I’ve just devoured ‘Wolf Hall’, Hilary Mantel’s remarkable Booker Prize-winning novel. I’d hazard a guess that it’s the first winner of that illustrious prize to feature a detailed discussion of the manufacture of floggers:

He [Thomas More] beats himself with a small scourge, of the type used by some religious orders. What lodges in his mind, Thomas Cromwell’s, is that somebody makes these instruments of daily torture. Someone combs the horsehair into coarse tufts, knots them and chops the blunt ends…

Is it monks who make them, knotting and snipping in a fury of righteousness, chuckling at the thought of the pain they will cause to persons unknown? Are simple villagers paid – how, by the dozen? – for making flails with waxed knots? When the money for their honest labour is put into their hands, do the makers think of the hands that will pick up the product?

Quite aside from such fascinating stuff, the book really does live up to the hype (despite, IMHO, taking a fair few pages to find its distinctive voice and get into its stride). Highly recommended!