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Norse Shooting Technique

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JackCrafty:
Nick1346, thanks for the reply...for a while there I thought this thread had run its course.

It's been probably seven years since I fired a longbow...and it's been longer than that since I researched anything on the subject at hand.  Could you direct me to the proper forums, videos, (or whatever) so I can get up to speed?  I really don't know what the heck you guys are talking about concerning the "eardraw" thing.  I've heard of it, of course, but I thought the technique was not in widespread use until much later than 1066. :-\

bow-toxo:
We haven't found a Norse bow and arrow together. In Hedeby enough remained of a quiver to show it was two feet long.  Projecting shaftments would add at least another six inches, but we don't know what length of arrowheads would have been in it. Nydam longbows and arrows fit a draw to the ear, which was common throughout the Middle Ages and until the middle of the nineteenth century when changes in shooting practices led to development of the famous corner of the mouth draw that many of today's archers can't bring themselves to give up. For Norse technique we can look to the closest cultures we know about. That would be:- Draw to the chest [ especially with smallbows' shorter arrows] or draw to the ear. Instinctive aiming. Some good tips for that on the English longbow forum, or google " instinctive."

Kviljo:
Bow-toxo, from where do you have the term "shortbow"? I haven't come across any references to such bows, either in text or in archaeological remains. From 1100 in Norway and Sweden we can talk about short bows (two-wood bows), but not for the vikings. If you are refering to hornbows, I would not regard it as a reliable analogy for longbow-shooting cultures.

bow-toxo:

--- Quote from: kviljo on July 27, 2008, 06:39:23 pm ---Bow-toxo, from where do you have the term "shortbow"? I haven't come across any references to such bows, either in text or in archaeological remains. From 1100 in Norway and Sweden we can talk about short bows (two-wood bows), but not for the vikings. If you are refering to hornbows, I would not regard it as a reliable analogy for longbow-shooting cultures.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I used the term "smallbow" not "shortbow" The recipe for the length is in Le Livre de Chasse, a mediaeval French book on hunting.The term small bow was written in the time of Richard II, and in another Hundred Years War reference concerning the Earl of Desmond. I know of no remaining smallbows, so we have to go by the many manuscript illustrations, some from Norway, that show them.The illumination of the Viking execution of Saint Edmund shows boww with the bent back tips that may represent smallbows which were used mainly in hunting, sometimes in war. The two-wood bows I am familiar with are not short, but about the height of a man. Anyway they are of Lapp [sorry] or"Finn" manufacture although Vikings named ''Finnbogi" may have used them. They are much like bows of northern Russian Asiatic tribes such as the Ostjak.


--- End quote ---

Kviljo:
Interesting stuff. If they are mentioned in Richard II's time (1367-1400), it might be the short type B two-wood bow. The Maciejowski Bible has a few illustrations that may well be such bows. The medieval type Bs were probably between 140 and 160 cm long, much shorter than the 2m+ type A. But then again, the most southern find of these two-wood bows are from Oslo (or perhaps Novgorod is further south?).

Cut from my masters thesis:
The type B to the right, type A in the middle, and a longbow to the left for comparison.





Smallbow may perhaps even be a description for a small crossbow, after all, if the term comes from a book from the fourtheenth century it is regarding the higher classes from the later part of the medieval period, and even from France*. I doubt that those guys would degrade themselves by shooting a cheap handbow :)

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