Talk:Longbow

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The Longbow wasn't English it was Welsh.

Sign your comments. If you are trying to build an argument to support a change in the article, cite your sources. Every reference, scholarly text, history, etc., that I have seen uses either designation almost interchangeably. It was invented by the Welsh, but adopted and made famous by the English. Canonblack 21:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 "V" sign 2 Yumi 3 English famous 4 Merge with [Longbow]? 5 Longbowman a more modern term 6 The image in this article

[edit] "V" sign

Regarding this, removed from the article:

To this day, holding up two fingers in the shape of a V (Churchill's victory sign, inverted) is used as an insulting gesture derived from Agincourt where a reward was offered for the knuckles and fingers of Welsh archers.

It has all the hallmarks of legend. Someone needs to provide an authoritative source, either confirm or debunk it. -- Stbalbach 18:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

See this within Wikipedia.

Ok great. Ive updated this article, the V sign article and the Two-fingers salute with this myth. The myth is also already in The finger. Any others we can propagate this meme to? -- Stbalbach 00:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yumi

The comment:

Yumi are recurved bows, and have the unique characteristic of being off-center. That is, the lower arm of the bow is shorter and heavier than the upper arm.:

Should be edited. Every single bow is like this, with a longer top limb and stiffer bottom limb, then tillered to match. The only thing particularly noteworthy about the yumi is the degree of the asymmetry; a yumi has a bottom limb half or so the length of the upper limb, while a longbow only has a few inches of difference.

• I believe the Yumi is asymmetrical not for horse archery but for a smoother shot. I can't find the website where I read this, but from what I remember, when a bow is fired, there's a tendency for it to vibrate about two nodes 1/3 of the way from either end. The handgrip of a Yumi is placed at one of these nodes so the bow doesn't jerk harshly in the hand when the arrow is fired. AThousandYoung 03:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] English famous

Perhaps we should state, that not the English, but the Welsh were famous for their longbow skills during the Middle Ages. But the English are famous for their historic longbow skills now.

Some Englishmen WERE famous for their bowmanship. The Cheshire guard, and particularly the Maccesfield contingent, for example. Archers from Macclesfield were paid more than the Welsh archers from Gwent and Crickhowell during Edward I's campaign of 1277. The "English" armies that used the longbow so effectively were made up of both Welsh and English archers. I have not seen any conclusive proof that it was the Welsh who "invented" the longbow. Long bows have been found in Britain dating from the Neolithic period. Undoubtably the Welsh were using bows against Edward I, and Wales supplied a significant number of longbowmen during the hundred years war, but the proof that they alone created the famous longbow is missing. Swahilli 19:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with [Longbow]?

The English longbow is not particularly distinguished from any other European longbow, nor indeed from the African, American, Asian varieties as far as I know. Shouldn't this article simply be merged into [Longbow] and deleted, just leaving a redirection? Richard Keatinge

- ok, other users have made clear that they don't think this a good idea. I'll drop it.

Does anyone have a Web reference for the British Long Bow Society's definition of a longbow? -Richard Keatinge 12:16, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Longbowman a more modern term

There is a long misconception the bow was called a 'Longbow' in the height of the Middle Ages. It was not until possibly around the 16th C. the term arose. The term mostly used since the 13th C. would have been called the 'War Bow'.

BTW, there really was no such thing as a longbowman; that is a modern term.

70.37.49.19 22:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks. This article nor English longbow mention this. Do you have a source for more information? -- Stbalbach 15:00, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The image in this article

The image here is the same one as appears in the English Longbow article. There, it is correctly identified as a flatbow. This image is clearly NOT a longbow, according to the definition in the article, but is a flatbow.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.39.158.1 (talk • contribs) .

Agreed. Thanks, moved image to flatbow. We still have no good image of a longbow, medieval or modern. -- Stbalbach 15:26, 27 November 2006 (UTC)