The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #106933 Message #2214224
Posted By: Rowan
12-Dec-07 - 10:20 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Songs about women killing men
Subject: RE: Origins: Songs about women killing men
There is a wonderful poem by Thomas Hardy about a woman whose husband who comes home drunk each night and beats her, is sewn up into a blanket so he starves to death.
While I note the subsequent corrections, I'm reminded of the fate of a bloke in East Gippsland. There are lots of sheep there and one particular bloke did a lot of work for the sheep cockies round about; he regularly came home drunk and ripped into his wife, beating her up. She took it for years and then, one night, snapped.
One of the jobs in sheep country is "marking the lambs", involving drafting them onto a rotating table with up to five positions, with one task for each position. Vaccinating, drenching, tailing (removing tails), and castrating are the usual tasks done in "marking". Tailing and castrating may be done with a knife but are usually done with a small. tightly elastic ring that is fitted over the tail or scrotum; it rather painlessly cuts of the blood supply and the distal bit withers without loss of blood and drops off after a few days. The rings are spread with a spreader known as an elastrator, the tail or scrotum is inserted and the elastrator removed. Everyone in sheep country has their own elastrator.
No prizes for guessing his fate. Gives new meaning to the phrase "ringing endorsement". By the time he woke up in the morning it was too late, even though he hightailed it down to the doctor's to get it removed carefully.
Didn't exactly kill him but his testosterone levels and reputation were both rather diminished.
Cheers, Rowan