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Norse Shooting Technique

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Bueskytter:
My interest in the military application of archery is more focused upon the Dark Age and the Early Middle Ages (particularly in Northern Europe i.e Scandinavia and Britain) , from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476CE till the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. From what I gather the bows application was very different than the time of the Hundred Years War and the Mary Rose.

The Viking Age Norse seemed to have avoided massed battle, preferring more of a skirmish. The longbow saw widespread usage in naval battles also. This seems to me to suggest a different technique than the shooting-in-the-bow and drawing to the ear that we associate with medieval archery.

Depictions from the period (i.e the Bayeux Tapestry, the Franks Casket, illuminated manuscripts) seem to show them shooting from the chest. In my experience this is woefully inaccurate and is in stark contrast to the accuracy accounted in the literary sources (such as Gunnar's defense of Hlidarend in Njal's Saga, or the feats of Einar in Olav Tryggvasson's saga). In a small scale skirmish or naval battle I can't see such a draw having much value when the shooting must have been more similar to target archery than loosing a hail of arrows en masse.

I was just curious as to everyone elses views on this.

JackCrafty:
Good question.  I too researched this period when I was part of a group that reenacted the middle and dark ages.

First off, shooting from the chest is not inaccurate.  With practice, an archer can master the technique and be accurate at hunting/fighting ranges.  If you're shooting for distance, then shooting en masse is better anyway.  Furthermore, if you've ever tried shooting while wearing a helmet with a nasal tang or face guard, you'll appreciate the efficiency of the technique.  Also, powerful bows are more easily drawn to the chest (actually there is as much "pushing" as there is pulling....and pushing the bow while your had is anchored to your chest is easier than the alternative).

Drawing to the face (or ear) is a technique that has been hammered into our heads for so long (and with such force) that we have become completely senseless.  Just try drawing your arrow to the chest at an archery meet and watch as the archery zombies converge on your location.....drooling over "fresh meat" and desiring to make you into a zombie as well.  ;)

Seriously, archery has gone through many stages of fashion over the centuries. In the manuscripts, we are seeing a small perspective of the whole.  IMO, all the various forms of archery were practiced by Norse archers:  volley fire, "target" shooting, short range shots during a melee, etc.  Whatever got the job done.

It has been documented that armies during the period you described were quite small...more like bands of warriors than armies of professional soldiers.  The closest parallel in modern times would be militia forces.  With this in mind, archery was probably highly subject to the skill of the individual archer....less skilled archers using crude bows  (like the Hedeby examples) and the elite using Holmegaard type bows.

bow-toxo:
 I too am interested in that period. Shooting with a longbow is a different matter than shooting with a smallbow. As a longbow is long enough to draw to the ear, that was the recorded nethod in mediaeval France and England as well as the earlier Byzantine empire, where Norsemen served in the Varangian Guard. The Hedeby bow and the Balinderry bow, the only complete Viking bows we have, are longbows. Unfortunately they were not found with the arrows that were used with them. Smallbows were shorter with shorter arrows and were adapted to a draw to the chest or the face.It is surprising how well one can hit with them with a little practice. I can draw more poundage to the ear than to the chest and find the smallbow more suitable for short range shooting. There is no evidence that Vikings used anything resembling Holmegaard stone age bows. Archery was very popular with the aristocrats.  In a Scandinavian museum I once saw a complete [except for fletching] Viking arrow, barreled , with a forked head and a spread nock. If you run across it, please send me the measurements.

JackCrafty:
You're right, Bow-Toxo, there is no evidence that the Homlegaard design was used by vikings.  (I've got to remind myself not to jump to conclusions....but I can dream, can't I?  ;D).

The majority of the physical evidence (and opinions) points to longbows as the preferred weapons....bows that can be made from small diameter saplings cut from coppice farms.  However, how long do you think it would take for those alpha males (in the aristocracy) to discover that pyramid flatbows shoot better than long sticks?

Anyway, in the final analysis, it may turn out that composite bows (from the Near East) were the weapon of choice....especially when you look at the arrowhead artifacts from the viking era.  The arrowheads were leaf shaped and tanged:  a design commom among the Romans and Near East archers.

Bueskytter:
Woah . . . I think we're speculating far too much. There has been what could be a thumb-ring found in Iceland, and fragments which could be composite bows found in Birka, Sweden. Birka was THE trading capital of the viking lands and as such many weird and wonderful things have been found there from other cultures, such trade items (i.e animals, wine, silk and beads) would be extremely expensive - trinkets of the ultra rich. I personally don't believe such things were more than curiosities, vikings were particularly fond of exploration. Art from the viking age depicts peacocks and lions and other trade items, but a composite bow has never been depicted.

There is little literary evidence for eastern style composite bows being used, except that Hunbogi (Hunnish Bow) is a name that is encountered once or twice in the sagas. Yet longbows are depicted often.

I don't for a second believe that Holmgaard style bows were by the vikings, the bow design was about 6000 years old. It was a lost technology by the Viking Age. Also I'm disinclined to believe that the longbow is inferior to the flatbow, a single study in the early 20th century showed it performed marginally better, but that study probably wouldn't stand up to modern scientific standards. Also the longbow has superior elements to the flatbow, for example a longbow utilises the backmuscles far more when drawing than a flatbow which should pointing at the target before drawing, it uses less wood in the width meaning more bows can be made per peice of lumber, the greater length makes it stack better.

The tanged, leaf-shaped arrowheads are common to the Anglo-Saxons and the Franks also. The Norse used many kinds of arrowheads not just this, barbed arrowheads, triangular broad heads, trefoil heads, and even points resembling a sort of proto-bodkin have been found.

If the eastern composite bows were expensive imports coveted by the upper classes they would almost certainly have been buried with their owner, yet not even a fragment of them exists in burials (which composite bows often leave due to their, erm, composition).The evidence suggests that longbows, and longbows alone, were the preferred ranged armament of the Norse.

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