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Flails have generally fallen into disuse in many nations because of the availability of technologies such as combine harvesters that require much less manual labour. However, in many jurisdictions, including for example Minnesota, wild rice can only be harvested using manual means - specifically by using a canoe and a flail that is made of smooth round wood no more than 30 inches long.
As with most agricultural tools, flails were often used as weapons by farmers (for lack of a better weapon); for example, the French revolution was mostly fought with agricultural tools. Village martial arts would typically have trained farmers to use flails as weapons. Flails used in Japanese martial arts are normally called nunchaku.
A flail is also a medieval weapon made of a spiked metal ball attached to a handle with a chain. It is similar to, and some would say a type of, the morning starThe morning star was a medieval weapon resembling a mace, but with a large spike on the end and smaller spikes around the circumference. It was also known as the godendag (from the German for "good day") and the holy water sprinkler (from its resemblance weapon. The flail is more powerful than the mace, because the metal ball is swung in circles, to gain momentum, before bringing it crashing down on an enemy. The flail is more difficult to master, because it requires more control to keep the ball from hitting the wielder. This sort of flail was most used in the 13th century to the 15th century.