Archery, medieval style.

NEWS

Archived from Tuesday 19th February 2008

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Companions Trophy

 

Week 10 of the Companions Trophy and this week’s competition involved two 3D animal targets.  Basically each target had the three pegs set at various difficulties based on the range to target & obstructions between the archer and the target – red = hard, blue = intermediate, yellow = easy.  Each archer had 6 arrows to score as many points as possible.  Which peg the archer shot from was optional with points awarded for a kill or a wound based on the difficulty of the peg.  The only rule about positions though was that once points had been scored from a peg the archer had to move to another peg.  The two 3D animal targets were familiar sights to those who enjoy the English countryside, a coyote and a racoon!

 

Congratulations go to Dave A. for coming first (and the only archer to score from all six pegs).  Further congratulations must go to Jenni and Rachel for qualifying for the next rank up—they go from 3^rd Rank Under-Forester to 2^nd Rank Walking Forester.  Also congratulations to Jeff who goes from 4th Rank Arrowman up to 3rd Rank Under-Forester.

 

Week 11 looks like it might see at least one archer reach the 1^st Rank Riding Forester and join Andy TB in the Week 27 final competition!

Companions Challenge

 

This week’s Companions Challenge was inspired by all those bits from films and TV shows where some bad guy holds someone hostage and uses them as a human shield.  This is where the good guy has the option of taking the shot to kill the bad guy without hitting the hostage or putting their gun (or bow!) down.  Obviously for this Challenge putting our bows down wouldn’t be much fun so we’re all “taking the shot”.

Two butts were arranged so that the target was designated the hostage and the target behind was designated the bad guy.  They were arranged so that the bad guy was almost totally covered by the hostage except for a strip that was about 4” to 5” wide.  The shooting line was set at twenty five paces and over a series of three rounds the Companions had a number of arrows to shoot the bad guy.  After each round as long as there were more arrows in the bad guy than the hostage the round was a success.  If there were an equal number of arrows in the bad guy and the hostage then the round would be a failure.  If there were more arrows in the hostage than the bad guy then the round would be a failure.  There were three rounds from which the first round each archer had three arrows to shoot.  The second round each archer had two arrows and finally the last round each archer would have just the one arrow.  As a collective group the Companions would have to save the hostage two out of the three rounds for the Challenge to be a success.   So how did we do?

 

 The first round was a roaring success with the bad guy looking like a pin cushion by the end.  The second round (with only two arrows allowed per archer) unfortunately went the other way and this time the hostage was the target that looked like a pin cushion.  So it was now all down the third and final round – the hardest round because the archers were only allowed one shot each.  Okay, so there’s no dressing this up, it was a total disaster for the Companions as the third and final round saw them pump arrow after arrow into the poor hostage.  This Challenge may have been a failure but one (un)lucky archer still had to win the Prize of Dubious Worth.  This week it was Alina who, after shooting the bad guy the most times along with Rachel, won the shoot off between the two.  We won’t mention what the Prize was (a set of plastic shower curtain rings) but come back and find out how we do at next week’s Challenge.

The BBC One Show

 

Anyone who missed The One Show on Friday 15^th February can click here and watch it again via the BBC’s free iPlayer service.  It’s only here for one week (so tough luck if you’re reading this once it’s been archived).  If you drag the bar to 15 minutes and 20 seconds into the programme they’ve got a piece about “obsessed people”.  That day’s obsessed people piece was about a guy called Tony Rotherham who is really into Robin Hood & claims to be the authentic interpretation of the popular medieval outlaw.  Have a look and see what you think.

 

If you don’t want to watch it or haven’t watched it skip to the And Finally section.

 

By Mark:  I think his ideas about wearing Lincoln Green are interesting.  Some on-line sources that I’ve found (the interweb never lies does it?) says cloth made in Lincoln came in various grades of which three types were called scarlet (which did not mean it was the colour scarlet), greyne (which may have been linguistically warped from “greyne/grain” to “green” – although the cloth may or may not have been dyed green later in the process) and gray (which does not mean it was the colour gray, but was … okay, you get the message).  Lincoln Green was apparently a middle grade cloth.

 

So a few questions – firstly why do contemporary medieval hunting manuals recommend the wearing of green to camouflage the hunter if brown was de rigeur for those in the know (although they talk about using all natural colours including brown)?  Secondly, what’s the point of a cloth that’ll poison you if you get a bit sweaty?  Its really not going to sell well is it? (Although I can see a niché market in funeral shrouds.)  Thirdly, why does green crop up as a popular choice in medieval sources at all  (e.g. Canterbury Tales) if people didn’t wear it because the dyeing process made it poisonous?  Answers on a postcard please.

 

My theory after extensive research over 15 years, erm, well actually 15 minutes, is that Lincoln Green (or greyne or grain) became associated with green because of the use by foresters and their profession’s popular colour choice of green; in the same way perhaps that when someone mentions cowboys & jeans you think blue denim.

 

Anyway, according to the BBC version, Robin Hood wears a waistcoat, a neckerchief and looks like a finalist from the World Embassy Snooker Championships, so this guy’s ideas from Nottingham are miles better.   Right, my front door needs repainting so I’m off to buy myself some Ferrari Red paint.  It’s made from Ferraris so I’m told.

 

And Finally

Members can check out the Comments section in the Members Area as Ryan has left a message.  As always … got a suggestion for the club?  Send it to suggestions@companionsofthelongbow.co.uk or send them direct to any of the committee members e-mail address (see Contact Us page for these).