#Arthur: I’ll give Merlin a chance to not look completely hopeless by using a flail

[hellerscape]

So in this scene where Arthur and Merlin fight in the market, Arthur hands him this weapon:

Most people think it’s a mace, but it’s actually a flail. Basically flails are medieval weapons that were originally agricultural tools and they were used for thrashing the grains from the stalks of crops:

“Farmers in the medieval period were intimately familiar with flails and used them extensively in their occupation.  As with other agricultural implements such as sythes and pitchforks, when peasants were assembled into the ad hoc armies of the time these tools became weapons."

I’m not sure if the writers did this on purpose but by Arthur choosing a flail and not an actual mace or a sword, he’s giving Merlin a chance to defend himself because Arthur probably guessed Merlin would’ve been familiar with a flail.

Btw this is a mace:

Dedicated to my fellow history nerd @aristarrtled