The Banú Bakr now prepared for a decisive battle. As their enemy had the advantage in numbers, they adopted a stratagem devised by Ḥárith. "Fight them," said he, "with your women. Equip every woman with a small waterskin and give her a club. Place the whole body of them behind you--this will make you more resolved in battle--and wear some distinguishing mark which they will recognise, so that when a woman passes by one of your wounded she may know him by his mark and give him water to drink, and raise him from the ground; but when she passes by one of your foes she will smite him with her club and slay him." So the Bakrites shaved their heads, devoting themselves to death, and made this a mark of recognition between themselves and their women, and this day was called the Day of Shearing. Now Jaḥdar b. Ḑubay‘a was an ill-favoured, dwarfish man, with fair flowing love-locks, and he said, "O my people, if ye shave my head ye will disfigure me, so leave my locks for the first horseman of Taghlib that shall emerge from the hill-pass on the morrow" (meaning "I will answer for him, if my locks are spared"). On his request being granted, he exclaimed:-- [Sidenote: The vow of Jaḥdar b. Ḑubay‘a.] "_To wife and daughter Henceforth I am dead: Dust for ointment On my hair is shed._ _Let me close with the horsemen Who hither ride, Cut my locks from me If I stand aside!_ _Well wots a mother If the son she bore And swaddled on her bosom And smelt him o'er,_ _Whenever warriors In the mellay meet, Is a puny weakling Or a man complete!_"[125] He kept his promise but in the course of the fight he fell, severely wounded. When the women came to him, they saw his love-locks and imagining that he was an enemy despatched him with their clubs. [Sidenote: Women as combatants.] The presence of women on the field and the active share they took in the combat naturally provoked the bitterest feelings. If they were not engaged in finishing the bloody work of the men, their tongues were busy inciting them. We are told that a daughter of al-Find bared herself recklessly and chanted:-- "_War! War! War! War! It has blazed up and scorched us sore. The highlands are filled with its roar. Well done, the morning when your heads ye shore!_"[126] The mothers were accompanied by their children, whose tender age did not always protect them from an exasperated foe. It is related that a horseman of the Banú Taghlib transfixed a young boy and lifted him up on the point of his spear. He is said to have been urged to this act of savagery by one al-Bazbáz, who was riding behind him on the crupper. Their triumph was short; al-Find saw them, and with a single spear-thrust pinned them to each other--an exploit which his own verses record.