322 Sir Ralph Paijm-OaUivey, Bart, [May 29, 



forms of bow which were used respectively by European and Oriental 

 nations. Of these, the long-bow, as the famous weapon of our 

 ancestors, and with which they won many glorious victories, properly 

 comes first. The cloud of three or four thousand arrows, dis- 



charged simultaneously from long-bows, must have been a terrifying 

 sight. Old historians, in picturesque fashion, were wont to speak of a 

 great flight of arrows as darkening the sun. They were impossible to 

 avoid when falling on troops in close rank, as was the ancient and 

 mediseval formation in battle, and the noise of the feathers of 

 thousands of arrows as they rushed through the air was like the 

 sound of a gale in a forest. Bullets could not be seen. They 



struck without warning, and hence did not cause terror before the 

 blow was felt. The single shock of a bullet might cause a horse to 

 start and plunge, but a barbed arrow working in its flesh would goad 

 the animal to a state of irritation which would soon cause it to un- 

 horse its rider. If a heavily clad knight, he then lay helpless on the 

 ground, and was sometimes leisurely done to death by the enemy 

 with a curved bladed knife, specially designed for inserting upwards 

 between the overlapping joints of his armour. 



The English long-bow was a mere staff of yew obtained from 

 abroad and shaped into a bow at home. It had no decoration or 

 finish, and the bows used by soldiers had not even horn nocks for 

 the loops of the bow-string, but merely notches cut at their ends. 

 The long-bow, owing to its great length, could not be used on horse- 

 back, and if retained for some hours in a strung condition, it lost 

 much of its power. 



The feats achieved with the long-bow in England have been 

 grossly exaggerated, and the expression, " drawing the long-bow," has 

 become, for this reason, a proverl) implying inaccuracy and boasting. 



Much nonsense has been handed down to us concerning the range 

 and accuracy of the long-bow, even Sir Walter Scott being a sad 

 culprit in this respect. 



That Robin " Hood ever shot an arrow a mile, or even a third of 

 a mile, or that William of Cloudeslie cleft a hazel-wand at four 

 hundred paces, a distance at which it is doubtful if it could even be 

 seen, is simply idle nonsense. As to Robin Hood's feat, I may say I 

 have had long-bows constructed of a far greater strength than any 

 man could draw. These I fixed in a strong framework and bent and 

 shot them by mechanical power, yet the longest range I obtained 

 with a light arrow was only 360 yards. 



It may be taken that the distance to which a very powerful long- 

 bow man could discharge his war arrow, was from 260 to 270 yards, 

 the usual distance being 250 to 260 yards, and that with a light 

 flighting arrow, such as was of no use in warfare, he could attain, 

 at; most, a range of from 310 to 320 yards. 



The very exceptional archer, which any country might occasionally 

 produce where archery was formerly practised by the entire male 



