Longbow

“ Some form of grizzly, a silver-tip perhaps, this bear promised to be a formidable foe. At such a time of half stupor and intense hunger he must be doubly dangerous.
The Indian took one step backward. Then he paused. The next instant, with hands that were as powerful as man has known, and fingers as cunning, he wrenched the bow from the unconscious boy’s grasp and sent an arrow crashing into the gaunt beast’s side. ”

“ No sound came to him save the crashing of brush and rending of branches, yet even as he looked he caught a gleam of bright red among the tamarack trees.
“That’s strange,” he told himself, involuntarily tightening his grip on the six foot bow. “Can’t be a bird. ”

“ Been in the North before, but not with bow and arrow; not Canada either. Alaska. The North called me back.”
“I know.” Her voice was low and deep. “It always does.”
“As for the bow,” he spoke again, “I’m a mere novice. But there’s a charm to such hunting that does not come with firearms. And these primeval forests always have seemed to call to me. The wilderness has voices, a thousand voices.”
The girl nodded. ”

“ Coming to a broad break in the snow, he gripped his bow securely and leaped the chasm.
Was it the shock of his landing that loosened the avalanche? Who can say? Enough that at this precise moment there came a solemn threatening rumble, and the boy felt himself moving downward.
With one last effort, he threw himself flat, gripped his bow, then committed his spirit to the great Father of all. The next instant the cutting of cold air across his face told him he was going down, down, down—to what? ”

“ Images are in their nature indefensible, if they miss the imagination of another; and the foolish scribe of the Long Bow will not commit the last folly of defending his dreams. He at least has drawn a bow at a venture and shot an arrow into the air; and he has no intention of looking for it in oaks, all over the neighbourhood, or expecting to find it still sticking in a mortal and murderous manner in the heart of a friend. His is only a toy bow; and when a boy shoot with such a bow, it is generally very difficult to find the arrow—or the boy. ”

“ This they did, by holding the bow in their left hand, and grasping the arrow on the string with the right, (as is usual with them;) resting the right hand on the hip; drawing the bow with all their strength; throwing themselves forward and back, and bending their bodies, until their heads almost touched the ground; and all the time they were springing about, in every direction, as if avoiding the missiles of the foe, and yelling at the very top of their voices, with more than mortal fierceness. ”

“ The real archer when he goes afield enters a land of subtle delight. The dew glistens on the leaves, the thrush sings in the bush, the soft wind blows, and all nature welcomes him as she has the hunter since the world began. With his bow in his hand, his arrows softly rustling in the quiver, a horn at his back, and a hound at his heels, what more can a man want in life?
In America our hearts have heard the low whistle of the flying arrow and the sweet hum of the bowstring singing in the book, The Witchery of Archery by Maurice Thompson. ”

“ Now the yew is seldom used, and bows are made, either wholly or in part, of ornamental woods, such as fustick, lance-wood, or partridge-wood, backed by ash or elm. Bows are of different lengths, but those for ladies are generally about five feet long; while men, on the contrary, generally choose a bow of their own height. The strength of a bow is calculated by the weight that it requires to be suspended to the bowstring, when the bow is strung, to draw the string to the length of an arrow from the bow, and this is called the bow's weight. ”

“ There is no doubt that the closer to the nock the feathers of an arrow can be fixed, the farther and steadier it will travel.
The handle of an English bow, or of any other bow that is loosed with the fingers, is placed below its centre so that the arrow can be fitted to the middle of the bow-string, a point which is just above the hand of the archer as he grasps the bow.
A bow held below its centre can never be pulled really true, the limb below the handle being shorter than the one above it.
Fig. 9.—
The Turkish Thumb-ring. (Scale, half full size.) ”

“ Some act of bravery, or an article of clothing, generally fixes an Indian's name, but a new deed, or a new head-dress, may change it.
To shoot with the bow properly, it must be held firmly in three fingers of the right hand; the arrow is fixed on the bow-string with the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, and the other three fingers are used to pull the string. The shaft of the arrow lays between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, which rest over the grasp of the bow. To shoot, the bow is turned slightly, so that one end is higher than the other, and the arrow is then launched. ”

“ From the right side they take the arrow keen,
Ne’er to its quiver to return, I ween;
The bow, the left side’s fitting ornament;
The bow, the tough and pliant bow is bent;
It yields a sound, like thunder from afar,
While flies the arrow, like a streaming star.
None now expects a tale of fabled might ”

“ Here the very embarrassment of riches leads men to be satisfied with a very poorly made bow. Now, the characteristics of a good bow are rigidity and elasticity. When our ingenious friend the Indian climbed the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains away from the hardwood forests, he invoked the mammals to yield the sinew from the leg or the scapula, and with this he glued an elastic back upon his poor implement or united two or three horns so as to get his effect, the middle piece giving the columnar resistance, the wings putting to flight the arrow. ”

“ With the thumb-ring the bow-string is drawn back to one sharp angle close to the apex of which the nock of the arrow is fitted, so that every part of the string is utilised in driving the arrow. (Fig. 12, p. 114.)
The ease with which a strong bow can be drawn with the thumb-ring, and the entire absence of any unpleasant strain on the thumb, is remarkable. This proves how effective the Oriental style of loosing a bow-string was, compared with the one now practised by European archers. ”

“ Bows and arrows are of very ancient origin, too remote to trace out their first introduction. The bow was made from selected pieces of driftwood, reinforced by strips of whalebone, and bound with deer sinew. The arrow had two principal forms of head, one of brown flint, the other of deer horn, much longer than the first and nicked on the sides, to make it hold in the wounded game. On being struck, an animal would try to dislodge the arrow, giving the hunter a chance to send a second one, and so it would continue until a lucky shot proved fatal. ”

“ The glint or flash of a hunting bow will frighten game. I have often seen rabbits or deer stand until the bow goes off, then jump in time to escape the arrow. At first we believed they saw the arrow; later we found that they saw the flash. Bows really should be painted a dull green or drab color. But we love to see the natural grain of the wood.
The finish I prefer is first of all to give a coat of shellac to the backing, leather trimmings and cord handle. After it is dry, give the wood a good soaking with boiled linseed oil. ”

“ In the case of the bow, the unit of measurement was the distance between the tips of the thumb and the little finger with the hand fully stretched. Fifteen of these units gave the dimensions of the bow. Hence, with a six-inch stretch, the bow would be seven feet six inches long. The unit for the arrow was a hand's breadth, and from twelve to fifteen units gave the length,—i. e. from three feet to three feet nine inches.
Note 23.—Seventeen masters are universally recognised as the greatest that ever forged a blade. ”

“ And, oh, there is one other excellence of the Snark, upon which I must brag, namely, her bow. No sea could ever come over it. It laughs at the sea, that bow does; it challenges the sea; it snorts defiance at the sea. And withal it is a beautiful bow; the lines of it are dreamlike; I doubt if ever a boat was blessed with a more beautiful and at the same time a more capable bow. It was made to punch storms. To touch that bow is to rest one's hand on the cosmic nose of things. ”

“ You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.Then said a rich man, Speak to us of Giving. ”

“ One that continues to bend toward the belly is said to follow the string. A lateral deviation is called a cast in the bow.
The proper length of a yew bow should be the height of the man that shoots it, or a trifle less. Our hunting bows are from five feet six inches to five feet eight inches in length. The weight of a hunting bow should be from fifty to eighty pounds. One should start shooting with a bow not over fifty pounds, and preferably under that. At the end of a season's shooting he can command a bow of sixty pounds if he is a strong man. Our average bows pull seventy-five pounds. ”

“ Ingenious arrangements hold the bow stretched, and keep it and the arrow in position; a wooden clasp relaxes the bow whenever a line stretched across the animal’s run is touched. In order to direct the arrow so that it may pierce the heart of the victim, the ingenious people use a pillar-like perforated target the size of the desired booty. ”

“ Similarly a lady’s bow on the average measures about 5 ft. 6 in. and her arrows 25 in. Modern bows are either made entirely of yew (occasionally of other woods) , when they are called “self-bows,” or of a combination of woods, when they are called “backed-bows.” Self-bows are rarely or never made in a single stave, owing to the difficulty of obtaining true and flawless wood of the necessary length; hence two staves joined by a double fish-joint, which forms the centre of the bow, are used, tested and adjusted so that they may be as equally elastic as possible. ”

“ An Indian with a strong, and to me almost inflexible bow, threw himself on his back, holding the steel or iron-pointed arrow with both hands against the string of the bow, and with his feet springing it sent the arrow deep into the heart of the animal, which fell at his feet. ”

“ Your effort must be to get every part of the wood to do its work, for every inch is under utmost strain, and one part doing more than the rest must ultimately break down, sustain a compression fracture, or, as an archer would say, "chrysal or fret."
"A bow full drawn is seven-eighths broken," said old Thomas Waring, the English bowmaker, and he was right. Draw your bow three inches more than the standard cloth yard of twenty-eight inches and you break it. It is more accurate to say that a full drawn bow is nine-tenths broken. ”

“ The long-bow, so called by way of distinction from the cross-bow, is the most ancient of all weapons, and has very generally been used by remote and barbarous nations. The Laplanders, who support themselves principally by hunting, excel the most civilized nations in the construction of this instrument. Their bow is composed of two pieces of strong elastic wood, of an equal size, which are flat on each side, and glewed together. ”

“ Then leaped every man to his feet, all bow-strings twanged and the cast-spears flew; no man forebore to shout; each as he might leapt out of the thicket and fell on with sword and axe and spear, for it was from the bowmen but one shaft and no more. ”

“ The handle of the bow is ingeniously split, and by a little peg, which acts as a trigger, the bow-string is disengaged, and as the spring is very strong it sends the arrow to a great distance, and, light as it is, with great force. ”

“ A 48-pound bow well drawn and loosed will give a lower trajectory than one of 55 pounds sluggishly handled. By the weight of a bow is not meant its avoirdupois, but the force necessary to draw the arrow to its head on the bow. It is all important to know how to string the bow. Grasp the handle firmly with the right hand, draw it near your right side, while the lower end rests against the inside of the right foot, the back of the bow being toward you. ”

“ At length he made a step forward, and raising the bow at the full stretch of his left arm, till the centre or grasping-place was nigh level with his face, he drew his bow-string to his ear. The arrow whistled through the air, and lighted within the inner ring of the target, but not exactly in the centre.
"You have not allowed for the wind, Hubert," said his antagonist, bending his bow, "or that had been a better shot." ”

“ O son of Khesib, when thou awakest, dig under thy feet and thou wilt find a bow of brass and three leaden arrows, inscribed with talismanic characters. Take the bow and shoot the arrows at the horseman on the top of the dome and rid mankind of this great calamity. When thou shootest at him, he will fall into the sea and the horse will drop at thy feet: take it and bury it in the place of the bow. ”

“ Why so placed, and why regarded with such concentrated interest by the men confronting it from the opposite gallery, will become apparent when, upon the Indian's being summoned from his place of modest retirement, it can be seen that the bow he carries in one hand is offset by the arrow he holds in the other. ”

“ Near the notch a hare is bounding,
Wonderful the bow thus fashioned;
Cuts some arrows for his quiver,
Covers them with finest feathers,
From the oak the shafts be fashions,
Makes the tips of keenest metal. ”