Shovels are very useful tools which are commonly known to be used in digging holes and moving dirt from one place to another. But that's not the whole truth. There's a lot more about shovels than it seems at the first sight...

The Anatomy of Shovels

A shovel has been developed from a simple piece of wood. A handle of some kind is usually attached in the other end of this stick, which makes it easier for the user to grab it and use it. On the other end, there is a large, flat piece of metal. This metal part is the most important part of a shovel. Without it, a shovel wouldn't be much more than a stick with a handle, and it wouldn't be any more useful in digging than one's bare hands. And when you stop to think of it - isn't it amazing someone's suddenly decided to combine a stick and a piece of metal and with such a simple invention made it easier for everyone to dig holes all around the earth?

What Are the Shovels Really for?

As mentioned, the traditional use of a shovel¹ is to dig holes. And for this purpose, a shovel certainly is a very effective tool to use. However, a shovel also has a deeper, but usually less known meaning. It is actually a deadly weapon, which shouldn't in any case to be given to the hands of small children. Even those plastic shovels they use when playing on the beach building sand castles can cause amazingly serious damage if used correctly. And a big shovel - it can kill.

Legend Behind the Shovels

It has been stated and nowadays accepted as a fact² that the clever guy who was the first to create a shovel, hadn't actually digging in his mind, but killing. His home town had been attacked by ugly, vicious creatures,³ and when being a peace-loving little society, nobody had anything useful to defend their homes with. That's when this one guy got an idea and invented the shovel, which turned out to be a perfect weapon, and after a bloody battle won the village its freedom. But when everyone had seen how effective shovels were in killing - none of the villagers had been seriously injured, when almost everyone of the attackers had died - they decided to hide the real purpose of shovels and started to use them to another purpose that someone just happened to come up with - digging.⁴ And as time went by, the real purpose of shovels and the memories of it faded, eventually disappearing for good.

Secret Revealed

But after no one remembered the events leading to the inventing of shovels any more - how do we know about it now? It it isn't quite clear, how it became known, but suddenly there just were signs of the other use of shovels everywhere.⁵ Probably it started from a bunch of young people who thought they had invented something really original when playing role playing games and killing someone with a shovel - all we know is guesses. Anyway, after that it has been spreading all around the world until some researchers found out that killing was actually what the shovel was designed for. Now, all that is left to be done, is to inform everyone about this in order to protect them, and hope that no country is foolish enough to attack anywhere with shovels now that everybody is aware of the dangers and can be prepared for attack with equal weaponry. Never underestimate someone with a shovel - that someone is absolutely NOT mostly harmless!!