Bow Cracking Time

Archery Update:

I had just raised the bow and taken a fantastic shot, the cedar, yellow and black arrow scoring a perfect arc 60 yards through the woods to hit the paper bear dead in the heart on the first shot.

Huzzah!

But there was a second shot to let fly. I drew back the old flatbow with just enough presence of mind to notice that the pull seemed slightly easier than usual, and in a delusion of victorious circumstance, I attributed this to the special directness of my will.

Hubris, as you know, is always rewarded, and Diana - Goddess of the Hunt, even for paper rabbits, was unusually swift that day.

Crack! A sickening snap and the air about my head was filled with bowstring and bits of fast moving wood and arrow, as, bolo-like, the suddenly free limb tip flung around on the string and wrapped itself around my head, poking me, very slightly, in the eyelid.

If paper deer can laugh, they did so then...a sound I encourage you to contemplate.

So ends my first bow, elegant shards of lemonwood in one piece more than is normally required.

I regret nothing.

After much, even excessive searching, I've decided out of sheer historical obstinacy to commission a new English D-style longbow - I found a bowyer in the hinterlands who will make one out of mulberry with a hickory back, and it will feature the traditional Buffalo horn tips.

There are plenty of more efficient bow designs, but like I say, archery hasn't been about efficiency in a long while. If that's your standard, why not use a cruise missle? The aesthetic of a real hardwood longbow is hard to beat.

The mulberry is a close relative of osage orange, which is the ideal and almost unattainable bow wood, and it has a warm yellow-orange color. If you're not backing with modern materials, hickory is a very tough choice. If the bow is excellent, it's a fantastic deal, and if it's okay, it's still a good deal, but will take a few weeks. I'm finishing it myself, so the costs are way down (it's less than $150 - for good hardwood, hornocks, and commissioned size (55# at 28"). The plan is to stain the hickory backing very dark and create another yellow tone-black tone bow, which I may say, will look very sharp.

One further note: the English, strangely enough, are much better at this than us, with a few exceptions (selfbow.com); they have excellent traditional bows available, and cheaper (the secret is ebay.co.uk) but shipping is absolute murder, about the cost of the bow for one 2 kg item. There must be a solution....last I looked, they wanted $300 - it doesn't cost $300 to ship ME to england.

Finally, in Kodiak two months ago, I noticed some Russian era paintings of the Alutiiq hunters, using bows from their baidarkas. The bows were short, of course, but the hunters were holding them in an unsual way, gripped entirely with the fingers, no palm - a style requiring huge strength which was necessitated by having to hold the bow horizontally while trying to shoot a sea lion from the bobbing skinboat. I asked an expert, who said that some of the old Alutiiq guys still make and hold bows this way.

Neat!