# History, mythology and hood...



## Templar1305 (Oct 24, 2006)

Courtesy of myspace ...


The Archer.... 



Recently, as the leaves turned from green to red to brown, I got to thinking about archery again.
I have not picked up a bow in about 20 years, mind you. About the time I got into handgunning, my younger brother blew up my old recurve bow by leaving it out in the elements during a hunt. 
At that time, I faced a decision. Replace the bow, or keep on saving up for a model 29....the Model 29 got the nod and I never looked back. 
Of course, among my friends, I was sort of the odd man out. Billy Evans, my cousin Jason and other guys down my neck of the woods loved shooting bows and arrows.....But they were into compound bows.
"You don't have to unstring 'em" they said. "Once you pull to full draw, its easier to aim because you don't have the full pull of the bow working against you,' they said. 
The whole thing seemed rather like cheating to me. 
What is the point of primitive hunting and sport if you are going all high tech? To my way of thinking, it was like putting a laser sight on a Colt Peacemaker.....
Performancewise, they may have been right to a point. After all, every year more and more people take to the woods during archery hunting season and the clear majority of them are toting bows laden with wheels and cable/cam systems. Current bows are even more complex and confusing looking, like stuff out of Star Wars.
Still, it just seemed wrong....
And with Howard Hill dead, it seemed that nobody really cared much about traditional archery anymore, except the people you see into historical reenactment groups and sich. 
The bow is a pretty interesting thing.
From what I have read over the years, it appears to have come out of Asia. It's one of the single biggest early technological advances of mankind, way back in the Neolithic era. There are cave drawings of archers hunting game, for example with what appear to be bows. The bow extended man's ability to hunt big game from the close confines of the knife and spear to the longer range of dozens of yards. 

Archers were a part of many ancient military cultures, using the original "compound" bows, short, heavily curved bows made from laminates of wood and animal horn, often backed with sinew. 
The native Americans were great archers using their short, curved bows. Early pioneers were amazed at their prowess. Later, when the old English longbow came back into a resurgance of popularity, many biased "experts" decided that the old Indian bows could not have been much because they were too short. I guess they never saw any of those laminate compound "horsebows" from the far east. 
The early Welsh people developed a strong reputation for excellence in archery in the Dark and Middle Ages. Their skill and prowess with the longbow helped decide many major battles. Edward the First the infamous "Hammer of the Scots" (Longshanks from Braveheart infamy) took Welsh archers with him into Scotland and used their valued skills against their fellow Celts. The Irish and the Scots were not known much for archery. They hunted with the spear and used swords, axes and a kind of deadly lawn dart for warfare. Ironically, in olden times the quasi-mythical figure of Robin Hood was extremely popular in Scotland. 
The sturdy English longbow, made of yew and with a 100 pound pull became a part of the culture of those times. Men and boys were encouraged to practice archery in the middle ages. Archers won many major battles such as the Battle of Agincourt. 
Legendary heroes and mythical gods like Hercules and Apollo and Diana were reknowned archers. In the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan was an expert archer. Comic books are the modern mythology and there are several Archery based modern superheroes. Green Arrow was a very popular member of the Justice League when I was a kid, and over at Marvel, Hawkeye was the archer on the Avengers. When Blade:Trinity came out and Jessica Beils character was toting a bow and arrows along with a revolver. Orlando Bloom shot some arrows to fame in the Lord of the Rings movies too. Suddenly, archery was cool again. 
Today, Robin Hood is sort of seen as the patron saint of archers, which is ironic, considering that the Catholic church spent centuries censuring people for attending Robin Hood plays and having Robin Hood celebrations in the middle ages. For centuries people wondered about that. In the 20th century some folklorists argued that Robin Hood was never a real person, but a myth, while others argued that the myths were based on this, that or the other real outlaw. 
As author John Matthews points out, both groups were probably right. Robin Hood probably was not an actual person originally, but a figure from myth. The figure probably was 'modernized" in the 14th century into the figure we now know. Along the way, some real life outlaws took up the name as an alias further confusing the matter. Matthews figured that the figure we now call "the Green Man" who pops up in medieval churches was the being that the later Outlaw of Sherwood forest was based upon. Of course, by the 1400s, real Outlaws were being arrested as "Robertus Hood, Fugitive." 
Early in the 20th century, Margaret Murray, who had figured out that witches were probably actually remnants of pagan belief systems pointed out that considering the antagonism the church felt towards Robin Hood plays and such that Hood probably represented a form of paganism. 
Margaret Murray felt that the key was in the stories of Robin Goodfellow, an impish faery who later became synonymous with the devil. She felt that in time, the name Hood was probably given to the leader of a group of pagans and that the merry men were a sort of coven. The fact that they (Hood and the Merry Men) revered St. Mary was indicative that they were goddess worshippers, she felt. The hood figure himself may have been a high priest of an old nature or hunting god. Robin Hood plays played a big part in May Day festivities, and May Day of course was the old pagan holiday of Beltane. 
Matthews discaded some of Murrays theory and argues that Hood is based on such mythical figures as Jack in the Green and Woden, who is a hooded huntsman in some folklore. 
Matthews points out that Herne the Hunter fits in there too. 
Its quite possible that figures like Herne and Robin Hood are updated versions of old mythical figures that were recase as mortal men from their pagan roots. 
Robin Hood was remembered as a merry prankster of an outlaw, master of the longbow and the quarterstaff and the sword. People recalled him in plays and stories. Early in the last century authors and artists like Howard Pyle and NC Wyeth captured those mythic images and gave us a picture of what Robin Hood should have been like. That image came vividly to life courtesy of actor Errol Flynn who played him in the movies. Ironically, the real life outlaws pretending to be Robin Hood probably never wore that tricornered hat that Green Arrow sports to this day. No doubt, they wore hoods, when not wearing chain mail or helmets. But when you say, "Robin Hood" people think of Errol Flynn.....
Today, the Archer is often seen as a symbol of primitive freedom. I guess Ted Nugent would gibe with that....
Today, when I see modern huntsmen geared out in Realtree Camo from head to toe, spraying themselves down with buck lure and toting their cable-geared contraption bows into the woods, I can't help but feel that I am seeing one bow end of history, across from the other which started many centuries ago when early man figured out he could utilize a curved stick to hurl a small spear further than a full size one, and put on a horned headress and animal hides to get closer to the herd.


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## Stuka1166 (Oct 19, 2006)

That was a good "read"...I enjoyed it !!


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## Baltipal (Nov 3, 2006)

Templar1305 said:


> Courtesy of myspace ...
> 
> 
> The sturdy English longbow, made of yew and with a 100 pound pull became a part of the culture of those times. Men and boys were encouraged to practice archery in the middle ages. Archers won many major battles such as the Battle of Agincourt. .



Not "Encouraged", Required by the law of the land ! Two things you had to do on a Sunday in England, go to Church & practise your Archery, on pain of severe fines. You had to have a VERY good reason for NOT doing either !
Incidentally, I believe it's still legal to kill a Welshman with a Bow & Arrow in a Church yard on a Sunday in the English town of Shrewsbury. But I don't think anyone's tried it in a while ! lol


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## Okie1bow (Jul 26, 2006)

*Templar1305's thread*

I really enjoyed your comments. I appreciate someone who studies,understands and applies history. Wheel bows arn't bows in the classic sence and neither are Crossbows since they both simply push the arrow or bolt from a resting pre prepared position to flight. Both have power well in excess of the effort used to shoot them. Cheating??? Well yes "but" I would shoot a lighter re curve or a wheel if I injured myself and could no longer shoot my PSE X-Factor FITA or Black Widow hunting bow. Just my opinion.

"To date hunderds of thousands, actually millions of combatents have been wounded and killed by a bow than with a gun. We are however working on that."


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## WoolyWelsh (Sep 9, 2006)

Baltipal said:


> Not "Encouraged", Required by the law of the land ! Two things you had to do on a Sunday in England, go to Church & practise your Archery, on pain of severe fines. You had to have a VERY good reason for NOT doing either !
> 
> Incidentally, I believe it's still legal to kill a Welshman with a Bow & Arrow in a Church yard on a Sunday in the English town of Shrewsbury. But I don't think anyone's tried it in a while ! lol


Pray your first arrow finds its mark.  
Old Welsh saying -
If you can't be strong, be cunning"

(Now, this is all in jest, hmmmmm?)


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## Templar1305 (Oct 24, 2006)

Recurve, Longbow, Horsebow, Compound, Crossbow, technically speaking, its all archery to me. ...
Its just that the older type bows seem to be more "pure archery" in some mystical way that I really can't explain. But you have to remember, I am not a "high tech:" kind of guy. I don't go all googly over a Glock or a Porsche .... I am a .44 triple lock and a 57 Chevy kind of guy....I still have an 8-track player, LOL....

Ive been out of archery for over two decades. But from poking around lately, I think I can understand why compounds seem to rule now in the stores at least.....
Its like the car industry.....A big chunk of their profits comes not from sales, but repairs and maintenance work! LOL...

With a "traditional" bow about the only problems you can have is a limb breaking or a string snapping and thats about it.
But with the big aluminum cams, split limb technology, etc... it seems that a lot of maintenance work and tinkering are required, LOL...Not to mention repairs....





Okie1bow said:


> I really enjoyed your comments. I appreciate someone who studies,understands and applies history. Wheel bows arn't bows in the classic sence and neither are Crossbows since they both simply push the arrow or bolt from a resting pre prepared position to flight. Both have power well in excess of the effort used to shoot them. Cheating??? Well yes "but" I would shoot a lighter re curve or a wheel if I injured myself and could no longer shoot my PSE X-Factor FITA or Black Widow hunting bow. Just my opinion.
> 
> "To date hunderds of thousands, actually millions of combatents have been wounded and killed by a bow than with a gun. We are however working on that."


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## Baltipal (Nov 3, 2006)

*Yachi Da, Cymru-am-Byth !*



WoolyWelsh said:



> Pray your first arrow finds its mark.
> Old Welsh saying -
> If you can't be strong, be cunning"
> 
> (Now, this is all in jest, hmmmmm?)


A foot in both camps W/W. Birmingham or Brumagem to us locals, is dead centre of England, near as damn it ! But Great-Grandfather Baltipal hailed from mid-Wales, Rhayader.


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## BlackArrow (May 7, 2006)

Baltipal said:


> Not "Encouraged", Required by the law of the land ! Two things you had to do on a Sunday in England, go to Church & practise your Archery, on pain of severe fines. You had to have a VERY good reason for NOT doing either !
> Incidentally, I believe it's still legal to kill a Welshman with a Bow & Arrow in a Church yard on a Sunday in the English town of Shrewsbury. But I don't think anyone's tried it in a while ! lol


I think theone abotu the Welshman was repealed recently, but I heard that if you carry a strung longbow in a public place you can carry a blade of any length you like.

I also heard that a few eyars ago a couple of youg guys went shooting longbows on common land one Sunday and when picked up by police they claimed to be exercising the old law requiring/allowign then to shoot on a Sunday. Story goes that they dud not get away with this however, because a check revealed that they had not attended church that morning...:wink: 

TTFN


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## Baltipal (Nov 3, 2006)

BlackArrow said:


> I think theone abotu the Welshman was repealed recently, but I heard that if you carry a strung longbow in a public place you can carry a blade of any length you like.
> 
> I also heard that a few eyars ago a couple of youg guys went shooting longbows on common land one Sunday and when picked up by police they claimed to be exercising the old law requiring/allowign then to shoot on a Sunday. Story goes that they dud not get away with this however, because a check revealed that they had not attended church that morning...:wink:
> 
> TTFN


You can't get away with anything this side of the Great Pond Mucker,:sad: 
It was a GOOD try though!!


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