:Welsh hook
{{Short description|Medieval Welsh pole weapon}}
{{For|the disused Great Western Railway station |List of closed railway stations in Britain: W-Z}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
A Welsh hook is a type of polearm, a halberd-like weapon with a hook on the back, and gained its name due to its prevalence among the Welsh soldiers during the medieval wars against the English.{{sfn|Lublin|2013|p=115}} It closely related to the agricultural implement known as a bill and is commonly classified as a type of poleaxe.{{sfn|Shakespeare|Rowe|1821|pp=286–287}}
In literature
- "That no man presume to wear any weapons, especially Welsh-hooks and forest-bills" ("The History of Sir John Oldcastle", Folio 3, 1664, 60).{{Sfn|Shakespeare|Rowe|1821|p=286}}
- Falstaff: "My own knee? ... and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook,—What, a plague, call you him?" (Shakespeare Henry IV Part 1, 290).{{Sfn|Shakespeare|Rowe|1821|p=286}}
Notes
{{reflist}}
References
- {{Citation |last=Lublin |first=Dr Robert I |year=2013 |title=Costuming the Shakespearean Stage: Visual Codes of Representation in Early Modern Theatre and Culture|publisher=Ashgate Publishing |isbn=9781409479048 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=j_GhAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA115 115]}}
- {{Citation |last1=Shakespeare |first1=William |last2=Rowe |first2=Nicholas |display-authors=etal |title=The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare: Richard II. Henry IV, pt. I|year=1821 |publisher=F. C. and J. Rivington |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=hKrTAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA286 286]–287}}
{{Pole weapons}}
{{Polearm-stub}}
{{Wales-hist-stub}}