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| Spring 2021, Washington Park Archery Range |
* edit ... and there I go rambling.
In the 90s, while in the SCA, I was squired to a knight and my first year craft, other then repairing his armor, was to make a bow. Not my choice, his; I wanted to make an axe. That reluctant project took me a year - I made a 30# self bow from a straight-grained red oak board I found in a scrap bin. I even used linen bookbinding thread and bee's wax and made a Flemish string. Steingrim and the Bowyer's Bible vol. 1 were my guides and the result was Sweet-Butter. I still have her and taught my buddy 2 weeks ago how to shoot with her.
Soon after I was taught how to fletch and spine arrows by a fella named Steve LeRoy. I cannot find him today but in 1999-2000 he was an award winning state fletcher and known expert in primitive archery.
My last day I was ever in the SCA was an Antir / West War in 2001. My squire brother and I, already a bit angry over some things a few weeks prior, drove down to Southern Oregon to the war. We got there, said hi to about 4 people, he picked up a knife he wanted and I got a Kassai Mongol bow I wanted... then we left. We were done. We looked at each other and said, "I don't want to be here." and drove the 3 hours back home that day.
I attempted another bow in 2002, a Holmgaard style flat bow. It failed on the 3rd arrow I ever shot from it. I was dismayed, I was going through many distressing life changes in that period and it was just another failure for me, and did not shoot or bowyer or fletch for about a decade after.
Right after I got married in 2012 I busted out Sweet-Butter and the Kassai Mongol and hit up the free public range in Washington Park in Portland and would keep doing it 3-4 times a year. I never got better but shooting only a couple times a year is not how one tends to get better.
2020 hit and, like many, there was some thinking to do. Beyond a mid life crisis during a global pandemic I also found myself needing to hold the historical reenactment group together while not having any demonstrations, meetings, or events. Archery became the vehicle for that, something we could also discover and explore together. Collectively the archers in Timberhaven are called "Yew-Shakers" ... but none of us have a yew bow! Pre vaccination we could meet outside and masked at the range. This became, other then my remote D&D games, pretty much my non-family related social life. I got outside, sometimes met with Timberhaven members, got a few close friends of mine invovled, and met some really cool people at the range.
I kept it up through 2020, invested quite a bit of money into my historical Viking archery kit, and kept it going well into 2021 and plan to do even more in 2022. I plan to fletch some arrows and might, even, start carving into some yew next year and bowyer my own bow based off Danish finds from the era.
My usable archery kit for a male Jutlander circa 950 CE:
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| Excuse the angle of the bow in the pic, it makes it look like the tiller is off. This is not true. |
"Hedeby" Bow - bespoke job by Quiverstock in the UK. They have off the shelf bows in the 30# range but I opted for something in the 55# range. This was to be made to order, due to many factors this bow took about 6 months to get. It's based off the fragments of about 6 different finds in Hedeby all the basic engineering factors were used. A self-bow, single knock for bow string, and deflexed and bulbouse bow ends mainly. Unstrung it is 6.5 feet long and draws to 28" at 54#. I can take it out to 32" at 60 pounds. The string is modern dacron but appears to be natural. I added some brass nocking points on the string.
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| Single string nock, bulbous end, very slight deflex... almost negligent. I did pull my angle finder on it and it's about 2 degrees deflex. |
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| "Bottom" of bow, single string nock, string secured with a timber-hitch knot. |
Target arrows - bought off Amazon and not historically accurate per our sources but historically adequate. Self-nocked, turkey fletching, spined for 60#, target tips, black cotton thread and glue, cedar shaft.
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| Red and yellow paint for ID. |
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| Basic target tips glued and peened on. |
The above picture leads to a good anecdote in regards to the durability of these target arrows I bought off Amazon (and searching now for a link they are gone). Last December 2020 I was at the range and I over-shot the target and I ended up losing the arrow in the grass. I had made a few new friends at the range, mostly women that took up archery during the pandemic, and one of my new friends helped me look for the arrow but to no avail. Five months later, April of 2021, I was at the range and my friend was there as well, now teaching archery, and the round had ended and we went to retrieve arrows.
"Hey, Viking Guy... I think I found the arrow you lost last winter!" and she held it up. Indeed it was the arrow we looked for on that crisp and cold December morning.
I inspected it and it looked OK. I went to the kid-range and shot it and it worked fine. I have been shooting it since last April and it is a regular in my target arrow rotation, the only sign it had been out in rain, snow, ice, and unseasonal heat for 5 months was the grey color. $70 on self-nocked target arrows well spent!
Next are my newest acquisition - Mos-Nydam replica arrows by Medieval Arrows UK. These were a custom job offered by them and were quite expensive.
"Hey, Viking Guy... I think I found the arrow you lost last winter!" and she held it up. Indeed it was the arrow we looked for on that crisp and cold December morning.
I inspected it and it looked OK. I went to the kid-range and shot it and it worked fine. I have been shooting it since last April and it is a regular in my target arrow rotation, the only sign it had been out in rain, snow, ice, and unseasonal heat for 5 months was the grey color. $70 on self-nocked target arrows well spent!
Next are my newest acquisition - Mos-Nydam replica arrows by Medieval Arrows UK. These were a custom job offered by them and were quite expensive.
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| Custom Mos-Nydams at the top, target arrows bottom for scale and comparison. |
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| Mos-Nydams with 4 fletchings of goose feather. Bulbous self-nocks indicating being shot with a pinch grip. |
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| Mos-Nydams atop, birch and ash shafts. Much thicker than the modern target (cedar) arrows below for camparison. |
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| Bottom 2 heads are modern target heads. Top 6 are the Mos-Nydam arrows - from bottom to top: socketed bodkin, tanged forked-hunting, tanged broadhead, tanged broadhead, 2 tanged (Ladby and Ribe finds). |
Due to the price on these arrows I am a bit reluctant to shoot them. This on top of the rule of the range I go to that only target tips are allowed. That said these arrows will be on display for the forseeable future. Now that I have them though I will be working on some of my own arrows in the spring and making target-shooting replicas with some pine and birch shafts I picked up last year. I will be using synthetic fletching as opposed to goose as well; my main focus is to mimic the bulbous self-nocks and work on a pinch grip for shooting.
What do I carry these arrows in? A whicker basket quiver of course! Note - this has dubious, at best, provenance. I like it though and it works well, the only evidence I have for it is a find in Finland from a bit later than the nominal Viking Age. The only known quiver find is the Hedeby quiver and that thing is a complicated build (per my leather skills) and not something that I think a Mid-Status Jutlander would have. I do have my old SCA quiver which is just a leateher tube with some ties on it. I do plan to do an interpretation of quivers off the Bayeux Tapestry but that plan, on paper, looks like a newer version of my old SCA quiver.
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| My whicker basket quiver. Not sure of the bast used, bought from 3 Rivers Archery. |
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| Finnish finds replicas in museum. |
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| Sketch of the Hedeby quiver and a scene from the Bayeux Tapestry of archers. |
... and other then that, my 3 finger shooting glove, and my bow-hand shooting glove (as I shoot off the knuckle and these historical bows do not have arrow shelves on the bow) that is my main archery kit for Viking reenactment. I am not quite sure what else I have planned for 2022 other than making some arrows of my own but time will tell. I also have not found a name for my new bow as nothing has popped up that is obvious, this is not a requirement though.
As usual I am always improving and my reading, study, and practice is never finished and all of this will be different in a few years. Reenactment is an organic hobby and is constantly changing as new information from the professionals comes in.
Archery is important to me now though. It held me up during the darkest moments of the pandemic and, in my opinion, kept things hopping in Timberhaven and even with the set-backs our group had we strived, grew, and are coming out with new passion.
Archery is important to me now though. It held me up during the darkest moments of the pandemic and, in my opinion, kept things hopping in Timberhaven and even with the set-backs our group had we strived, grew, and are coming out with new passion.
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