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Hogwarts Legacy Weird Headcanons (Pt. 1)
If you guys like learning about the 1890s, which I'm assuming some if not all of you do because of our beloved interactive electronic experience, turn your attention to this very interesting info I found:
Self-defense classes were advertised in the 1890s to women due to recurring attacks on them from criminals (which also happened to be increasing in numbers at the same time. Fantastic.). These classes gained popularity in the 1900s and continued on from there.
One such class instructed women on how to maim, disable or even kill a two-legged brute with an umbrella.
"With the modern umbrella, which is not a slender wooden stick, but a wire rod, as deadly almost as a rapier, the girl who must rely upon her own arm to protect herself from attack in the street is armed with a weapon, the terrible nature of which few realize. But she must learn how to use it skillfully and quickly so as to put a quietus at once upon her opponent’s dream of easy conquest.
The classes at the physical culture establishment referred to are especially organized to make women competent to kill if necessary the man who attacks her while she is armed with an umbrella.
There is, it seems, such a thing as a solar plexus blow with an umbrella that will place the strongest man hors de combat. But the most deadly blow of all is one delivered at the neck of an opponent, driving the sharp steel ferrule straight for the spot an inch or so below the Adam’s apple.
The umbrella should be held in both hands and driven forward with the full weight of the body following it. If the blow lands on the right spot, that is on the neck, past below the apple, it is very likely to make the party attacked a subject for the morgue. The umbrella could be driven right into his neck with the force exerted by even a delicate girl if her weight follows the blow.
The girls who attend this new self-defense class are taught to jab at the eyes of a man who attacks them. All is fair in a case of this kind, for the man who attacks an unprotected woman in the street is deserving of no pity. The girls are also taught to defend themselves against the attacks of two men who come at them simultaneously, stabbing at the face or neck of the nearest and giving the other a back handled blow with the butt. Apart from the usefulness of teaching a girl how to take care of herself if attacked, it may be said that the students derive great benefit from the exercise they go through in the daily drill."
So, if any of your fine OCs are feeling pressed, perhaps have them consider taking up the umbrella.
Pretty neat stuff.
Sources, if you want to read more:
