weapons, weapons....

[Caelan Arendor]

From the passages in the Wheel of Time series, one might infer that the bow was the principal weapon of the inhabitants of the Two Rivers. Yet it remains unclear which style of bow they favored. As is commonly recognized, there are four principal types of this armament: the longbow, the recurve bow, the composite bow, and the short bow. Does anyone have an idea what might have been preferred by the courageous people of the Two Rivers?

I think I’m right in saying that crossbows were still completely unknown in this region during the time of the first Wheel of Time book. Or am I off base?

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

The bows are, to my knowledge, clearly long bows styled on the Welsh/English bows of the First Age. The length of them unstrung and their shape does not seem to leave any doubt about that, and I'm fairly sure even their construction is touched upon in the books (and possibly it has been confirmed elsewhere). 

[Caelan Arendor]

Sorry, I must have missed that detail....I will try to look it up!

[Starla Yilmaz]

The Shiener make fun of them for their bows, so start at the beginning The Great Hunt.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

3 hours ago, Starla Yilmaz said:

The Shiener make fun of them for their bows, so start at the beginning The Great Hunt.

Yes, I think around there it also explains how Perrin and Rand got their bows when only Mat had taken one from the Two Rivers (what wood it was made of) also possibly if I remember right around the Gathering Storm, Mat buys a wooden staff to turn into a bow that would also shed light on their construction (and uses it as quarterstaff to protect Tuon, iirc).

[Mailman]

mistake

 

Edited November 23 by Mailman

[Caelan Arendor]

19 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

The Shiener make fun of them for their bows, so start at the beginning The Great Hunt.

In any case, I’m planning a “re-read” of the series, but I need to find enough leisure time to tackle it. After all, English is not my native language, and I’m expecting it will take me a good one to two years to read!

[Caelan Arendor]

According to my research, the first recorded use: around the late 12th century, but the longbow became particularly well-known and widespread in the 14th and 15th centuries, especially during the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453). The most known battles with longbowmen were at Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356), Agincourt (1415).

 

The british longbow could be deployed for effective combat range up to 200 meters and ist was so powerful, that it could penetrate armor and shields!

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

The Welsh/English (not British, we Scots never used the longbow, and suffered from it often enough) bow was a fearsome weapon. It was not as powerful as crossbows, but much more accurate in skilled hands and with a much greater rate of fire. And as issue at several battles, it was much easier to keep a bowstring dry in an oiled pouch (and have back ups) than it was to keep the crossbow strings of Genoese mercenaries that the French employed in the Hundred Years War. 

 

The skeletal remains of archers found buried in France show that men shooting the bow were literally deformed by the development of the muscles used to draw the bow. Modern competitive bows do not have to be held at full draw to aim - they have some sort of pulley system of counter balances or some such (stop me if I'm being too technical, lol) but a simple bow has to be held on muscle power alone. 

 

The main draw back was the skill needed, archers had to train a lot. Not comparable to crossbows or muskets. And this is why there are still bylaws in England that demand every man practice archery for two hours on a Sunday. That and the need for arrows, which were bulky, fragile and labour intensive to produce.