Long bows were normal bows almost everywhere, the English just used it better, and had a special kind of arrow (bodkin).
Re: Scots
Long bows were normal bows almost everywhere, the English just used it better, and had a special kind of arrow (bodkin).
"One of the nice things about looking at a bear is that you know it spends 100 per cent of every minute of every day being a bear. It doesn't strive to become a better bear. It doesn't go to sleep thinking, "I wasn't really a very good bear today". They are just 100 per cent bear, whereas human beings feel we're not 100 per cent human, that we're always letting ourselves down. We're constantly striving towards something, to some fulfilment"
-Stephen Fry
Re: Scots
Supposedly, as far as Viking archery went, Norway is where it was at. Apparently Norwegians used longbows of composite construction (iron and wood). Most of the Vikings active in England were of course Danes but there were significant numbers of Norwegians too. Whether or not they catalysed the widespread use of the longbow amongst English I don't know. As far as I know it was after contact with the Welsh that the English took to archery.
Re: Scots
The Viking longbow didn't use a iron-wood composite construction, it just made use out of natural difference between the core and the mantlewood of the yew employing each were it's strenghts are
, as all european bowmakers since thousends of years...
However iron might have been use sometimes, IIRC to strenghen the sinew-wood connection. A clear sign of a Viking's bow were also the strongly backcurved tips.
Last edited by Gealai; 09-20-2006 at 16:57.
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