W. Butt

“ No doubt for war purposes it was a matter of importance to shoot a long heavy arrow, and if an arrow of a standard yard long or anything like it was used, it would be necessary for a man to draw it beyond his eye, unless he had very long arms indeed. But in war, the force of the blow was of more importance than accuracy of aim, and Mr. Ford saw that in a pastime where accuracy of aim was the main object, this old rule no longer held good. ”

“ It is too much the custom to squeeze a quantity of arrows into a small quiver. Let not any archer who values his tackle be guilty of this folly. An arrow that has had one of its feathers crumpled from this cause will, maybe, wobble and stagger all the rest of its life, though in all other respects it be in perfect repair. ”

“ Much diversity of opinion exists as to the best method of getting the bow-hand into position for the aim and loose, as to whether, in the course of drawing up, the arrow shall be brought into the line of aim from below or from above, or from the right to the left; and here it would seem that to make the motion of drawing from the right to the left and upwards at the same time is the simplest and most direct plan, since, after the nocking of the arrow, the drawing commences most naturally from beneath and to the right of the object to be hit. ”

“ None fly sharper, few so sharp. And what is the strength of that beautiful self-yew bow which he holds in his hand? Scarce 50 lbs.! And yet the pace of his shaft is unsurpassed by any; and it is close upon five shillings in weight too. There is another. Mark his strength and muscular power! Possibly a bow of 80 lbs. would be within his pull; yet he knows better than to use any such, when the prizes are awarded to skill, not brute force. The bow he employs is but 48 lbs.; yet how steady and true is the flight of his arrow! ”

“ Another incentive to the use of strong bows is the passion for sending down the arrows sharp and low, and the consequent employment of powerful bows to accomplish this; the which is perhaps a greater mistake than the other, for it is not so much the strength of the bow as the perfect command of it that enables the archer to obtain this desideratum. The question is not so much what a man can pull as what he can loose; and he will without doubt obtain a lower flight of arrow by a lighter power of bow under his command, than he will by a stronger one beyond his proper management. ”

“ Ford was perfectly right to condemn all reflexity that does not result in a bow becoming either straight or somewhat to follow the string after it has been in use sufficiently long for its necessary training to its owner's style. The first quality of a bow is steadiness. Now this quality is put in peril either by a want of exact balance between the two limbs—when the recoil of one limb is quicker than that of the other—or by undue reflexity. These causes of unsteadiness occur in self-bows as well as in backed bows, and are felt in the shape of a jar or kick in the hand when loosed. ”

“ The difficulty all experience in shooting correctly on a ground where the distant level is not horizontal is more or less connected with this dangerous failing. Here, though the archer be perfectly aware that the distance slopes, however slightly, one way or the other to the correct horizon, yet at the instant of the loose he will unconsciously overlook this, and expect to have his unfortunate arrow travel in a plane vertical to the mock horizon instead of in a really vertical plane such as it must travel in, unless diverted from it by wind. ”

“ An archer holds an intermediate position between a sportsman, who, in his attacks upon moving game, must waste no time in taking aim, and a rifleman, who, even in a standing position, can use the utmost deliberation. If he be as quick as the sportsman he will increase the difficulty of reproducing with each discharge exactly the same accuracy of pull and position. He must not be too hesitatingly slow, or he will spoil his bows and involve himself in unnecessary toil. Further, the rifleman has plenty of leisure to close the eye with which he does not aim ”

“ As regards the footing or standing and the attitudes of archers, it may be safely asserted that there are as many varieties as there are archers to call them into existence; that no two are exactly alike in all particulars; and that no one archer has yet been seen to combine all the excellences that might be centred in a perfect archer.
That an archer's general position may be a good one it must possess three qualities—firmness, elasticity, and grace: firmness, to resist the strain and the recoil of the bow—for if there be any wavering or unsteadiness the shot will probably prove a failure ”

“ It is a pastime which can never die out. The love of the bow and arrow seems almost universally planted in the human heart. But its popularity fluctuates, and though it is now more popular than at some periods, it is by no means so universally practised as archers would desire. One of its greatest charms is that it is an exercise which is not confined to men. Ladies have attained a great and increasing amount of skill with the bow, and there is no doubt that it is more suited to the fairer sex than some of the more violent forms of athletics now popular. ”

“ It is perhaps quite natural that most beginners should assume that at any rate as regards the application of their eyes to the shooting of arrows they can have nothing to learn. Have they not had the full and constant use of their eyes from their earliest infancy? and have not these been with sufficient frequency applied in such a manner as must secure the necessary qualifications for such a simple task as aiming with bows and arrows? There cannot, surely, be any science wanted in the use of weapons that any child can not only use but even make? ”

“ In the choice of a bow a beginner should secure the assistance of an experienced friend, or content himself with an unambitious investment in a cheap specimen of backed-bow or a self-lance, on which he may safely expend his inexperience. When an archer is sufficiently advanced to know the sort and weight of bow that best suits him, let him go to the maker he prefers, and name the price he can afford to give—the prices of trustworthy self-yews vary from twenty to five guineas, of yew-backed yews from five to three guineas, and of other backed bows from three guineas to thirty shillings ”

“ Arrows will be found to wear out quite speedily enough without being subjected to ill-usage or neglect to hurry them through their short lives.
It appears to be well authenticated that if a light-chested flight-arrow be feathered at each end, with the feathers trimmed lower at the nock than at the pile end, when shot against the wind it will return back again like a boomerang. And if the same-shaped arrow be feathered in the middle only, it will in its flight make a right angle, and no power of bow can send it any considerable distance. ”

“ Yet the nerves cannot certainly be altogether at fault, for the same archer, whose arrow takes its flight into its own hands, when applied to target practice, can steadily draw and hold the same arrow when it is not to be shot. It can doubtless be observed that in such cases the arrow in the one case is drawn up with a faulty wavering of the elbow, whilst in the other the elbow is brought steadily into correct position. When a position of the elbow higher than the axis of the arrow comes [105] to be considered, it appears to partake of the nature of an exaggerated virtue rather than a fault ”

“ The desire to be considered strong appears to be the moving agent to this curious hallucination; as if a man did not rather expose his weakness by straining at a bow evidently beyond his strength, thereby calling attention to that weakness, than by using a lighter one with grace and ease, which always give the idea of force, vigour, and power. ”

“ It cannot be doubted that many an archer (besides those who converted their knuckles into pincushions, and resorted to other dodges) must have hit upon an intelligent method of aiming for himself in early times; but such early experts must have resorted to the expedient of getting the arrow under the eye by pulling low, and would have to bear the withering scorn of all their brethren, who blindly upheld that the grand old English style of aiming from the ear was alone worthy of a man ”

“ If the bow have the fault of kicking ever so little, experience will easily detect it by the jolt in the hand. But on no account in this experiment should the string (without an arrow) be fully drawn and loosed. Care should be taken that the bow be sufficiently long for its strength. What has hitherto been said applies to all bows; but in self-bows attention must be paid to the straightness of the feathering of the wood. As a general rule, the lightest wood in a yew-bow will have the quickest cast, and the heaviest will make the most lasting implement. ”

“ Breakages from a bad style of drawing, or from dwelling too long on the aim, can only be avoided by adopting a better and more rational method. In order to avoid fracture through the breaking of strings, any string that shows signs of failure from too much wear or otherwise should be discarded; and strings that are too stiff, too hard, and too thin should be avoided. If a string break when the arrow is fully or almost drawn, there is but little hope for the bow; but if it break in the recoil after the arrow is shot, which fortunately is more frequently the case, the bow will seldom suffer. ”

“ The very best archer needs to bear constantly in mind the necessary avoidance of this fault; for, however skilful he may be, however experienced and practised a shot, he may be quite sure that it is one into which he will be constantly in danger of falling. Failure in wind is frequently caused more by this failing than by the effect of the wind itself; for instance, the aim, perhaps, is designedly taken so as to make some allowance for a side-wind, and then the loose is delivered as if no allowance had been made. ”

“ The self-bow of a single stave is the real old English weapon—the one with which the mighty deeds that rendered this country renowned in bygone times were performed; for until the decline and disappearance of archery in war, as a consequence of the superiority of firearms, and the consequent cessation of the importation of bow-staves, backed bows were unknown. Ascham, who wrote in the sixteenth century, when archery had already degenerated into little else than an amusement, mentions none other than self-bows ”

“ No hard-and-fast rules can be laid down for deciding where the point of aim ought to be at any particular distance, as this is dependent upon a great variety of circumstances—as strength of bows, and the sharpness and dulness of their cast, heavy or light arrows, a quick or sluggish loose, and the varying force of different winds. One archer will find his point-blank range at 120 yards, whilst another can get a point-blank aim on the target, at 60 yards even, by raising [119] his loosing hand so high that the angle between the axis of his aiming eye and the axis of the arrow is very small. ”

“ So it is in this matter of aiming that beginners, and still more those who are more advanced in practice, seem most to resent interference and advice; partly because they object to being told that they are making a wrong or incomplete use of their own eyes—looking upon it as a direct accusation of folly—when they feel that they must surely know better than their adviser all about those useful members, which, though almost constantly in employ, have never given any trouble, and have never even seemed to require any training or education ”

“ It is unnecessary to consider the distinct method of drawing up and letting out again before the loose, or the uncertain method of fraying up and down, or playing as it were at fast-and-loose a bit before the loose, as no archer would adopt any such uncertain style as a matter of choice; though such stuttering and hiccoughing performances may occasionally bring back an erring arrow to its duty, or may arise from the loss of nerve and the departure of the crisp finish from what was once steady and unhesitating. ”

“ If many small chrysals appear, much danger need not be feared, though their progress should be watched; but if one chrysal becomes deeply [5] rooted, the bow should be sent to the bowmaker for a new belly. A chrysal usually occurs in new bows, and mostly arises from the wood being imperfectly seasoned; but it occasionally will occur in a well-seasoned bow that has been lent to a friend who uses a longer draw and dwells longer on the point of aim, thus using the weapon beyond its wont. Another danger to the life of a bow arises from splinters in the back. ”

“ The pile, or point, is an important part of the arrow. Of the different shapes that have been used, the best for target-shooting—now almost the only survivor—is the square-shouldered parallel pile. Its greatest advantage is, that if the arrow be overdrawn so that the pile be brought on to the bow, the aim will not be injured, as must be the case with all conical piles so drawn. (Very light flight-arrows, for which the piles provided for ladies are considered too heavy, must still be furnished with the conical piles used for children's arrows.) ”

“ No work exists which aims at giving an exhaustive description of the various forms of bows which have been used by different nations in ancient and modern times, and such an undertaking would be far beyond the scope of the present work. The only form of the bow with which we are now concerned is the English long-bow, and especially with the English long-bow as now used for target-shooting as opposed to the more powerful weapon used by our forefathers for the purposes of war. ”

“ But considerable misapprehension exists amongst archers as to what is a good loose, it being often thought that if an extreme sharpness of flight be communicated to the arrow, it is conclusive evidence as to the goodness of the loose, without reference to the consideration that this extreme sharpness of loose seldom produces steadily successful hitting at any distance, and still less frequently is effective at all the distances. A thoroughly good loose cannot exist unless accuracy of hitting as well as keenness of flight be the combined result ”

“ Place the extremities of the nails of the thumb and middle finger of the left hand so as just to touch each other, and with the thumb and same finger of the right hand spin the arrow upon the nails at about the arrow's balancing-point; if it revolve truly and steadily, keeping in close and smooth contact with the nails, it is straight; but if it jump in the very least the contrary is the case. In order to test its strength or stiffness the arrow must be held by the nock, with its pile placed on some solid substance. ”