The length of the shillalah gives it a great advantage over a shorter stick, for, when held about a third of its length from the end, the shorter portion serves to guard the right side of the head and the right forearm. Indeed, the definition of the quarter-staff, given at the commencement of Chapter II., seems to me to apply far better to the shillalah, which may in a sense be regarded as the link between the ordinary walking-stick and the mighty weapon which Robin Hood wielded so deftly in his combat with Little John. The use of the point is almost unknown in Irish conflicts. My countrymen twirl their shillalahs above their heads with a whirring noise, and endeavour to knock off their opponents' hats so as to get at their heads. Then begins the fun of the fair--all is slashing and whacking, and the hardest skull generally comes off the best. Sometimes a great deal of skill is displayed, and I often wonder whether a really expert swordsman would be much more than a match for some quick, strong, Kerry boys I could pick out. Be it remembered, a swordsman invariably keeps his left hand behind his back, whilst an Irishman nearly always makes his left forearm the guard for the left side of his head, and so has more scope for hitting than he would otherwise have. One is here reminded of the conflict between Fitz-James and the Highland Chieftain, Roderick Dhu:-- "Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu, That on the field his targe he threw, Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide Had death so often dashed aside; For, trained abroad his arms to wield, Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield." The left arm, supplying the place of the targe, alluded to in Scott's lines, is doubtless an advantage; but, in the case of the two combatants whose merits we are considering, the ordinary swordsman possesses superior reach, can lunge out further, and knows full well the value of the point. A melee at an Irish fair is worth seeing, but it is better not to join in it, if possible. A number of the "boys," from Cork or an adjacent county, were once had up before Judge Keogh for beating a certain man within an inch of his life. A witness under examination--after graphically describing how one of the prisoners had beaten the poor man "wid a stone, and he lying senseless in the road;" how another had hit the "crater wid a thick wattle;" and how a third had kicked him in the back--was asked what one Michael O'Flannagan, another of the prisoners, had done. "Begorra, your honour," said the witness, "devil a hap'orth was Micky doing at all, at all; he was just walking round searching for a vacancy." A similar story is told of about a dozen tinkers who had set upon one man and were unmercifully beating him. Presently there was a lull in the proceedings, and a little deformed man, brandishing a very big stick, elbowed his way through the crowd, shouting, "Och, now, boys, for the love of mercy let a poor little cripple have just one stroke at him."