2527: birching Nov 13, 2021

Birching is a practice of corporal punishment, commonly sentenced legally in the past, wherein one is beaten with branches, usually at one's backside. This, despite the name, did not always involve birchwood. In the Isle of Man, the last place to use this as legal punishment in Europe, used hazelwood into the 1970's which was supposedly more painful than birch, despite the technical term 'birch rod'.