This is part 2 of posts on archery, find part 1 here.
In part 1, I discussed many details of how a Norse bow was made and equipped, but a bow is only interesting in so far as it shots arrows, so today the big question is: how were Norse bows shot?
As mentioned in the post about bow construction, the focus here is on the Norse bow proper (Norse longbow, examplified by the Hedeby and Ballinderry bows), not on the other bows that the Norse could have come in contact with and used (Sámi two-wood bow, and Magyar composite bow). So, while one cannot exclude the fact that some cross-pollination happened between the different archery traditions present in Scandinavia (for example someone could have tried to shoot a longbow with a thumb draw, with or without thumbring), let's focus on the "normal" way to shoot a Norse longbow.
There are three key elements to determine an archery technique: the grip (or draw, or release, depending on how one considers things), which defines how the string is held by the draw hand; the arrow positioning, which interacts with the structure of the bow and/or the bow hand; and the drawing motion itself. For all these elements, information is scarce, and we have to mostly rely on iconography and parallels (in particular with later Welsh and English longbows).
Regarding the grip and the arrow placement, relevant depictions of archers are few and far between, but in general we can guess quite safely that the grip was, like for better known English longbow, a Mediterranean grip with the arrow on the inside: two or three fingers pulling the string, set above and below the arrow, with the arrowhead on the left of the bow for archer drawing the string with the right hand (and vice versa). The two-finger versus three-finger variants are in practice very similar, with debates in favour of one or the other spanning centuries among archers - the only definitive point being that beyond a certain bow poundage the two-finger grip becomes too weak. It is however possible that other styles of draw were used, such as variations of the pinch draw (primary, secondary or tertiary release): some intact arrows have been found that lack a nock, such arrows would need to be held in the fingers in order to stabilise them on the string while drawing the bow (however it is likely that such arrows predate the Viking Age by a few centuries). There is similarly a debate about the possibility that medieval (English) longbows were shot with the arrows on the outside of the bow (on the right for a rightie) but even then, the vast majority of depictions suggest that the arrow is on the inside of the bow. So, with the possibility of minor usages and exceptions, let's keep the Mediterranean grip with the arrow on the inside.
Now to the question of the drawing motion. For this, there is more or less no direct source that can help us: no text describes it in detail, archaeology has nothing to say on the matter, and pictorial sources are static at best if not distorted by artistic conventions. So, what are we left with?
 |
 |
| 12th century English depiction of 9th century Norse archers (MS M.736) | 15th century French depiction of 14th century English archers (MSS Fr. 2643–6) |
Some people, based on iconography such as the martyrdom of St Edmund above, suggest that there is an "early medieval draw", which would consist in drawing the arrow towards the middle of the chest, with the bow arm pointing somewhat in front of the chest, in contrast to modern archery where the arrow is drawn towards the face and the bow arm is in line with the shoulders. This is in my opinion a completely wrong interpretation: not only is such motion completely inefficient in using the muscles of the upper body, but it also makes aiming very difficult (admittedly we're talking about instinctive aiming, but even then some angles offer a better intuition that others). This error probably stems from a misinterpretation of artistic conventions (early medieval art struggles with perspective, and hates putting anything in front of a human face) as well as from the reenactors' desire to set themselves clearly apart from modern archery. It is instead more likely that the arrow was drawn in a motion happening more or less at the level of the archer's head, or slightly above it, as illustrated by any more realistic artistic representation, or just about any traditional archery form in the world. This quasi-universality of drawing techniques can be explained in terms of body mechanics, optimizing the way the skeletal structure is locked, and as many muscle groups as possible are harnessed when drawing powerful bows (or for more comfort and stability when drawing weaker bows): for an excellent explanation, see these two videos.
We can therefore quite safely assume that at full draw of a Norse archer would have their upper arms slightly above horizontal, with the nock of the arrow somewhere between the level of the chin and the eyes. That would possibly imply, when shooting on a flat trajectory, canting the upper body to bring the bow arm horizontal - this posture is well visible on the English archers above, and possibly hinted at in the depiction of the Norse archers shooting poor Edmund. That still leaves us with the question of the motion itself - was it a closer to the exagerrated downward arch performed in kyūdō, or an almost perfectly horizontal draw like in modern olympic archery ? - and the question of the anchor points - to where (and thus how for back) was the arrow drawn?
It is very tempting, to answer all these questions, to simply apply principles from modern barebow archery, saying that this is just a matter of using a slightly different style of bow (short comment here - don't). The other common, somewhat more relevant avenue is to assume that since we're dealing with a type of powerful medieval longbow coming from north-western Europe, let's use as a reference some other type of powerful medieval longbow coming from north-western Europe - namely the English longbow, for which far better documentation (writings, depictions and archaeological finds) is available, and which has already been revived and is practiced by a solid community of enthusiasts. Is that "Norse English longbow" hybridisation a good approach though?
This leads to a topic which I think suffers from a misrepresentation : the power of Norse longbows, and as a consequence the energy of the arrows shot out of such bows. Replicas of the yew longbows from Hedeby, Ballinderry and Wassenaar have yielded bow weights in the range of 80 to 110 pounds. This seems in line with what was known for English war bows (with typical draw weights in the 100 – 160# range), and probably also in line with the idea of "strong, manly Viking warriors". However, there are elements which speak in favour of Norse longbows typically having a lower poundage.
First, there is a survival bias in the archaeological material: the most powerful bows are the thickest, and thus the most likely to get through centuries undamaged, even if they are not of "typical" draw weight. This is very clear when including the broken bow fragments from Hedeby in the picture: their draw weights is impossible to determine, because one could not make a proper replica, but it is very obvious that all of these bows were thinner, and therefore weaker, than the "Hedeby 1" intact bow.
Second, there is the context of use of these bows. Unlike the English longbow, Norse bows are primarily known from a hunting context, where a heavy poundage is useful against large game (such as very commonly reindeer), but does not need to be as high as against an armoured opponent. Then even if different, more powerful bows were used for war rather than for hunting, the armour involved was much lighter than in later medieval times (mail was present but was nowhere near as widespread as it became later, not to mention gambesons and plate), and no source points at the archers themselves being trained from the youngest age to wield extremely powerful bows (as was the case for English longbowmen). It is thus both unnecessary and unlikely to find a very heavy bow on an early medieval Scandinavian battlefield.
And third, the draw-weight of a bow doesn't mean anything without a corresponding draw-length - and that's where the key misconceptions lie.
The bow is a spring, and as such it takes more force to pull it a longer way. That's why the poundage of a bow is always given in relation with a draw-length. In modern archery the standard is of 28 inches (the typical draw-length on a modern bow for a ~180 cm tall person), this is also the draw-length for which the poundage of replicas of Norse longbows are typically reported. For English longbows the draw-length is typically longer than in modern archery, due to the anchor point being at the ear rather than the cheek, so poundages are given for draw-lengths 30 or even 31". But what is the typical draw-length used by Norse archers?
This is something which can be answered by archaeology as well as literature. Entire arrows survive very rarely in archaeological contexts, and the only thing left to be found is usually only the rusty arrowhead. But in some cases, intact shafts survive, sometimes with the fletching still present: this is the case for example in the ancient hunting grounds of the Norwegian mountains, where glacial archaeology has uncovered countless items in almost pristine conditions. From these finds, we can tell that the average length of arrow shafts was around 66 cm or 26".
 |
 |
If we account for the depth of the arrow nock and the fact that the front of the shafts was reinforced with sinew or wire wrapping, we're left with a typical draw-length of 25.5" if not less (for a clean arrow flight it is very unlikely that the archer would have rested the wrapping, and even less the admittedly very long arrowhead, on his bow hand for an increased draw-length). That tells us two things:
1) the energy of the arrow (and the strain put on the bow) is 10-15% lower than it would be with a 28" draw-length, and this can be more than 20% with respect to shooting English longbow style.
2) the anchor point was typically set quite forward. People in the 10th century were not particularly short (unlike commonly assumed): the average European male was about 172 cm tall, with Norsemen being a bit taller than average, so the expected draw-length for "modern style" archery would have been expected to be of the order of 27" to 28". At 25.5 inches we are dealing with a draw which barely reaches the face!
Such a short draw-length is hard to understand, given that most archery traditions try to maximise draw-length. It might be a matter of aiming (bringing the arrow to eye level - makes sense for the very short-range shooting that reindeer hunting involved) but also maybe a way of adapting to the bow itself. That's where literature enters the discussion!
One of the best know accounts of Norse archery comes from the story of the Battle of Svolder (year 999 or 1000) in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla. During the battle, the archer Einarr Þambarskelfir, renown for his accurate and powerful shooting, fights for king Óláfr Tryggvason on the royal flagship. Despite his bow being struck by an enemy arrow, he attempts once more to shoot the enemy leader, Eiríkr jarl Hákonarson, and then...
"Norway, king, from your hands" said Einar.
Now the interesting part is that king Óláfr then hands him his own bow and commands him to keep shooting.
Einarr took the bow, and drew it over the head of the arrow.
"Too weak, too weak," said he, "for the bow of a mighty king!" and, throwing the bow aside, he took sword and shield, and fought valiantly.
While drawing a bow over the arrowhead would be physically impossible in the case of arrows made for a 30" draw-length, it is absolutely possible to do with short arrows such as the ones found in Norway. But why would Einarr draw the bow so far back instead of stopping at his usual anchor point (and maybe still complaining about the bow's power)? It seems that he only borrowed the bow from the king, and kept using his own arrows, so even if there was a significant difference in stature between the king and him that should not have created such a problem. The other explanation is that bows were not necessarily drawn to a fixed anchor point (as would a modern archer do when switching bows) but rather to the maximum draw strength of the wielder.
In a context where accurate measurements of a bow's performance were not available, where no one would keep changing equipment for the sake of performance or fanciness (like some modern archers do) unless the previous item broke, and where regular archery practice (from which comes a well-established shooting form and the ability to shoot the heaviest of bows) was not common, it is very likely that an archer would procure (or make) a bow that would roughly match his physical capacity, and then procure or make arrows matching his draw-length with that bow. This approach to draw-length would be familiar to anyone attempting to shoot a bow far beyond their strength!
I hope that all this series of posts will inspire you to try out new things in your reenactment archery practice.
Yours,
Eiríkr
No comments:
Post a Comment