old 1969 police sketch of the suspected Zodiac killer.




Searching for the Zodiac killer, Part 2.

Part 2: deciphering the symbols.

Now I feel just as sure as I’m sure that my name
Isn’t Willow, titwillow, titwillow,
–The Mikado/Willow, tit-willow

zodiac killer halloween card scale inside

Spooky eyes burning bright “In the forests of the night”.



Pictured above is the traditional medieval “wheel of the year” symbol, divided by the cross of the equinox and solstices, each month in this wheel is ruled over by one of the twelve star signs of the astrological constellations known as the zodiac. Popular pulp fiction and the folk revival of the 50’s and 60’s reintroduced this and other such bits of esoteric trivia to mainstream media.

My name is crop

Pictured above is part of the killer’s letter containing the 13 symbol Name cipher.
The killer connects this name puzzle with a previous message known as the 340 cipher, asking if we have figured out “the last cipher I sent”. Suggesting perhaps there is a direct clue or important connection between the two ciphers

The symmetrical distribution of the three circled eights look like a great clue, or as the catchphrase of Tony the Tiger (the tyger) says “They’re Gr-r-reat!” (pun of “great” with “eight”), these symmetrical eights could suggest that the name cipher is likely to have been constructed as a scrambled word puzzle. And perhaps even that a left, right, middle symmetry will somehow unlock the first answer to this puzzle.

We can see that both of the end symbols in the cipher, have been given shapes of letters that match up with alphabet place order. This match is the hidden symmetry shared by the cipher ends.


So what symbol belongs in the middle, what hidden “symmetry” would the middle be associated with?

“By FiRE”

In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
–excerpt from “The Tyger”, by William Blake.

We must “seize the fire” the fire of the celestial constellations of the Zodiac wheel, to make as William Blake put it “thy fearful symmetry”.


It has been suggested by investigators, that the 340 cipher pictured above, could hold the answer to the name cipher.
If we look at the 340 cipher, we see a symmetry made with the large wheel of the year symbol aligned with the center column, and above it at the bottom row is the the same symbol, followed by what others have interpreted as “Zodaik”, as in “Zodiac”, it is important to note that the “A” and “I” here trade places, and a “K” symbol stands in exchanged for the “C” (K=C).

This 340 cipher clue seems to be telling us that the wheel of the year symbol should be at center stage, as balance point held at the middle, all eyes turn towards the center of attention.


Using this order for the scrambled word puzzle, we have what looks like a wheel of the year, flanked by the abbreviation AM, so which year has the abbreviation of AM?

And how is it connected with filling in the rest of the killers name?

The answer is the year of miracles “Annus Mirabilis”.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known written use in an English text of “Annus Mirabilis” was as title for the poem by John Dryden.

Keeping in mind the killer likes to use spooky esoteric stuff and archaic spelling, he will probably try to throw investigators off the trail, by using an older more archaic spelling instead of plain John, since the letter J is a recent addition to the Latin alphabet, the name John would originally be spelled “Iohn” with an I (peek-a-boo I see you).

This gives us the first known written use in an English text of “Annus Mirabilis”, connected to a first name, using the first spelling “Iohn”.

So following this line of thought, it is safe to say with some certainty that the first entry on the name cipher should be “Iohn”.


Which would mean that the first symbol “A” in the cipher, is also the first letter decoded.


So which of the other symbols can be used to spell out the rest of the name?

Since there are lots of repeated symbols in such a short message, the symbols look to be nothing more than a simple personal substitution alphabet, as is commonly used for private journals and notes, that are desired to be easy for the creator to directly read from and write out long passages, without the burden of overly complex slow systems of code. This is perhaps even the code the killer once used to write his diary with.

Here less is more, the killer has gone the route of using less security in order to fly under the scope of cryptographers, since trained cryptographers will be over-thinking the puzzle, not expecting a child’s substitution code alphabet.

Such substitution alphabets are notoriously insecure, since they need symbols that are easy for the user to understand/interpret from memory at a glance, the shapes are chosen for ease of recognition, and just in case they happen to not use the code often, and their memory grows rusty, the shape must help jog the users memory. So with this in mind, let us see if we can decode these shapes.

The eighth letter of the alphabet is H, and Hole begins with H (as in the 13-hole postcard), the closed in eight from the thirteen symbol name cipher, is the “Horrible” (eight letter word) H, with its “price tag” of 888. so we will say that the circled-8 most probably represents the letter H.

The other symbols in the name cipher lack numbers, so their symbolism is probably different, yet should be equally common or easy to quickly deduce with a little thought and the clues provided by the killer.


Shown above is the postcard mailed by the killer on March 22nd 1971, known as the Pines Card.


“peek through the pines” beyond the treeline of M, to see the ascending diagonal pass between the cliff walls of N, M=N.
From the top area of the pass of N, you look down to see the round O area of lake Tahoe, N=O.


Since we now have a symbol for the letter O, we can deduce that the circled cross probably is not also the letter O, so which letter would its shape best suggest? The obvious answer is the letter T.

We know the killer is fixated on, and is primarily emulating a sexy fem-fatal pinup girl from a comic-book, and he likes puns and wordplay, so the E symbol is most probably the “Sex-E” S, so we will say E=S.


In some simple codes the letter K and letter C can act interchangeably or are just swapped, remember on the 408 cipher, Ǝ = C and K = S, when picking the symbols for the 408 cipher, the Killer may have included modified and swapped pairs of symbols from his personal substitution alphabet.
If this is so, and we know Ǝ = C and K = S from 408 cipher. Then for his personal substitution alphabet we would not be surprised to find E = S and K = C. Which it appears is exactly what we have here.

This deduction would appear to match up with possible clues in the Exorcist letter sent by the killer, the letter is signed with a quote from the The Mikado song Willow, tit-willow, which appears to be a hint that this letter has clues to finding the killer’s true name.


Pictured above is the top portion of the Exorcist letter.
“I saw + think” means we must both see and think of an answer, meaning the answer will be made of both a word we can see “Exorcist”, and another related word we can think of, this unseen (something hidden unseen “occult”) word will most likely be related to demonology, control and banishing of demons, and will be an obscure archaic equivalent of an “Exorcist”.

The word we need to think of is “Karcist”, a person who binds, controls, and banishes demons. This gives us the full clue of…
Exorcist Karcist was Satirical Comedy.

Exorcist = Satirical (E=S).
Karcist = Comedy (K=C).

E becomes S, and K becomes C.

Another possible K=C related hint may be hiding in the statement “Fk I’m crackproof”, since F is the sixth letter of the alphabet, and K is the sixth symbol found in the 13 symbol Name cipher, the sixth symbol K is Crackproof, K = C.

The remaining symbol in the 13 symbol name cipher is just the letter U, that has been split in half and the sides overlaid upon each-other to make the cipher symbol. The letter U is the most likely letter candidate here.


This gives us a completed workable cipher key.


We still have seven decoded letters to place in the scrambled name puzzle.


It appears we are looking for a last name that is nine letters long, third letter is a T, last letter is an N, and the other letters will be some arrangement of the letters SCHHUOI.


This is a brain-teaser word puzzle, of a type one would expect to find in a pulp mystery adventure.

From a code braking standpoint, knowing just this much, the puzzle is already in effect solved completely, we are done.

Since if you rearrange the seven letters, there are only five-thousand and forty (5,040) possible permutations, most of which will be mixed up garbled gibberish, and half will actually be repeats with the two H’s trading places, so it is really more like only 2520 unique combinations, with less then a handful that could be considered to look passably anything close to real names.
Now you could spend an afternoon or several days with a paper and pen, trying probable sounding combinations before finally figuring out the right answer.

Lucky for us we have the power of modern computers, we can quickly feed the seven letters into a simple permutation generator script.
We then just read down the printed list of generated possible combinations, looking for and marking ones that look like possible names, this way we will know for sure we did not miss any good possibilities.

Scanning down the list through the “Hut” section of the list, we find a three syllable word that actually looks like a possible real name candidate.





Hutchison. <Check this out, could be it.










So we go online and enter this name “John Hutchison” into the Internet search engine, to see if it brings up any possible suspects that can be matched with the killers profile.

Searching for the Zodiac killer, Part 1.

Part 1: Profile for the killer.

–The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell.

This three part blog series assumes you are already well acquainted with the details of the Zodiac case. For the sake of brevity we will omit detailing the longer clue threads like the SLA letter, and the Halloween card (since the clues they contained, mostly pointed to the Tim Holt comic-book that has already been found by other researchers).

If you are new to the Zodiac case, you will probably want to read up on it first, Wikipedia and ZODIAC CIPHERS are both good places to start learning about the case.

Below is a list we will use to profile the killer, it is made of notes taken during research and review of the events surrounding the Zodiac killer case.

(1) The killer longs for his real name to be known world wide, he has a HUGE ego, he is narcissistic, and wants to be the center of attention, that is why he provides his real name in code.
This fact would also point to the killer as someone that is most probably still alive, such a huge ego would have made plans for the revealing of their crimes after they had died, he does not want to be forgotten by history.

(2) We should expect to find mention of the killer on the internet, the killer’s narcissistic ego will gravitate towards the media spotlight, which now includes modern internet social networks.

(3) The killer is clever and puts lots of thought into what he does, even when on the surface he is trying to appear impulsively spontaneous. The killer has had decades to cover his trail. At the time of his crimes he probably at least set up a passably plausible alibi.

(4) The killer likes and wants to be thought of as crazy and impulsive, to be considered as insane makes him feel special/happy, powerful, superior, beyond normal mundane people, he is not really as mentally unhinged and impulsive as he would like you to believe.

(5) The killer likes to collect, or is possibly to some extent a “hoarder”, meaning someone that is compelled to keep more stuff then they need, piled around, stacked unused in boxes and any available space. For example see the killers claims of his “Paradice Slaves” collection.

(6) The killer likes to construct dramatic theatrical events that put him at the center of attention, Since both the bomb and gun bus attack threats were never carried out, they could be considered as manufactured public spectacle, a hoax.
The killer carefully planned and prepared beforehand for each of his attacks, as the killer wrote,

“As of yet I have left no fingerprints behind me contrary to what the police say in my killings I wear transparent fingertip guards.”

This would also bring into question evidence found at crime scenes, false clues may have been planted to throw off investigators, as the killer wrote,

“If you wonder why I was wipeing the cab down I was leaving fake clews for the police to run all over town with, as one might say, I gave the cops som bussy work to do to keep them happy.”

Thus instead of viewing each crime as a deranged madman giving into random uncontrollable impulses, we should instead view them as cold calculating fabrications, each crafted deliberately as a smaller part of a larger plot arc, constructed hoaxes, staged productions to build up the invented Zodiac persona.

(7) The killer has a soft spot for little girls, this is his Achilles-heel, the place where he is vulnerable.
The 1970 March 22nd Modesto Attack abduction and long car ride, followed by allowing the victims to escape without a real fight, would indicate there was something on that long drive that held him back, making him sit, hesitating, trying to work up the nerve to do the sinister deed and strike.
So what new variable in that situation was different? What could have held him back? He had killed older sexually mature women before pointblank in cold blood, so the mother could not be it, and the only other passenger was the little girl, therefore we can say with some certainty the killer probably likes or at least values little girls more then other human lives.

(8) The killer has some experience with practical methods of disguise and altering of his appearance, According to his own statements the killer wrote,

“I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of the time I look entirle different.”

Disguise methods are used in the Tim Holt comic #30 “THE MAN OF 1,000 FACES!” featuring a criminal with multiple identities.

(9) The killer liked to create and role-play fictional personas, and use costumes as a means of personal escapism/empowerment. For example, the disguises, acting out the role of an escaped convict, the custom-made masked hood, and acting out the role of a comic-book villain by emulating “Lady Doom” and her use of fire, gun, knife, and rope to kill.


(11) The killer had strong leanings towards advanced home built engineering and electronics, as is seen in the detailed design of the bomb drawing that he sent.

(12) The killer may have had some previous experience with improvised explosives, The choice in use of a detailed bomb threat, suggests he had at least enough experience to give him the confidence to use it as a plausible threat in the bomb hoax.
Also in Tim Holt comic #30 “The FIGHT at the WATER HOLE!” story, the use of hidden buried bombs to booby-trap a trail/road, appears to have helped inspire the idea behind the style of the bomb plot threats.

(13) The killer probably would have acquired the tools and the experience required to specially modify and rebuild his firearms to suit his needs. Since the killer preferred to use guns that were specially modified for use in his crimes, and he was smart enough to know the guns needed to at least be made untraceable, It makes little sense and is highly unlikely for the killer to just buy each weapon through a black-market contact, way too much risk of drawing unwanted attention from the cops, or getting stung or ratted out by underworld sellers. These facts combined with his stated collecting impulses, his long term planning ability, and his strong leanings towards complex home built DIY (do it yourself), would suggest perhaps someone that will prefer to modify or assemble from collected parts, untraceable guns for his use, rather then buy newer more easily traced stolen or factory assembled firearms.

(14) The killer probably likes cowboy gun-slinging, the clues provided by the killer, point to him trying to emulate through his crimes, the comic-book villain “Lady Doom”, the gun-slinging fem-fatal from the Tim Holt comic #30. See this forum post

(15) The killer may have owned a red van to travel or live in, the comic-book villain “Lady Doom” lived out of a small red wagon, the logical modern equivalent would be owning a red van.


All eyes turn towards the center of attention, “Lady Doom” from the Tim Holt comic #30.


No fence against a flail.

Aug-Sept07-DE6804sAR800_threshing grain Chartres Cathedral Window Stretch

Many of the Highland dances now lost were once performed with traditional weapons that included the Lochaber axe, the broadsword, a combination of targe and dirk, and the flail

–From Wikipedia

A Standing Man With A Flail. Manner of QUAST Pieter Jansz., 1606-1647 Netherlands. crop


–From Wikipedia

Romanticisation of Highland threshing

From the time of the Dark Ages in Europe, the simple wooden flail came to be a symbol of rural laborers, peasants, and those too poor to purchase or openly carry more expensive weaponry.

picture on the back of 1899 Huber steam engine catalog_crop
Bayonet, flail, and cutlass. Illustration From 1899 Huber steam engine catalog.

If you are poor, and only have one effective weapon readily available to help keep you alive in serious fights, you learn how to use it to its most effective potential.

Through the tedious ordinary task of threshing, even beginning laborers would quickly gain extensive practical hands on experience, in hitting things efficiently and precisely with their flails, experience they could later count on in more lethal situations.A peasant brawl, 1620 Print made by Lucas Vorsterman IUsing a flail is not rocket science, or some secret mystical wisdom passed from guru to guru, that is only decipherable by enlightened navel gazers.

Once a laborer got the basic flail strikes down, they would soon start to experiment with new swings and patterns just to help brake the tedium of the chore.
There is a physical limit to the number of different ways you can possibly swing a stick, needless to say, given enough time and boredom, even the most thickheaded thresher can figure them out on their own, and if you have a little creativity, all the better and faster the progress will be.

Psalter-Hours of Guiluys de Boisleux_Ms Pierpont Morgan Library M 730_cropIf you had lived in a community that had been hand threshing and fighting with flails for a generation or two, you would most likely have seen all the tricks a flail was capable of, by the time you were old enough to begin working as a thresher yourself.

battage_au_fleau_pour_site-_XVo_P_576-2avr07As with swords and knives, flails came in many sizes and shapes, documented examples of rods that are forearm length, arm length, and longer are found throughout Medieval Europe, a flail could be a matched set or a combination of two lengths. Both the style of the rods and the flexible joining hinge varied widely depending upon use, the choice preference, and inventiveness of the individual craftsman.

BNF Français 314 Speculum Historiale c.1396BNF Français 246 Histoire Ancienne c.1360-1400 Heavy keys hung from a truncheon can act as a flail.

downloadOn styles of flails with rods of an unequal length, the handle rod was not always the longest rod.
See for example in “Archaeologia aeliana, or, Miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity” on page 112.
And in “Irish Folk Ways” by E. Estyn Evans, on page 214.

Hogarth_Flail_DetailThe flexible hinge joint allowed the flail to be carried folded in a more compact portable package.
And like with a stone sling used for throwing rocks, the force provided by the flexible hinge joint on a flail, delivered a rapid crushing power that would outmatch a comparably sized plain stick or club, this added leverage made it a choice weapon even for less heavily built females and youths, a point that was used as a humorous device in the 1745 satirical publication the “French Flail”.

“French Flail” 1745 satirical publication.

The flail had a low cost for parts and manufacture, an ease of carry and maintenance, a hard-hitting reach, and by adjusting the strength with which it was swung, the lethality could be adjusted to suit the need.


A memorable incident from the 1400’s regarding the effectiveness of common flails is recounted in the history of the Scottish Clan Howison.

HOWISON.  “The son of Hugh.  The family are descended from John Howison, burgess of Edinburgh, 1450.  The first ancestor of the family, and his son, were farmers and rescued James I from an attack made upon him when he had strayed from his attendants, while hunting near Cramond Bridge, and having saved the king’s life by beating off his assailants with their flails, held a basin and a towel to wash his wounds.  For these timely services they were rewarded with a grant of the lands of Braehead, the redendo in the charter being “Servitium Lavacri”, a service that was complied with to George IV at the banquet of the Magistrates of Edinburgh in 1822″.
–Clifford S. Sims, “the Origin and Signification of Scottish Surnames”, 1862.

ByzantineBattleThe above picture is taken from An Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Costume : From the First Century B.C. to C. 1760 by J. R. Planche. It shows a flail wielding sailor standing on the prow of a boat.
Even up to the time of Henry VIII  (1491 – 1547), flails were still highly popular for use by sailors in sea battles.
The carpentry tools a ship kept on hand to fix and turn out replacement parts, were also good for the production of flails with parts similar to existing ship components, such as for example a “belaying pin” also called “tack pin” or “jack pin” these were a type of wood bar used aboard sailing ships for securing and tying the running rigging, a pair of rods patterned after belaying pins and fastened together would make good small size flails, handy in confined spaces and would fit in ones belt or jacket when climbing the rigging.

NPG D1502,Stephen College,after Unknown artistStephen College (1635 – 1681) was a Protestant activist and an English Joiner, a word meaning a carpenter (or to use the classical biblical term, he was a “Tekton” from Greek τέκτων, meaning a person with tons of technical skill in their craft, a skilled carpenter, builder, or a master of any art, such as gymnastics, poetry, or medicine). Stephen College crafted and taught use of a weapon for self-defense at close quarters, which he called “the Protestant flail”, these flails were of a proportion small enough to carry concealed, while long enough when unfolded to be an effective match against even swords, what made this class of flail special, was that with his carpentry skills he had loaded lead weights into the ends of the rods, to give the rods an added impact effect, appropriately described in song as “Two handfuls of death with a thong, hung fast”.
Daniel Defoe (1659 – 1731) the English writer and journalist, best known for his novel Robinson Crusoe, wrote of carrying a Protestant flail.

In those days of lawless violence, it was hazardous for an honest man to appear in the streets by night, and many carried arms about them for their protection. De Foe, who was a spectator of these events, gives a curious description of a weapon then in use, from which some idea may be formed of the character of the times. ” I remember,” says he, “in the time of the Popish plot, when murthering men in the dark was pretty much in fashion, and every honest man walked the streets in danger of his life, a very pretty invention was found out, which soon put an end to the doctrine of assassination, and the practice too, and cleared our streets of the murthering villains of those days; this was a Protestant flail. Now, a Protestant flail is an excellent weapon— a pistol is a fool to it; it laughs at the sword or the cane; for you know there’s no fence against a flail. For my part, I have frequently walked with one about me in the old Popish days, and though I never set up for a hero, yet, when armed with this scourge for a Papist, I remember I feared nothing. So excellent a weapon it is, that really the very apprehension of it soon put an end to the murthers and assassinations that

then began to be practised in the streets and otherwise; as upon Godfrey, Arnold, Julian Johnson, and others. I remember I saw an honest stout fellow, who is yet alive, with one of these Protestant instruments, exercise seven or eight ruffians in Fleet-street, and drive them all before him quite from Fleet-Bridge into White-Friars, which was their receptacle ; and he handled it so decently that you would wonder when now and then one or two of them came within his reach, and got a knock, to see how they would dance: nay, so humble and complaisant were they, that every now and then they would kiss the very ground at his feet; nor would they scruple descending even to the kennel itself, if they received but the word of command from this most Protestant utensil.”*
* Review, viii. 614.
–Walter Wilson, “Memoirs of the life and times of Daniel De Foe”, Volume 1 – 1830.

The use of the Protestant flail was promoted by members of the “Green Ribbon Club”, as is described in the 1866 book by John Times “Club life of London”.

A more important Club was “the King’s Head
Club/’ instituted for affording the Court and Govern-
ment support, and to influence Protestant zeal : it was
designed by the unscrupulous Shaftesbury : the mem-
bers were a sort of Decembrists of their day ; but they
failed in their aim, and ultimately expired under the
ridicule of being designated ” Hogs in armour.” ” The
gentlemen of that worthy Society/’ says Roger North,
in his Examen, ” held their evening sessions continually
at the King’s Head Tavern, over against the Inner
Temple Gate. But upon the occasion of the signal of a
green ribbon, agreed to be worn in their hats in the days
of street engagements, like the coats-of-arms of valiant
knights of old, whereby all warriors of the Society
might be distinguished, and not mistake friends for
enemies, they were called also the Green Ribbon Club.
Their seat was in a sort of Car four at Chancery-lane
end, a centre of business and company most proper for
such anglers of fools. The house was double balconied
issue forth in fresco with hats and no peruques ; pipes in
their mouths, merry faces, and diluted throats, for vocal
encouragement of the canaglia below, at bonfires, on
usual and unusual occasions. They admitted all strangers

that were confidingly introduced ; for it was a main end
of their Institution to make proselytes, especially of the
raw estated youth, newly come to town. This copious
Society were to the faction in and about London a sort
of executive power, and, by correspondence, all over
England. The resolves of the more retired councils of
the ministry of the Faction were brought in here, and
orally insinuated to the company, whether it were lyes,
defamations, commendations, projects, etc., and so, like
water diffused, spread all over the town ; whereby that
which was digested at the Club over night, was, like
nourishment, at every assembly, male and female, the
next day : and thus the younglings tasted of political
administration, and took themselves for notable counsel-

North regarded the Green Ribbon Club as the focus
of disaffection and sedition, but his mere opinions are
not to be depended on. Walpole calls him ” the volu-
minous squabbler in behalf of the most unjustifiable ex-
cesses of Charles the Second’ s Administration.” Never-
theless, his relation of facts is very curious, and there
is 110 reason to discredit his account of those popular
” routs,” to use his own phrase, to which he was an eye-

The conversation and ordinary discourse of the Club,
he informs us, ” was chiefly upon the subject of Braveur,
in defending the cause of Liberty and Property ; what
every true Protestant and Englishman ought to venture
to do, rather than be overpowered with Popery and
Slavery.” They were provided with silk armour for
defence, ” against the time that Protestants were to be
massacred,” and, in order ” to be assailants upon fair
occasion,” they had recommended to them, ” a certain

pocket weapon which, for its design and efficacy, had
the honour to be called a Protestant Flail. The handles
resembled a farrier’s blood-stick, and the fall was joined
to the end by a strong nervous ligature, that, in its
swing, fell just short of the hand, and was made of
Lignum Vita, or rather, as the Poets termed it, Mortis”
This engine was ” for street and crowd-work, and lurk-
ing perdue in a coat-pocket, might readily sally out to
execution ; and so, by clearing a great Hall or Piazza,
or so, carry an Election by choice of Polling, called
knocking down!” The armour of the hogs is further
described as ” silken back, breast, and potts, that were
pretended to be pistol-proof, in which any man dressed
up was as safe as in a house, for it was impossible any
one would go to strike him for laughing, so ridiculous
was the figure, as they say, of hogs in armour”

In describing the Pope-burning procession of the 17th
of November, 1680, Roger North says, that “the Rab-
ble first changed their title, and were called the Mob in
the assemblies of this Club. It was their Beast of Bur-
then, and called first, mobile vulgus, but fell naturally
into the contraction of one syllable, and ever since is be-
come proper English.”

We shall not describe these Processions : the grand
object was the burning of figures, prepared for the occa-
sion, and brought by the Mob in procession, from the
further end of London with “staffiers and link-boys,
sounding,” and “coming up near to the Club-Quality in
the balconies, against which was provided a huge bon-
fire ; ” ” and then, after numerous platoons and volleys
of squibs discharged, these Bamboches were, with re-
doubled noise, committed to the flames.” These out-
rageous celebrations were suppressed in 1683.
— John Times, “club life of London”, 1866.

Aside from use of a ribbon in the hat to show group affiliation colors, I should note here the coaching trick of attaching a ribbon streamer for practice, to the end of your flail, when attached so,  the ribbon provides feedback with a clear visual aid, that will speed your learning of proper form in your swings and combinations.

If you cleanly bounce the flail from the joint so as to quickly change direction of the swing, the attached ribbon can be made to impressively snap like the loud crack of a whip, or squib shot from a gun.

B.M. M.S. Luttrel Psalter, 14cDecline of the flail
The industrial revolution brought factories and mills, progress replaced farmhands, and social upheaval left the working class crowded into dirty slums.

This social upheaval is best illustrated by the Swing Riots of 1830 in England, when impoverished farm workers lead by a rebel thresher named “Captain Swing” rioted. The rioters anger was aimed against the new mechanized threshing machines that would bring an end to their means of employment, taking away the pittance that had in the past, seen them through the cold winter months.
flailAmericanThreshing machines left the threshing motions of rural labor no longer widely required in the work of threshing grain, so just the basic principles of swinging and hitting with such a flexible tool would require extra time and practice for the average person to learn, this was time and energy the common industrial worker did not have.

And so for practical reasons the flail fell out of fashion, the rich had time and resources to indulge in swords and better guns, the upper-class did not dirty their hands with outdated lower-class work like threshing grain.
The poor made do with the new tools they now used in their daily industrial work, hammers, wrenches, crowbars, and the now inexpensive mass produced utility knives.

in popular culture, wrenches and crowbars took on the roll once filled by flails.
In popular culture, wrenches and crowbars took on the roll once filled by flails.

Before the late Bruce Lee glamorized flails in his movies, the refined use of the flail as a masterful art had practically vanished from the face of the Earth.

enter-the-draon-movie-posterIn the above poster art from the movie “Enter the Dragon”, the flail takes center stage; it was through Bruce Lee’s movies the forgotten flail became rediscovered as a supposedly new exotic Asian weapon.
Tacuinum_Sanitatis-threshing-siligo-wheatIn the West, among the remote and impoverished rural communities, a small number had continued to use flails out of necessity, and an even smaller number continued to practice with flails as part of traditional dance customs, some adding bells and or ribbons onto the flails, flail dancing became a footnote to a footnote on obscure folk culture.

threshing_by_handDoukhobors threshing the grain harvest. Library and Archives Canada PA-022242Thrashing corn in a Shetland barn_1890searly 1900 farmers photo Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center_ Pennsburg_PaTeilI-1935Dreschen Farmers in olden times threshing with a flail Germany, Northern Bavaria, Franconia threshing Farm- threshing with flails Page500_291_35Threshing with a flail Szentgál, Veszprém CountyThe highly glamorized flails of Bruce Lee brought new worldwide attention, and with it an unfortunate increased illegality for flails, including widespread outlawing of even genuine antiques, these new laws were followed by confiscation and destruction of the now contraband flails. In Britain, media containing depictions of flails was censored.

Even in America (the “land of the free and home of the brave”) several states enacted unconstitutional laws to infringe upon the individuals right to both possession and carrying of flails, by the outright banning of manufacture, sale, import, or ownership of all such flails in those states. Let me emphasize this point, states where it is OK for the average citizen to own a firearm, made it highly illegal to own a pair of sticks tied together, let that sink in for a moment, in modern culture, a pair of sticks became more taboo then guns.

Franklin’s two-dollar bill
Benjamin Franklin two-dollar bill, c.1775.

And then remember the two-dollar bill from the American Revolutionary war, was designed by Benjamin Franklin, and features a flail, a motif intended to nurture Americans’ fortitude and resolve.

Threshing with a flail Óbánya, Baranya County
Threshing with a flail, Óbánya, Baranya County. Source

Tacuina sanitatis_XIV centuryWith the flails Western heritage suppressed and forgotten to the public eye, new generations came to only recognize and appreciate Flails through Bruce Lee derivatives and repackaged postwar Karate propaganda, the flail now became a stereotype symbol of Asian Kung Fu films.

This pushed Western flail use even further into obscurity, as now the public were only interested in the exotic Far East, the much lauded mystical mysteries of Kung Fu, Karate, and the Ninja. Feed by a steady wave of low budget fictional martial arts fantasy movies, the word Nunchaku became the new word to popularly describe any small hand flail, regardless of actual geographical origin.

An ironic outcome, as Bruce Lee while in the pursuit of truth to enhance his own skills, had studied fighting arts of both the East and West with an equal fervor, seeking to cut through the fairytale opera fantasy of Hong Kong cinema, and express with his own films the pure unencumbered functionality of the fighting arts.

turnier-1War Flails
In historical studies of Western battlefield weapons, the full-sized spiked war flail has long overshadowed the plain short flails. War flails were intended for use by infantry in smashing the legs out from under cavalry horse and knights, and crushing armored troops.
The large war flail was most notably used during the Hussite Wars, as the Hussite “national weapon”.

Book print, c. 1545-1547During impact, the long spikes on a large war flail had the effect of shredding, tangling and snagging on cloth padding, and flesh. Good if you just want to bring down cavalry in open fields, however for general use, spikes tend to reduce the flails overall versatility, spikes severely limit the number of techniques that can be safely executed, and can get inconveniently caught and tangled in foliage and furniture at the most inopportune times.
Long spikes make transport of the weapon awkward and even hazardous to the inattentive, and place additional time and cost on the weapons manufacture.

So while spikes can have their time and place for use, big spikes do not automatically make a flail better or more desirable for all around use.

Big spikes can even make the flail vulnerable to entanglement by a prepared opponent, for example throwing a heavy cloak or banner into the spikes, can effectively render the flail useless, long enough to close the gap, and land a good follow up attack on the entangled flail wielder.

How old is the use of small flails as weapons in Europe?75GGD00Z_cropOne interesting conjecture regards the possible clues preserved in Norse mythology, suggested by the odd magical weapon of the god Thor, the “Mjöllnir” mallet (a hammer, club, or sometimes ax depending upon translator).
It is proposed in this speculative theory that Thor may have begun at least in part as an early agricultural deity of wide popularity among farm laborers, as a protector of crops against frost, and a strengthener of threshers.
This early version of Thor as a mighty thresher, would have been married to an early version of the Norse goddess Sif, a golden haired goddess of the harvest and corn, a deity perhaps even venerated with the last sheaf to be harvested from the field, in a tradition similar to other such harvest customs found throughout Europe, note the tradition in Germany where the last sheaf was made into a female figure, dressed, and carried home with ceremony to preside over the threshing, see also the common theme in medieval and early Renaissance art, known as the “Labours of the Months” where the Corn maiden Virgo rules over the month of August and its labor of Threshing.
Virgo_HarvestThe Old Norse word “Sif” and “sif”, is cognate with the English word “Sib”, as in Sibling, both meaning “family”, “related”.
Thus it can be hypothesized that Sif could be properly considered as the Sifter of the grain, the  winnower Sister to the thresher Thor.
This sibling pairing of ancient agricultural deities, would be comparable to others, such as the Egyptian deities Isis and Osiris, Osiris just happens to also carry a flail in traditional depictions, and goes by the title of Khenti-Amentiu, which means “Foremost of the Westerners” (the Western regions being associated with the afterlife).

Following this line of speculation, the short handled mallet that the thresher Thor would have used to smite the frost spirits, would have been a short handled flail he could carry tucked away in his shirt, when swung lightning fast in a fight, the striking rod would fly out in a flash, and then be back in his grasp ready to lash out again, its impact like thunder and no frost spirit a match for its strength.Mercurius_Rusticus_smallAccording to this proposed theory, when Thor and Sif were later absorbed into Viking warrior Iron Age culture, Thor became the noble son of Odin. Sif no longer a leading queen, ruler of gathered harvest sheaves and winnower companion to the threshers’ labor, was marginalized in the myth, her importance omitted, to be left with only a passing bit part and a wig.
The pounding flail mallet of farmhand thresher was replaced with the pounding hammer mallet of an artisan blacksmith, a tool more fitting for a son of a noble Viking warrior. The poetic comparison of threshing with blacksmith work is not uncommon, for example from “Archaeologia aeliana, or, Miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity” page 122.

whirling the flails round their heads, struck alternate blows on the ears of corn, like smiths on iron, the chaff flying from the floor like sparks from the forge.

Yet in the stories, this new blacksmiths hammer still retained properties upon which the old popular stories plot twists often hinged. This naturally would have lead to a magical rationalization for how the new hammers short handle could fly out and return to the wielders grasp in a flash, And how it could change size to fit hidden in a shirt.

This theory would also explain the Viking tradition that those warriors who fell in battle, were said to go to follow Odin in the afterlife, while farm laborers that died at home a “straw death” were said to go to follow Thor in the afterlife. Odin a god of warriors, Thor a god of farmhands, warrior Odin rides a horse, farmer Thor rides in a cart pulled by goats.

historiated-initial-s-depicting-a-man-threshing_cropIf this theory were correct, and I have found no good reason to doubt it in my own research, it would mean common European farmers were swinging flashy pocket size flails around, long before the post European contact Okinawa islanders ever adopted “Nunchaku” into their Karate, from whichever still unverifiable and highly contested source, the Okinawa rebels got their flails from.

My own guess is Okinawa islanders imitated flails carried by European visitors, much in the same way it is said, that playing cards were introduced to Japan by Portuguese traders during the mid 16th century, European cards which notably are said to have lead to the origin for the modern Japanese word for gangster, “yakuza”. Since in a form of blackjack known as “oicho-kabu”, the worst hand is an eight, a nine and a three, phonetically expressed as “ya-ku-za” 8-9-3.

The reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of the Elder Futhark u rune is Ūruz meaning “wild ox”, as in that which you grip by the horns, holding the bull by both horns. A good slang term for a short handle flail you hold by each rod (gripping the beast by the horns), and oxen were commonly used in drier regions to tread upon grain as a form of threshing, or to pull a threshing sled.

Pictorially the Rune shape of Ūruz can be interpreted as a short handle flail.

Elder Futhark u rune as flail
Elder Futhark u rune Ūruz, an ox, pictured alongside and matching the shape of a short handle threshing flail.

In the Old English Rune poem it says of the Ūruz Rune

The aurochs is proud and has great horns;
it is a very savage beast and fights with its horns;

No fence against a wild ox. No fence against a flail.

Anyone that has had experience in raising cattle, will know that even with modern barbwire and electric fencing, keeping a full grown bull in a field that the bull does not want to stay in, can be a real chore.

This is why farmers traditionally did not bother with trying to fence in grown bulls, and instead put a ring in the nose of cattle, to provide a means of better control.

Example of a modern bull kept on a nose ring, source.
flail as bulls head.

In practice you can attach a ribbon (preferably green like a serpent) to an end or both ends of your Ūruz “wild ox” flail, to provide visual aid in tracing out the path of each swing of the flail. If you want, you can also add “Cowbells”, small bells hung from the flail joint.

In the Norse Mythology we find the tale of how the Midgard Serpent called “Jörmungand”, swallowed a head of an Ox given to it by Thor, when Thor went fishing at sea and used the Ox head as bait, and thus the “serpent” ribbon came to swallow or bite onto the “Ox head” flail.

Battage_BnF_ département des Manuscrits_Latin 12834_ fol_64vThe Karate claims of a solely Asian origin for the nunchaku, fail to provide supporting evidence to back said claims, and even fail to agree among each other as to how nunchaku use began, and why Nunchaku use declined after Europeans were barred from entry to Japan.

These Karate claims have failed to provide examples of historical pre-European contact depictions of Asian nunchaku, preferably with the iconic symmetrical length rods as used by Bruce Lee.

These Karate claims lack a recorded historical kata using nunchaku, while for example, over a dozen historic traditional Kata for fighting with a staff, are known of today in Okinawa martial arts.

I am not saying that Karate is bad, what I am saying is that the evidence appears to point to Karate having preserved in part a form of flail fighting, that was derived from an imported European tool/weapon, thus the study of nunchaku can benefit Western martial artists in better understanding their own threshing heritage.