Cast Shillelagh
For around a year and a half I played the Dungeons and Dragons campaign Curse of Strahd as a Kenku Grave Cleric who carried around a quarterstaff, which I upgraded to a Gulthias Staff, and then to a super tricked out quarterstaff called the Staff of Wracking Heals, homebrewed by the DM and one of the other PCs. But, either way the walking sticks all got the same bonuses when I used my second favorite cantrip, Shillelagh. It's no secret that Dungeons and Dragons is inspired by worldwide legends and mythology and for such a long time I have been wondering what the word 'shillelagh' came from. Other than hearing it in a list of generic Irish stereotypes along with shamrocks, clovers, leprechauns, and Guiness. It just took me this long to look it up. In this article, I will first examine my introduction to the word through the rules of D&D. Second, I will look at what the shillelagh is in our world and the role it continues to plays in the legends and history and culture of Ireland. This will end in the examination of why the designers may have decided to name the spell as they did; where did the idea of a magical spiritually-imbued druidic weapon come from?
*Even though this won't be out by St. Patrick's Day (who wasn't Irish... but I won't go into that whole thing) I hope that someone can learn something about interpreting contemporary sources to their sources.
The Magic of Nature
This cantrip (level 0 spell) is part of the school of Transmutation and written to be usable by Druids [and a cleric]. Upon casting on the wood of a club or quarterstaff you are holding is imbued with nature's power. For the duration (1 minute), you get use your spellcasting ability instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of melee attacks using that weapon [which is super helpful as a weakling], and the weapon's damage die becomes a d8 of magical bludgeoning damage, if it isn't already. The spell ends if you cast it again or if you let go of the weapon. The components (things you need to cast the spell) are vocals, sematic (moving fingers around), and materials, which are mistletoe, a shamrock leaf, and a club or quarterstaff to cast it on.
~ (Basic Rules, pg. 275)
The Gulthias staff is a spongy, black length of wood of branches of the Gulthias tree, which can be wielded as a magical quarterstaff. On a hit, it deals damage as a normal quarterstaff, and you can expend 1 charge to use Vampiric Strike to regain a number of hit points equal to the damage dealt by the weapon. Each time someone uses the special ability, red blood oozes from the staff, and they must succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or be afflicted with short-term madness, which connects to the evil of the origin of the staff and its' "children", the blights.
Blights "Legends tell of a vampire named Gulthias who worked terrible magic and raised up an abominable tower called Nightfang Spire. Gulthias was undone when a hero plunged a wooden stake through his heart, but as the vampire was destroyed, his blood infused the stake with a dreadful power. In time, tendrils of new growth sprouted from the wood, growing into a sapling infused with the vampire’s evil essence. It is said that a mad druid discovered the sapling, transplanting it to an underground grotto where it could grow. From this Gulthias tree came the seeds from which the first blights were sown. ...Wherever a tree or plant is contaminated by a fragment of an evil mind or power, a Gulthias tree can rise to infest and corrupt the surrounding forest. Its evil spreads through root and soil to other plants, which perish or transform into blights." (D&D Monster Manual).
Of course the Gulthias staff and the vampire from which the evil originated has no connection to the Shillelagh spell, the description of the black wood material is interestingly familiar to the traditional wood used to make a shillelagh, although the real thing is one piece, and doesn't bleed on its own. And, it's also interesting that the Blights are blights on the land like the great string of blights on Ireland crops (including the potato famine), when they would whither, turn black, and die.
Etymology - What is it?
The word Shillelagh is thought to have come from the Irish phrase sail éille or 'saill éalaigh', which translates into English as “thonged willow-stick” (Barry, 2013). 'Sail' means willow or cudgel (a stout club) and 'éille' is an adjective/verb-ish form of the word 'iall' which means thong or string, strap, leash, etc. (Hurley, 2007:12; Dolan, 2006: 209). The thong part of the name comes from the leather wrist strap joined to the handle and the Shillelagh was commonly used as a walking cane or walking stick, with a large knot on the top to also be used as a weapon club or cudgel, for gripping or striking (Chisholm, 1911). They are typically stout, knotty, and made of Blackthorn (sloe) wood (Prunus spinosa) or oak (Chouinard, n.d.) and sometimes imbued with metal. Calling it Willow Staff might be ironic because while willow staves can make nice walking sticks, they are not good clubs, since it's much more brittle wood.
It could have been named directly from the materials or the tool/weapon could have been named after the location where it came from. The practice of making these is thought to have originated in the village of Shillelagh, County Wicklow, which was once to be surrounded by vast oak forests, where much of the material was harvested. The geographic name derives from Síol Éalaigh, which in English translates to "Descendents of Éalach (Hall, 1841: 426; Hurley, 2007; Oxford English Dictionary: Etymology: the name of a barony and village in Co. Wicklow. OED provides the following quotation: "1785 F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Shillaley, an oaken sapling, or cudgel, (Irish) from wood of that name famous for its oaks."; Online Etymology Dictionary: shillelagh 1772, "cudgel," earlier, "oak wood used to make cudgels" 1670s, from Shillelagh, town and barony in Co. Wicklow, Ireland, famous for its oaks). This geographic connection is, however, likely not actually true as there aren't historic connections and unfortunately all we have right now is a very strong tourist trade and that both the original Irish names ended up with the same Anglicized pronunciation (Keenan, 2003).
As a cudgel, the stout sticks were carried by people since 10,000 years ago, according to artifacts found in Kenya (Lahr, Rivera, Power, Mounier, Copsey, Crivellaro, Edung, et al., 2016: 394–8; Chisholm, 1911: 564). Picking out another instances, they were also carried by peasants during the Middle Ages, functioning as a walking staff and weapon for both self-defence and for wartime. Then, during the 18th century single-stick fighting, which is a sport to train for the use of the single handed backsword was called singlesticking, or cudgel-play. (Chisholm, 1911). Just like in D&D, the wounds inflicted by a club are generally known as strike trauma or blunt-force trauma injuries, or bludgeoning damage [the club or staff damage before the Shillelagh spell is cast].
According to researcher J. W. Hurley:
"Methods of shillelagh fighting have evolved over a period of thousands of years, from the spear, staff, axe and sword fighting of the Irish. There is some evidence which suggests that the use of Irish stick weapons may have evolved in a progression from a reliance on long spears and wattles, to shorter spears and wattles, to the shillelagh, alpeen,[c] blackthorn (walking-stick) and short cudgel. By the 19th century Irish shillelagh-fighting had evolved into a practice which involved the use of three basic types of weapons, sticks which were long, medium or short in length." (Hurley, 2007: 347).
Types
The first distinction we can make between shillelagh is: by function [what they were primarily designed for], by the shape of the head [which will influence the function], or even the type of wood. Because the earliest names for these weapons were "Cleithailpín", which just means 'a stick with a knob', 'a knobstick', or "bata", and that just means stick or club, there is a wide variety of styles. And the bata was the weapon of choice in the Irish Stick Fighting, which will be discussed later. These styles had measurements ranging from the length of a walking stick, measuring between 3-5 feet (Hurley, 2007: 144,157), with one made for dueling and such, the bata or sticks could include short mallets only 1 – 2 feet long to long poles 6 – 9 feet (Fitzgerald, 2010; Chouinard, n.d.).
Duelling Shillelagh
Duelling shillelagh were shillelagh adapted primarily for one-on-one fighting, hence the name. It's a slightly lighter shaft that allowed a bit more speed on defense, which could allow one to give the opponent “discouraging dings" or to try to disarm them with quick strikes to the hand. This sort of fighting style also shows up in modern Southeast Asian stick fighters competition with rattan sticks, or towards the start of last century in India with fighting canes. A duelling shillelagh could have a 'reasonably' heavy head, so it had the speed and “cut and thrust” advantages of a light cane, but could hit solidly when needed, although a “duel” with one wasn’t always a lethal encounter.. In the c. 17-1800s, this style of shillelagh was commonly being adopted as a gentleman’s accessory, specifically by military officers who had usually been trained in some form of sword play that could apply to a shillelagh with the right proportions (Mike, Claymore Shillelaghs workshop).
Fair-Fighting Shillelagh
“Fair fighting” or “faction fighting” refers to a practice where groups of young men from one area would visit other areas (usually during fairs) and participate in semi-organised group stick fights. Interestingly, similar team fighting events existed as far away as Italy, Russia, and India, so the it wasn't only an Irish fighting art. A shillelagh, however, that was made for this style would have a heavier and thicker shaft, both to survive an afternoon’s melee, and to be able to make any hit actually count since in a 'scrum' one might not ever face an opponent for more than a few seconds. In these it was considered 'bad form' to have a weighted shillelagh, but "that’s not to say it didn’t happen" (Mike, Claymore Shillelaghs workshop; Fitzgerald, 2014).
Defensive Shillelagh / Poacher’s Sticks
For defensive shillelagh any head would do, but the knobbier and more irregular the better, since they were only brought out for lethal intent. These were also likely heavier, and probably shorter than other shillelagh for close-in fighting. Often, whether the knobs or bumps were left on the head of the shillelagh was what marked the distinction. While a smooth-headed shilelagh was made for a more comfortable walking stick and was more likely to deliver a survivable concussion as a sporting or duelling weapon, heads with a small bump or knob on it was more likely to break the skull itself and cause immediate death or death by cerebral trauma. So, bringing a shillelagh with “skull breakers” to a faction fight would be like bringing a real rifle to paintball. Poachers sticks also refer to a kind of shillelagh, but are usually more heavily weighted, longer cross country walking sticks. Whether these really did turn up on the hands of poachers is hard to say but the literature refers to them in passing and intended for nefarious purposes.
- (Mike, Claymore Shillelaghs workshop)
Canes
The New England style shillelagh had heads that almost resemble conventional canes, but were more “T” shaped with a little of the handle protruding forward (gripped by pointer and middle finger) and a little protruding back (wrapped by ring a pinky finger). Over time these evolved into an increasingly urbanised populace took to using the fashionable light, slim, and very straight shillelagh, suited to being easy to carry walking sticks. In this form, the shillelagh, which was otherwise culturally denigrated (we think of a traditional weapon from a rural and historically “othered” ethnic group), was established in an urban populations throughout the United Kingdom (Claymore Shillelaghs workshop). The shillelagh style canes, however, tended to be thick enough to be useful in the hands of those trained in european fencing, savate, or Japanese arts (often taught as “Bartitsu” after the fiercely-moustachioed E.W. Barton-Wright who popularised them)(Claymore Shillelaghs workshop). Which may be why, in period-action films, fancy canes are almost always used as a possible head-splitting weapon. And eventually this form changed into the more cane-like New England shillelagh, which can look the same as conventional canes but for a much larger, thicker handle (occasionally filled with lead).
- (Mike, Claymore Shillelaghs workshop)
“Claymore” Style
Lastly, some didn’t have a distinct head and the weight at the 'top' comes from a shaft that quickly thickens towards one end with enough room to be hollowed out to hold molten lead shot in the "hitting end" (Mike, Claymore Shillelaghs workshop; Fitzgerald, 2010). This is known as a “loaded stick”. Branches like this tend to come from slow-growing trees that grew in low or poorly lit conditions, so they are not easy to find. The shillelagh made of Blackthorn are generally so heavy that there is no need to “load” them as they come “preloaded” (Fitzgerald, 2010). The “Claymore” style of shillelagh, the name of which came from the Claymore Shillelagh company is not new with the special name that refers to a shillelagh where the bulb of the head projects forward over the shaft. This makes this type easier to carry as a walking stick (since it can be carried by the first two fingers of the hand and tends to fall back into the hand when lifted). The forward-projecting head also acts as a hand guard when gripped in a sword-style grip, both protecting the hand and giving extra leverage for faster movements (Mike, Claymore Shillelaghs workshop).
Fighting Style
"The Shillelagh, in this case referred to as bata, was the primary weapon used in Bataireacht – a form of traditional Irish stick fighting popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century bataireacht was practiced primarily with Irish gangs called “factions” who often fought each other at gatherings and social events like the fair, wake, or holidays (ex. Saint’s Feast Day). While most of these fights were purely for sport they eventually took on a political and violent edge as the years went on. There is also interesting to note the link between hurling and shillelagh bata. Hurling is a very old Gaelic sport, which still very popular in Ireland, resembling La Crosse in which an axe-like stick, resembling a shillelagh, is used (Conley, 1999; Chouinard, n.d.). This sport used to be for trainer youngsters in warfare and teamwork tactics and, sadly, it was not rare for people to be killed in such games (Conley, 1999), and faction fighters were often very close to hurling groups. The hurling stick was in fact used as a weapon in faction fights (Hurley, 2007). Faction fights remained a common occurrence up until the 1840s and the last recorded brawl took place in 1887 at a fair in Co. Tipperary and these were often shows for fun and entertainment (Fitzgerald, 2010). So, by this point in the 19th Century Shillelagh fighting evolved into a martial art. Fathers taught their sons how to fight and many young boys received shillelaghs as a significant rite of manhood. Some boys were educated in the ways of the Shillelagh by the local Maighistir Prionnsa or 'fencing master' "(Mike, Claymore Shillelaghs workshop). These advanced fighters grab two sticks and throw down in a Troid de Bata or “two-stick fight”. The stick of the offhand is used as a shield (Fitzgerald, 2010).
Legends of Magic
Shillelagh came into use around 1670 and was a general term for a stick, club or cudgel used for as a weapon, walking stick, and may have been seen as a good luck charm. This idea is tainted by more recent ideas like the “Lucky Charm” style shillelaghs, a thin shaft attached to a round section of wood, basically what stereotypical leprechauns are almost always drawn carrying.
An 1892 depiction of a leprechaun-like man carrying a shillelagh walking stick.
Magic user by chuckdee.jpg added by Netherith
Leprechaun: A fairy-shoe maker (My Modern Met, 2021)
A stock photo of the leprechaun, the legend has taken on a life of its own,with elements borrowed from the luchorpán and the clúrachán.
There’s no actual historical evidence for a folk belief around these as “lucky charms” and thus everything written is speculation as to how these came to be identified as a cultural artifact.
Historically one way to condition/dry a shillelagh after curing it was to hang them in the flue of a chimney or over a fireplace, so some writers believe this effected various changes to the wood to harden or lighten it and with more discussing the process as converting the wood to a harder material. If this latter belief is true it seems likely [at least to me] that this sort of 'magic' would have appeared in early mythology, so as it's not talked about outside the lore of modern shillelagh-making, it's probably not an 'ancient' myth thing [although that doesn't make it less important, especially if the human race can make it further into the future].
Looking back at the general history of the region, there was a time when Ireland was being run by an occupying military from a disprit culture. So if some member of the military asked a householder why they had a lump of wood with a big knot on the end hanging over the mantelpiece they would have some explaining to do. Maybe, over time, rather than explaining to the local bailiff that they were following traditions by conditioning a weapon that their village had been making for over 400 years, a householder would shrug it off, replying, “Those are just for good luck” (Mike, Claymore Shillelaghs workshop).
Shillelaghs in Song
Other than being spell in D&D and a possibly very expensive souvenir that one never actually uses, the shillelagh appears in folk songs. A song from the 18th century, "The Sprig of Shillelagh" is also known to have popularized the term and exported it through Irish immigration and talks about the presumed last great oak tree from the grand forest. More recent appearances in music, like by the Dubliners, in the 1960s, brought heaps of traditional Irish ballads, folk songs, and drinking songs into pop culture with new bands making new covers for new generations. A couple examples are "The Rocky Road to Dublin" and "Finnegan's Wake", the original versions of which were published in the 19th century. D. K. Gavan wrote "The Galway Poet" [the original title for "The Rocky Road to Dublin"] for the English music hall performer Harry Clifton (1824–1872) (The Era magazine, 22 February 1863), and "Finnegan's Wake" was an Irish-American comic ballad, first published in New York in 1864 (McNally, 2019). The ballad “Finnegan’s Wake” is generally thought to have coined the term 'shillelagh law' within the phrase "Shillelagh law did all engage", referring to a brawl, signifying that a fight has broken out because "shillelagh law" itself has been explained as meaning the accepted rule governing the usage of the weapon (Carleton, 1996; Hurley, 2007: 11). And in “The Rocky Road to Dublin” the singer describes how he fashions a shillelagh to use as a striking weapon to defend himself against bandits and highwaymen, “cut a stout, black thorn to banish ghosts and goblins”. In the later story of the lyrics, the main character engages them in a fight using his blackthorn shillelagh, but is outnumbered until a group of Irishmen from Galway come to his rescue and let him get to Dublin:
"The boys in Liverpool, when on the dock I landed.
Called myself a fool, I could no longer stand it;
My blood began to boil, my temper I was losing.
And poor old Erin's Isle, they all began abusing.
"Hurrah! my boys," says I, my shillelagh I let fly.
Some Galway boys were by, they saw I was a hobbling;
Then with a loud "hurrah !" they joined me in the fray.
Faugh-a-ballagh! Clear the way! for the rocky road to Dublin!"
- Manus O'Connor in 1901
Reasoning & Conclusions
D&D has had a druid spell called “Shillelagh” in its rules for almost 40 years, in which the spell enables the player to take an ordinary club or quarterstaff (early editions required an oak club) and make it magical to hurt creatures immune to normal damage, and can give have various bonuses in combat depending on the edition (D&D Basic Rules; Mike, Claymore Shillelaghs workshop). The idea of a shillelagh being magic might come from two ideas. Firstly shillelagh were natural objects and to a druidic or animistic culture every interaction with nature could have carried spiritual importance. Nature could intentionally bless or reward someone with the perfect shillelagh staff and was seen as nature, in the form of the tree or forest, giving a gift to the finder. Thus, the finder must have had a great spiritual affinity with nature, or that the stick itself had been imbued with that sense of spiritual blessing to the wielder. So, like the mana of other tools/weapons/pieces of art that a person might carry the rest of their life and be buried with might have felt like a very concentrated and enduring form of this spiritual blessing from the natural world.
The shillelagh would have come from many possible tree species, the common ancient examples being oak, hazel, gorse (furze) and ivy, and more recently used species like blackthorn, acacia, and even rhododendron or rosewood. Tradition states that shillelagh were made when a young Irishman would plant two oak trees (also an important economic crop at a time); one tree would be used to make his fighting club, and one would make his coffin. Twisting by modern, urban people changed the lore to mean that around the age of 14 a boy would uproot an oak tree and carry it around as a club [I suppose one planted upon his birth?], as people are said to have done with blackthorn plants once Irish Oaks became scarce. But, a fourteen-year-old oak tree would be so large that this would be impossible. It is more likely, therefore, that the old tradition may refer to a young man having a single oak tree that he would make all his shillelaghs from and might also be the tree from which his coffin was made, [but left to stand in the forest in the meantime]. This echoes the very idea of a special spiritual connection to a certain tree or grove.
In “Faction Fights”, a sporting event that was not quite a riot, in the form of a mass team stick-fight. In my mind, it's like a sword fight at a pirate or renaissance fair, but bigger, or like a LARP, but with real weapons, even though no one is trying to kill each other. These faction fights would occur on feast or market days, and so became associated (in Ireland’s Christian tradition) with feast days of particular saints. Before too long people could come to make the cultural association between the feast day, the religious figure, and the weapon itself (Mike, Claymore Shillelaghs workshop).
Modern shillelagh take a range of forms but are very close in execution or intention to the ancient weapons they derive from. While, they are now mainly used as walking sticks, they still harken back to a tradition of arms, celebration, and nature that reaches back to the bronze age. Part of their beauty remains the same though, they are an object from nature that reminds us that we exist because of the “blessings”of the ecosystems that support us – however remotely we live from them. So maybe, the inspiration for naming a spell that gives an extra boost to hit opponents was that; the finishing/conditioning of a tool makes it stronger and/or the writers knew some Irish history and folklore and wanted to incorporate the importance of nature sneakily. Or, maybe I'm overthinking it.
Further Reading
Work Cited
Barry, Michael (2013). Dublin's Strangest Tales: Extraordinary but true stories. Pavilion Books. p. 9.
Carleton, William (1996). "James Joyce: Here Comes Everyword". Manchester Memoirs. Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Club" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 564.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Single-stick" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 25(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 148–149.
Chouinard, M. (n.d.). The stick is king: The Shillelagh Bata or the rediscovery of a living Irish martial tradition.
Conley, Carolyn. (1999). The agreeable recreation of fighting. Journal of social history, vol. 33, no. 1. pp. 57-72.
Crosland, T. W. H. (1905). The Wild Irishman. London: TW Laurie.
Dolan, T. P. (2006). A dictionary of Hiberno-English. Gill & Macmillan Ltd.
Fitzgerald, B. (2010, Dec 03). How shillelagh fighting evolved into a Irish martial art. IrishCentral.Com. https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/the-shillelagh-a-brief-history-of-the-irish-fighting-stick-111255159-237767481.
Greene, L. (2000). Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 89 (353), 90-92. Retrieved March 19, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30095334.
Hall, S. C. (1841). Traits and stories of the Irish peasantry. p. 426
Hurley, John W. (2007). Shillelagh: The Irish Fighting Stick. Caravat Press.
Keenan, Mark (1 June 2003). "Ireland: Tunnel vision brings history to life". The Sunday Times.
Lahr, M. Mirazón; Rivera, F.; Power, R. K.; Mounier, A.; Copsey, B.; Crivellaro, F.; Edung, J. E.; Fernandez, J. M. Maillo; Kiarie, C. (2016). "Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya". Nature. 529 (7586): 394–398. Bibcode:2016Natur.529..394L. doi:10.1038/nature16477. PMID 26791728. S2CID 4462435.
Leach, M. (1957). Western Folklore, 16(4) by B.A.Botkin. pp. 299-301. doi:10.2307/1496032
McNally, Frank. (5 November 2019). 'Manhattan Transfer'. An Irishman's Diary. The Irish Times.
My Modern Met. (2021, March 17). A “Wee” History of the Leprechaun, a Character from Irish Folklore. https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-a-leprechaun/.
Steuart, J. A. (1896). DUBLIN AS IT IS. The Windsor magazine: an illustrated monthly for men and women, 5, 446-457.