Drawing The Long Bow?
Sir, —“Robin Hood” should know that Edward 111 made a law requiring all ablebodied men of the villages to cease playing football and instead to go to the churchyard and perfect their archery. Up and down the shires such men, from 16 to 60, learned to drive the clothyard shaft fletched with grey goose feathers over 200 yards, six to the minute, into the target without fail. This constant intimacy led to a love of their weapons such as few modern soldiers can have known. Archers got to know their arrows individually. This one tended to swerve six inches to the right at 30 yards; this one was a trifle heavy in the head and needed a higher lift Such men knew other things besides their
weapons. They could read the direction and power of breezes in trees or banners, or at the end of wet fingers held in the air. Men who had lived their lives with bows could judge distances at a glance, knew at what range an arrow would fly dead straight, and at what range and height it would rise before coming back again to the level.—Yours, etc., LITTLE JOHN. July 4, 1969.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19690705.2.84.3
Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 12
Word Count
201Drawing The Long Bow? Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 12
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Press. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Acknowledgements
This newspaper was digitised in partnership with Christchurch City Libraries.