The only thing black about a blackthorn is the fruit, the sloe, and even that is black with a purple sheen. Blackthorn sticks in their natural state are a slatey grey, darker than the other thorn, the hawthorn. But not black. Unless so painted. Indeed, that great observer of the English countryside.
William Cobbett, writes: "the bark which is precisely the colour of the Horse Chestnut fruit and as smooth and as bright, needs no polish, and ornamented by numerous knots, the stick is the very prettiest that can be conceived. Little do the bucks, when they are drinking port wine . . . reflect that, by possibility, for the Fine Old Port which has caused them so much pleasure, they are indebted to the very stick with which they are caressing their admired Wellington boots." This because often the juice of the sloe, mixed with water and cheap French brandy was passed off as the finest of all ports. But to the question of sticks from the blackthorn.
Richard Mabey tells us in his Flora Britannica that Irish shillelaghs were "once definitively described by the Chairman of the Pharmacology Department at the University College of Los Angeles as `an Ancient Hibernian tranquilliser'." Hah.
But the question today is of sticks for walking for polite urban or agricultural occasions, and not the black painted ones, of many shops. If a stick naturally takes on a nice chestnut hue, why go black? Maybe because it goes with a uniform better? RUC or British Army. For some Irish regiments there often use them, it appears, sometimes as full-length walking sticks, or as swagger sticks, a neat thing for, say, church parades.
The problem at present is that it is proving difficult to get a walking-stick length of the blackthorn to give to a decent man. He was told he would have it by Samhain or Christmas. Now it just might be by St Patrick's Day. Lord grant it before Lughnasa. At least 20 have been cut from a fine stock of blackthorns, but on final examination, there is always a slight bend or it is just too thick or too thin. And it will have just one layer of clear varnish to preserve what ever colour the bark turns out to show. No black paint. Y