What are these "shafts"? How are they used?

For a person who is far from equestrian sports and rural life, the word "shaky" can be unfamiliar and incomprehensible. However, anyone who has seen harnessed horses in life or in a picture will probably easily imagine what is at stake, even after a short explanation. The word can also be used in stable folk expressions that have nothing to do with talking about horses.

Meaning of the word deaf

REAL, -i, genus. pl.-bel, dat.- blyam , f. One of two round poles, fortified with ends on the front axle of the crew and used to harness the horse.

â—Š

Turn the shafts (simple) - leave with nothing.

Source (print version): Dictionary of the Russian language: In 4 volumes / RAS, Institute of Linguistics. research; Ed. A.P. Evgenieva. - 4th ed., Erased. - M .: Rus. language; Polygraph resources, 1999; (electronic version): Fundamental electronic library.

So. Shafts are two long (often rounded) beams that serve as a rigid movable coupling of a cart with a horse or horses. The shafts in wheeled carts are more often fixed on the front axle, and in the sleigh they are attached directly to their front part.

The shafts provide the transfer of traction from the animal to the crew, increase its maneuverability, facilitate the control of the person who manages the horse transport, and does not allow the cart to run over the legs of the horses pulling it when stopping, braking or lowering.

What the shafts look like

The shafts differ in size, weight, size and shape - it all depends on the functions of the crew.

On carts intended for tourist walks or solemn trips, shafts are also an element of design. They are elegant, beautiful and original, sometimes even to the detriment of the high-speed qualities of transport.

The photo shafts can be compared in more detail.

Unusual summer crew

They can be straight or curved both horizontally and relative to the harnessed horse.

Curved shafts

Modern sports carts are usually equipped with metal lightweight, but durable, often - removable shafts. They are curved, expanding from the body of the animal to the wagon. This form allows you to develop maximum speed while maintaining the greatest safety of the horse and almost unprotected (except helmets and suits) jockey.

On the run

The shafts in carts and sleighs designed for everyday village work will be simple, sturdy and cheap.

Camel in a harness

They are round or rectangular in cross section, different in length, thickness and material of which they are made.

Workers go

More often it is a tree or light metal.

Trotter on the run

What types of carts are used shafts

Shafts are used in various types of summer and winter wagons that are not equipped with brakes and require speed.

It can be a sled or cart, carriage, landau or phaeton. Rockers for trotters running at hippodromes are equipped with shafts.

Often shafts are removable crew parts.

The crew may have one or two shafts. If the cart has only one shaft, it is called a drawbar.

Drawbar carts are used for paired teams and traveling options: fours - in pairs or in a row (Greek quadriga), sixes, five animals pull the crew along with them.

One pair of horses is fastened to the drawbar (or two if the total number of animals in the harness is more than six). Animals in a cart with a drawbar can also be lined up one at a time - in gantry.

Four in a team

Two shafts are more often used in crews harnessed by one or three animals. In this case, the horse standing between the shafts is the root in the harness. The one that man controls with the reins.

Three bay

The team without the shafts is a soft coupling with a wagon, used in agricultural work where there are no speeds, or if there is a mechanical brake in the crew.

Sustainable folk expressions with the word "deaf"

With the word "deaf" one expression is common in several variants and shades of meaning:

  • Expand / wrap shafts!
  • Rotate / expand the shafts.

The phrase can mean different shades of feelings and mean from ironic or even playful to rude:

  • "leave / leave with nothing / leave back without achieving the goal" according to the Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov;
  • “go away / go away” - as Ozhegov’s Explanatory Dictionary says.

The exact meaning will always be clearer in the context, but in any case, a stable expression will refer to the vernacular.

Literary quotes about the shafts

The most famous author of famous lines about the shafts, most likely, Joseph Brodsky: "... the horses are beating among the shafts ...".

The three is racing

The poem is called "Autumn in Norenskaya", written in the mid 60-ies of the last century. Norenskaya is a settlement, a village in the Arkhangelsk region where the poet was exiled.

"Autumn in Norenskaya"

We are returning from the field. Wind

rattles the inverted bells of buckets,

distorting the bare bars of vetels,

throws earth on boulders.

Horses are beating amid the stunner

black baskets of swollen ribs

draw a bared profile

to a rusty harrow tooth.

The wind blows a frozen sorrel

heaps shawls and scarves, fumbles

in the linen flap of old women, turns

them in rag heads.

Harkay, coughing, looking down,

like scissors on the hem

women are cutting boots to the house,

tear on their trestle beds.

Scissors gum in the folds.

The pupils are watery with a vision of their faces,

driven by the wind into the eyes of collective farmers,

how the shower drives faces like

into bare glass. Under the harrows

furrows scatter before boulders.

The wind scatters over the waves

loose field swarm of birds.

These visions are the last sign

inner life that is close

any ghost arising outside

if he is not completely scared away

the gospel of the hub, the clatter of a cart,

upside down in a rut of wheels

the body world has turned upside down

living starling in the clouds.

The sky is darker; not eyes but rake

wet roofs are the first to see

looming on the crest

hill - or rather, a hill in the distance.

Three versts will still be more than.

Rain pans in the vast beggar

and stick to tarpaulin tops

brown clods of the native land.

Joseph Brodsky

Modern little-known authors also recall in their work the word "shaky", which is rarely used in wide circles.

Sled horse

For example, in poetic social networks, where everyone is allowed to post on the page the fruits of their talent, or other portals that give authors the opportunity to freely share their works with readers, these poems of contemporaries are presented:

Posted by Sergey Tikhiy.

Patriotic poem "Unroll the shafts!":

If in the heart is a bowl of poison

turned into yellow ice

Bravado won't save a fool

back to back.

Before fear of the spirit of a beggar

himself squatting and dancing;

With a shin

for publicity and display.

Where the devils are always in disgrace -

- I would not dance at my own risk

before death Death Dance

crazy half-yah.

Cause home back in the back

From the sword, before the sword

Red, fast, full-flowing

will carry you by the stream ...

Know born not in a shirt

Where the Righteous is,

Cossack - from God a saber,

And New Russia - the sword!

Expand the shafts!

Train a shiver in the back of your head!

And ... run. To the same cries.

But you won’t get away from fear ...

I would regret my narrow forehead,

Well, but no - don’t squeal;

Where the Eagle flies Russian,

There is a cuckoo eagle in cabbage soup.

The field is free with a sigh

Will not remember that fate ...

Sprout thistle

And wheat to him ...

Only to visit! In the field of will!

Let the bayonet rust in the hut.

And away ... three pounds of salt

to a crust of bread on a rushnyk.

An author with the unremarkable pseudonym gasel61, Oglobli:

Can ski, can sled,

Dragging again in the summer

Under a hill or in a ditch,

Have fun to live!

Or a creaking cart?

Scarb to collect and drive,

Here's another, in the edge what?

Your route, where to find out!

Well, by the way, what's the matter?

Sit down and drive where no-be

Here I'm tired of thirst!

I wouldn’t have a drink of water.

I'm for the left stun

To the right, too, who don’t be,

In the middle of the trough in the holes

And a whip road, go.

We’ll sit down to the spring on the road,

We’ll eat dried bread

Clay holes with clay

We will sit and be silent.

Gol as gol, on the rifts,

And in general, nothing

Two shafts in two grips,

For the trough of one.

We sat, didn’t eat bread,

There is a spring, and what else!

Tie the shafts together

Fold the stove. And everything seems to be.

Riddles with the word "shafts"

Summer crew

There are riddles in literary work with the word deafness, you can guess them only knowing what the deafness really are - otherwise it’s very difficult to even roughly imagine what the question is about:

S. Ya. Marshak:

What is before us:

Two shafts behind the ears

In front of the wheel

And a nurse on the nose?

Answer: points.

Russian folk spring riddle:

"The shafts remained, and the sled drove off. What is this?"

Answer: ice drift on the river.


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