# Ancient archer heros



## yafayu (Apr 14, 2004)

Does anyone know any archer hero's story happened in ancient Greek, China, England..etc.

i just found one it's a hero from ancient China:

"Houyi Shot the Suns"

Houyi (or Yi) was the hero who shot the suns in the ancient mythology of China. 

Legend says Yi was very good at archery. There were once ten suns in the sky, which made plants wither, and fierce beasts run wild to imperil people. It was too hot to live under the suns. To save the people, Yi started to shoot the suns. He shot down nine of them one by one, and he might have shot the last one if it was not called off by others. Thus the severe drought was gone. He also got rid of those fierce animals for the people. 

It is said Yi's wife was Chang'e, a legendary lady in the famous story, "Chang'e flying to the moon." Chang'e swallowed the elixir stolen from her husband, and she flew to the moon and became the goddess of the moon, who has lived in the palace on the moon ever since. 

Yi was killed by Fengmeng, a disciple of Yi who learned to shoot from him.

anything else can share??


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## TJ Mason (Mar 25, 2004)

There are some good stories about legendary Hawaiian rat-shooters. Have a read of this one:
http://starbulletin.com/2004/11/15/features/story2.html 
The thought of these ugly birds squawking "bad luck!" cracks me up!  

The page has links to a bunch of other stories.


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## Armourer Boy (Jan 2, 2005)

lets not forget Orion, he was a very good archer/hunter. so good he was able to gain the love of the goddess of hunting, Artremis. unfortunately Apollo, another great archer (unfortunately he's a god...so he's not included) was jealous that his sister loves someone else. when apollo saw orion take a swim in the sea he waited for him to swim farther. he called her sister and challenged to shoot that dot over the horizon, artremis agreed and she hit the "dot" (what do you expect from a goddess). unfortunately the dot was orion's head. so ends the life of the orion

jer


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## ridgerunner (Jun 24, 2003)

Odysius (sp) had a bow that nodoby but himself could string. When it was thought that Odysius was dead, his wife had many suitors. She decided that the man who could draw her husbands bow would win her hand. No one could even string the bow, and Odysius came back and killed all the suitors anyway. Typical happy Greek story eh?


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## ghotierman (May 6, 2004)

*more on odysseus...and others*

Part of the myth of Odysseus is that he was able to shoot and arrow through 12 axe heads. (Think of shooting through a pvc pipe less than 2" in diameter!)

The bow is a very common item in Greek mythology. Artemis and Apollo are most noted among the gods. Hercules used a bow as well. Actaeon, one of Artemis' suitors. and of course, Orion.

Biblically archers were very prominent in battles in the old testament (check out Joshua and Judges) Abraham's son Ishmael became an expert archer when he and his mother Hagar were left in the desert.

The Parthians were expert bowmen on horseback...able to turn and shoot behind them while retreating...a "parthian shot" soon evolved to the "parting shot".

more?....this is very interesting,


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## Jim C (Oct 15, 2002)

Paris-the playboy who chose Helen over wisdom or wealth, shot Achilles with a bow in his heel killing him after Achilles slew Hector, Troy's greatest champion.

William Tell of course (except the xbow haters will claim that Tell was lazy and a slob for shooting the dictator with his bolt  )

If you are a Norman, the archer who shot king Harold in the eye

If you are a Frenchman, it was a crossbowman who shot "richard the lionhearted" killing him with gangrene


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## ghotierman (May 6, 2004)

Archery is prominent in the movie "hero" starring jet li. long bows, foot bows....the army rains arrows on it's enemies. good movie....chinese with subtitles, but visually intriguing. on the line of "crouching tiger hidden dragon"


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## preyquester (Feb 3, 2004)

i like the one about william tell even if he used a x bow & the apple was only12 yds ,he was not the first person Ginsler made shoot a apple off his son"s head he was the first that GOT-er-DONE..and he was last "he killed Ginsler"the next day...


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## jerrytee (Feb 5, 2005)

I'm sure I don't need to go through the Robin Hood ledgend.


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## preyquester (Feb 3, 2004)

jerrytee said:


> I'm sure I don't need to go through the Robin Hood ledgend.


 no but howard hill made some out there shots in the movie....


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## UltraShooter (Jan 30, 2003)

I think the Native American tribes of North America deserve honorable mention when it comes to archery and their contributions to the sport. Also, some of the Kyudo (Japanese Archery) masters have got to be some extremely talented archers...


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## medievallongbow (Feb 3, 2005)

*this is a copy of my thread.*

Dont forget the English longbows.

Did ya know that 1400's English longbows averaged about 100# draw weight!!! They drew 3ft long arrows, and had a range of up to 400yds!!! English archer skeletens that were found, usually had twisted spines from years of massive pulling. In the "hundred year war", the English longbows were an imposing force. Hope ya injoyed this small chunk of hisotry.


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## medievallongbow (Feb 3, 2005)

ghotierman said:


> Archery is prominent in the movie "hero" starring jet li. long bows, foot bows....the army rains arrows on it's enemies. good movie....chinese with subtitles, but visually intriguing. on the line of "crouching tiger hidden dragon"


That's a sweet movie.


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## UltraShooter (Jan 30, 2003)

medievallongbow said:


> Dont forget the English longbows.
> 
> Did ya know that 1400's English longbows averaged about 100# draw weight!!! They drew 3ft long arrows, and had a range of up to 400yds!!! English archer skeletens that were found, usually had twisted spines from years of massive pulling. In the "hundred year war", the English longbows were an imposing force. Hope ya injoyed this small chunk of hisotry.


Isn't it amazing how they could draw those 100# longbows? Like you mentioned, I too read that English archers had major back problems as a result of the heavy poundage...


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