Archery Through the Ages - In the Twilight of Truth E-Book

Thomas M. Meine

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 448

Beschreibung

--- The most shocking book in the history of archery --- If you want to know the truth, you must read his book. Straight forward, clear-cut, unbending. Greek or Roman mythology, legends, folk tales, trivial stories, conspiracy theories, common knowledge, scientific discoveries, old superstitions - the author critically evaluates their content and does not shy away from challenging taboos - or to unmask cherished values. Carefully researched, brilliantly analyzed, well-argued, convincing. A Cult Book of Archery History, not only for archers, but for all interested in search of the inspirational source of lies, hoaxes or the treasure box of the spin doctors. Satire at its best, entertaining and educational. When Roger Aschams work -Toxophilus- the first English book on archery, was the beginning, then this book closes the lid. For those who want to impress with wit, irony and confidence in debates and disputes on myths, legends and folktales and similar pseudo-cultural outpourings, this book is the ideal crib sheet and knowledge base.

Leseprobe

Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.

Aldous Huxley

CONTENTS – Part 1 of 2

Preface

Myths, folktales, legends and other rubbish

Bow and arrow – the long-distance effect

Transition

The legend of Robin Hood

Cupid and his famous arrow shots

The legendary shot of Odysseus

The treacherous murder of Frozen Fritz

The stolen skull of Geronimo

Noble archers – Chinese beliefs

Geschnetzeltes à l' Archer

Sagittarius – 'inventor' of bow and arrow

Records in archery

The Paiute myth of the creation of bow and arrow

Bow and arrows – lost in the lottery

William Tell – the apple-shot story

Arcane archers

The arrow shots at Saint Sebastian

Archery traditions

We should not shoot arrows at humans anymore

Redheads in archery

Artemis – goddess of hunting

The 17,000-dollar ring

The Royal Company of Archers

Germany – named after Caesar's sister

Leupichis on the run

How Bamberg got its name

Count Dracula and his daughter

'All into the gold!' – a good luck wish?

CONTENTS – Part 2 of 2

The golden bow

The origin of the longbow and the Welsh

Kyudo archers

Arrows – slower than the shadow on a sundial?

The victory salute of Winston Churchill

The yew – almost eradicated by the archers?

Mongolian archers

Mongolian women

Gau – a monstrous word?

Bow fishing

Bowhunting for bullfrogs

Arrows – only made for shooting?

Heracles and bow and arrow

Rati and Kama

Lumbago

English longbows – the 'atomic bomb of the middleages'?

A Black Kite was in the way

The immortal archer Hou Yi

The compound bow – soundless weapon of the military?

Ancient wisdom

The battle of Little Big Horn

The last battle with bow and arrow

The Ramstein tragedy

Yabusame archers

Archery and the Olympic Games

The arrow in the weathercock

Shaohao – the Chinese counterfeiter

The Amazons

A fairy tale – The naughty boy

Apodosis

PREFACE

Myths, folktales, legends, they have been poured upon us from a seemingly inexhaustible horn of plenty since the days of the ancient.

We are burdened with far too many of these wacky stories and whopping lies, and the very least we must do is to critically evaluate the content of these commonly senseless concoctions by using our common sense.

Non the less, many people firmly believe in most of this crap, and the primary reasons for this behavior are:

1. They do not know better.

2. They like it or they just accept it this way.

3. Others told them to believe it.

Seldom enough can we trust it, because it is true.

But even if we are aware of the fact that this yarn should not be taken seriously, like most of the content of the myths, folktales, or legends, we must also question the value of such 'works' and must honestly ask ourselves: What is it good for?

Fairy tales are good. Santa Claus and Snow White are good. On the other hand, many stories we consider to be of cultural value are not good. If we treat them like fairy tales – fine! If we try to find a hidden message or a deeper sense – a waste of time!

Why can we be so simply misled or deceived? Myths, folktales, legends, and similar stories of freaky imagination often contain such a large amount of nonsense and clearly recognizable misinformation that one should identify the 'masterpieces', immediately and easily, as pure rubbish.

We are simply taken for a ride when we read some of the famous legends. If we want to increase this foolishness, we must reach for the Greek or Roman myths, whereby the latter are nothing else but cheaply cribbed versions of the Greek literary applesauce. The Romans just bothered to change the names of the characters.

Myths, folktales, legends – they are so deeply engraved in the memory of people that they will find it extremely difficult to separate themselves again from this intellectual dung, and often they will not succeed at all.

But then, they do not differ anymore from the North Koreans who believe, after long years of intense exposure to the propaganda, that the everlasting leader Kim-Jong-il was born on the Paektu-San (the white-headed mountain). See what happens when you tell them that his birthplace was in fact at the arse end of nowhere, a tiny fishing village in Russia, called Wjatskoje.

Bow and arrow often play a leading role in these crazy stories, which are quite often only shoddy efforts of intentional misinformation. Therefore, and for the sake of my beloved archery sport, I have decided to go to the bottom of all this in a forthright way.

I will try to shed light on some issues and point out things where clarification is urgently needed, but I must warn you beforehand: When I did my research for this book project, it soon became clear to me – and you will make this experience your own – that things appear to be worse than one could have ever imagined.

Moreover, it is very important to point out another thing: In a good part of this literary crap of archery tales, it is not about arrows hitting their target, but about arrows missing or not doing the job properly.

In other words, no bow and arrow in the hands of brave men effectively using this weapon have influenced the history of humanity. On the contrary, many of these cheap novelettes of the past try to make us believe that history has moved forward through a series of badly shot arrows.

But not only do the stories themselves have a penetrating odor of deception. We must strongly assume that occasionally some of the works have not even been written by the person who is famous for them.

One writer, celebrated for the efforts of other people, is the famous William Shakespeare. In great likelihood, he was just the front man for a plagiarist behind him, who did not want to put his own credibility and reputation at risk.

Was it Francis Bacon, son of the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under Queen Elizabeth I? Was it Edward DeVere, the Earl of Oxford, who might even have invented the person of William Shakespeare or Walter Raleigh or Christopher Marlowe?

The only significant document Shakespeare had definitively written himself (if he existed at all), was his last will.

He left his widow with nothing but 'the second-best bed' in the house. And I ask you, is this characteristic of a man, hailed for some of the greatest plays and poems known?

But that's not all. He whoever Shakespeare really was, had not only written out of hiding but had even stolen famous pieces of literature in the good 'legend style'. This is plagiarism at its best by William 'the copycat' Shakespeare.

Let us just take 'Romeo and Juliet': We know the worn-out pattern of this work from Hero and Leander, Pyramus and Thisbe, Tristan and Isolde (with or without music from Wagner), Flore and Blanscheflur or Troilus and Cressida. These stories are of Oriental, Greek, Germanic, or Celtic origin or had been cribbed from many other sources.

Geoffrey Chaucer, an English writer of the 14th century, was the first one to use the rather oafishly woven basics of this theme in his epos 'Troilus and Criseyde'. It was copied by Arthur Brookes in his 'Tragic History of Romeus and Juliet' of 1562 and by his fellow Englishman William Painter, who wrote 'Rhomeo and Julietta' in the year 1567. The latter two had copied their 'works' from the French version of Pierre Boaistuau of the year 1559.

Pierre Boaistuau himself had stolen the idea from Matteo Bandellos and his 'Romeo e Giulietta' of the year 1554. Believe it or not, also Matteo Bandelos had pilfered his drama, namely from the version of Luigi da Portos of the year 1530.

The 'original first copy' by Luigi da Portos came out with the title 'Giuletta e Romeo' (Juliet and Romeo). What a brilliant idea of distinction by the later literary pirates to turn the names of the main characters the other way around: 'Romeo and Juliet'.

Shakespeare, or the counterfeiter behind him, had stolen complete sentences – word for word! – from the 'work' of Arthur Brookes and other material from William Painter, but these writers had themselves already massively stolen intellectual property from others, who in turn had repeatedly and systematically transferred those possessions for their own use…

Sad, but true: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is nothing but a 'summary of highlights' of other Romeo and Juliet or Juliet and Romeo stories.

Moreover, Shakespeare's dramas 'Troilus and Cressida' (another screwed up love affair), as well as 'The Two Noble Kinsmen', had been copied from Geoffrey Chaucer's works.

Even 'The Knight's Tale' by Geoffrey Chaucer – the template for Shakespeare's 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' – was not original. It had been stolen from Giovanni Boccaccio's 'Teseida', whose heroes are named Palemone and Arcita.

This, in turn, gave Richard Edwards the 'inspiration' to write a play called 'Palamon and Arcite', whereby he not just 'borrowed' the name, but also the plot.

The stage collapsed when the play was performed in Oxford before Elizabeth I. Three people died and five were injured in this accident. In the year 1566 that was no reason for a longer interruption; the show continued to play that night.

'A Midsummer Night's Dream', one of Shakespeare's most 'original' plays, is nothing but a pirate copy, sucking honey from several sources.

So much for that part of classic literature…

Shakespeare's academic contribution to literature is – openly spoken – of highly doubtful quality. Who cares? What concerns bow and arrow, there is apparently nothing of importance in his literary patchworks we must criticize. However, there are other 'productions' we archers must be worried about.

With all this in mind and mainly concentrating on the investigation of the misuse of bow and arrow or the role of archers in other shoddy outpourings, called myths, legends, or folktales, I dedicate this book to all my comrades of archery. And those who have not yet shot an arrow from a bow will make their own exciting discoveries, as we walk together through the twilight of truth.

You are all cordially invited to follow me into this strange land, lying in the shadows of madness, drug inebriation, and other mind dulling, paranoid excesses that must have inspired those 'great works of culture', whether or not you believe in the myths, folk tales or legends or if you just love them as they are.

In this book, you will also find some stories of newer dates, noteworthy or trivial, somber or rather amusing. They have been included to let the reader relax once in a while from the horrible discoveries related to these myths, legends, and folktales.

However, if you see your picture of our so-called cultural heritage damaged, try to take it with humor, even if it might occasionally prove to be difficult.

The potatoes and the humor have one thing in common: You must dig them out first. But then, good or bad is often just a matter of opinion.

MYTHS, FOLKTALES, LEGENDS AND OTHER RUBBISH

At first, I will try to differentiate the terms, although the borderlines are somewhat fluent. One thing should be common: These stories are not about historical facts or true events. If that would be different, they would not be myths, folktales, or legends.

Storytelling is a common feature in all cultures. Most people enjoy stories, true or untrue. Consequently, this has created the storytellers and they have balanced the demand and supply from the beginning of civilization.

The myths have a religious or occult background with a focus on prehistoric times, along with the inventing of mythical creatures and demons. They try to explain to us the origin of the earth. On top of that, the poets have dreamed up all kinds of gods.

The folktales, very similar to the myths, are said to have a central message. They are dealing to a lesser extent with the gods, but tend to refer more to heroes of flesh and blood. Based on oral transmission, they sell us incredible events, yet after all, with a claim to truth slightly above the fairy tales.

Legends pretend to be more factual reports. They have been communicated over the centuries and adapted or changed to the spirit of the time, whenever they were passed on in their more befitting style.

Altogether, the myths, folktales, and legends are an important part of our mental foundations and culture, even though – to a large degree – they are mostly plain bullshit. Nevertheless, they had a great influence on human society and still influence our thoughts and actions to this day.

Facts are facts, but unfortunately often twisted. When the facts are twisted – we call it 'spinning' in the political arena – it becomes an art, as the spider has created an intricate web. We sell our product to people as a tablet of truth, and shysters follow a fascinating procedure that allows them to twist not only the facts but also the entire law. That way, they can convince us all and, by repetition, even themselves.

Statistics – only for the sake of completeness – are all too often not a reflection of the truth and are habitually falsified, embellished, or made relative by shrinking or dragging either the value- or the time axis, according to the needs.

Only the fairy tales are good and honest (with some exceptions). Fairy tales tell us beautiful and exciting stories. Fairy tales are not true – and we know that. Fairy tales have the decisive advantage of presenting stories to us, openly showing what they truly are: They are fairy tales and, when written down, they are found in books where the cover correctly says what you get inside: fairy tales.

Now, there is an exception: the political fairy tales. They are only recognized as such after the elections because they have not been called fairy tales before.

Some myths are short-lived and others have been a phenomenon throughout history. Many of them appear in variations, yet with essentially the same content in different cultures. Others go through time with constant changes, like the myth of Prometheus.

Prometheus created the humans by forming them from clay. He shaped the creatures into the characteristics of the gods, while his girlfriend Athena donated the brain and breathed on them, to give them life. The perfect template for the Frankenstein movies.

The folktales, like religions and ideologies, can take dangerous courses or may even be subject to misuse, especially if Wagner accentuates the stories with opera music. Hence, they became destined for malicious exploitation, although he was not to blame.

There is no point to contemplate the extent of truth or fiction contained in the myths, folktales, and legends, considering the mostly moronic content.

Some may believe that there is a hidden truth, not accessible by pure rationality or that the storyline has a deeper sense. On the other hand, there is a lack of any usable clue what the meaning could be, besides 'non-sense'.

I suppose that many of these pipe dreams show us only the backward state of science and the limited intellectual capabilities at a certain point of time in the past, combined with the inability to find enlightenment for the inexplicable.

Similar to the Greek myths, humans have chosen complete satisfaction to express their fantasies in all kinds of stories when the mind could not reach further.

At the time, one was simply overwhelmed. Today, a halfway intelligent human being should be nothing but amused about this rubbish or – even better – appropriately disgusted.

Does it describe it all? No, I am also of the opinion that all this nonsense represents not only the weird understanding of the world by the storytellers, while the rest of the population believed in their fantasies.

I am sure that some of the 'philosophers' and 'poets' came up with their baloney, fully aware that they would take the piss out of people, notwithstanding the fact that some of the writers probably just wanted to entertain.

Of course, there is also the scheme of providing moral guidance. Some of this bunkum has been produced to teach people how to behave and to avoid the consequences of misbehavior.

Myths and legends usually include hurt and embarrassment. All is then blamed on the stupidity, dishonesty, negligence, or greed of people. If none of that applies, it is attributed to the power of destiny. If the public would be remotely aware, they would realize that much hurt also comes from the exposure to these stories or paying attention to this garbage.

Admittedly, it is nothing else than what is too often presented to us today in the area of pseudo-information or propagandistic reporting by whatever news network. We do not call it myth or legend, we call it television, but I am sure, future generations will not base their wisdom on the 'Misfits' or the 'X-files'.

The old Greeks, especially, have put so much hogwash into their stories that, even in the old days, one should have recognized the merciless stupidity in its full dimension. We cannot explain the weird fantasy monsters, the disgusting incest-relationship within the families of the gods – usually in worst-case combinations – the absurd and bizarre imaginations of constellations in the sky or the mysterious islands, solely with a mental confusion of the poets.

Whilst some of the storytellers have certainly recognized the value of entertainment of myths, folktales, and legends in a world that did not know radio, television, or the Internet, many of these stories have been used or even been made up by the ruling class for their own purposes.

The Catholic Church, in particular, had employed a large number of manipulating 'pen pushers' and spin doctors to bolster its image and power. During earlier periods, everything was written in Latin, and at the same time, the masses were kept ignorant, prompting their inability to read this fudged material. Instead, they had been frequently exposed to verbal mass stultifications from the pulpit.

Humans need both, facts and myths, as well as rationality and spirituality to cope with the incomprehensible questions pertaining to our existence and future in the universe. The myths are a refuge from the mysterious and sometimes even from reality. Nevertheless, the ability to create myths and fantasy stories is part of the difference between vegetating and living. Deception, irony, sarcasm, lies – man has brought his abilities to communicate on a higher level but is harming only its own species with it.

Our modern and illuminated society should however be in a position to evaluate the minuscule amount of truth or the distressful quality of information contained in the various myths, folktales, and legends.

It is long overdue to shed some light on the true value of the 'best sellers' of the myths, those of ancient Greek origin, supplying us with the most chaotic, contradictory, and completely illogical stories. Historians or scribes may suck their honey from it to understand the past or in connection with philological-cultural studies, but as an alleged source of sober information, we must throw them into the next garbage can. If there is still some room left, the Roman copies of the Greek myths and most of the folktales and legends should follow the same journey.

To present these weird Greek or Roman myths to children and young adults, might still be marginally acceptable, but to sell them as 'particularly valuable and important' in schools and universities might as well be treated as a criminal offense. I feel a great need to express this in such full openness!

Myths, folktales, and legends provide a rich source of material for school lessons. There is an old saying: “Some teachers are just one lesson ahead of the class.” In that case, this discombobulating stuff comes in handy to get a breather and to keep the kids distracted.

We can also use the wide variety of myths, folktales, and legends in different ways and at all levels. Many of these stories are already suitable for Kindergarten because they are so similar and predictable. Their predictability makes it easy for kids – ages 3 years and up – to guess what is coming next and thus facilitates the understanding, despite largely unknown vocabulary.

We all must fathom out and be concerned about one thing: If we are feeding our descendants with such intellectual trivia, thereby neglecting to comment and criticize the dissolute lifestyle of the Greek gods or if we continue to look for Platon's pipe dream of 'Atlantis', we do not need to wonder about the consequences.

Rap music did not just come by accident. Something must have gone severely wrong before.

Some future date, we might wait in vain for our pension checks.

If no money reaches the pension pot, because it has been spent by misguided future generations on dope, binge drinking, or bungee jumping, it will be too late to think about what we should have done differently with their education during the most important phase of their intellectual development.

However, if you realize the simple truth and question the horrible outpourings, or if you clear up things in a blunt and unsparing way, you will – even today – not always find general acceptance.

The Earth is a disc. It was not long ago that this was an assumption. Ships did not dare to go out too far, afraid to fall down behind the horizon. How can the Earth be a globe? The water would flow away and the Australians would walk around with their heads upside down.

He, who once claimed that the Earth would be a globe, could soon feel the position of the Australians by hanging head down on the next city wall. No, it is the same gravity that holds back the water and pulls down our arrows when we have shot them from our bows, and the Australians from 'down under' are really – well, almost – walking around heads down.

People once thought that the Sun circles the Earth. Under the threat of severe penalty, it was forbidden to suggest that the opposite is true and that the Sun and not the Earth, is the center of our galaxy. Why does the Sun rise and set if it is not turning around us? Very simple: The Earth circles the Sun and simultaneously turns around its own axis.

Then came the theories of Darwin, and the entire genesis was thrown to the wind. We are descendants of the apes and they – like all other stages of evolution – offspring of primitive forms of life, down to small organic molecules.

Many, among them the former US President George W. Bush, flatly refuse to accept this history of origin. This is not compatible with the doctrine of the ultraconservative religious fanatics, self-declared itinerant preachers and religious con artists of the bogus churches in the USA. Well, what do you expect from an institution that has no inhibition threshold towards Elvis weddings in Las Vegas. Hallelujah!

Now scientists come along with theories that our life has not originated on Earth and from the depths of the oceans, but from primitive forms of life, brought to our Earth by meteorites and comets. Other segments of the population rather believe in the versions of our ancestors, which have explained in an easier way where flashes and rainbows come from.

We want to know what happened about 4 billion years ago when life on Earth has developed, and a simple 'I don't know' is not accepted. There must always be a distinct explanation and if there is none, we are making it up, but are we even remotely aware of what we do to one another with some of that pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo?

There is an old Egyptian saying that among all sorts of grass, the papyrus plant is growing the highest. In the early days, it wanted to run away and avoid being inscribed with ancient Egyptian myths, and as it has no legs, it shot upwards.

'Literature' comes from the Latin word 'litterae' (plural for letter). In the case of Greek or Roman myths, we should better spell it 'litterature'– deriving from the word 'litter' – rubbish carelessly dropped or left about, especially in public places.

BOW AND ARROW – THE LONG-DISTANCE EFFECT

Since primeval times, people have been fascinated by bow and arrow. This combination was the first machine functioning as an 'extended arm' of man, right after the throwing of stones or the spear. It is the epitome of the early beginnings of a more sophisticated 'longdistance effect'.

Bow and arrow improved this longdistance effect, have mechanized it, and made it more efficient. Now, the extended arm could reach farther and the distance to the target became larger and more secure. From the beginning, man has used this weapon not only for hunting but also for armed conflicts, murder, and raids.

The system and technique of supplying an arrow with kinetic energy through the tension of limbs were later improved by the crossbow. Long before, catapults took up once again the principle of throwing stones. It all changed with the invention of gunpowder. Cannons, guns, and handheld weapons assumed the role of bow and arrow. Now, the warlike intention behind the long-distance effect went even more into the foreground.

Bombs and shells changed the scenery again. Missiles, so far generating their destructive forces solely from their momentum of mass and velocity, now carried destructive material to the target. The old flaming arrows already followed this principle.

Subsequently, this kind of long-distance effect had to occur more and more away from the position of launching to prevent an unwanted self-damage. Therefore, the fulfillment of a long dream of the human race, to be able to fly, came in handy also for this purpose – just bring it up and let it fall.

At the end of this development, we find the missiles. They now unite all features and we can even guide them to their target.

Today, if we follow the impact of remote-controlled missiles when watching TV and the news on the latest wars, we are – while far away from the events – scared and spellbound by the long-distance effect, whatever has been hit – or should not have been hit.

Many people and cultures who met during armed conflicts have often fought with weapons from different stages of development. For the technical inferior side, this was mostly a conflict that, in the end, they could not win anymore.

However, if one looks at the history of humanity, modern weapons have been around only for a relatively short time in comparison to the long period of bow and arrow.

All population flows, even those caused by the great World Wars, are like minor border corrections within a garden plot, compared to the immense movements of people and cultures on this planet accompanied by bow and arrow.

A larger aggregation of English longbows is often called 'the atomic bomb of the Middle Ages', although their real power and effectiveness are commonly overestimated.

If one holds a bow in his hand today and allows an arrow to fly, one can feel – often unconsciously – the fascination that still emanates from this first machine invented in the Stone Age.

It is a good thing that some weapons will disappear some day, especially in view of their martial use. Today, bow and arrow are predominantly sporting gear, and in countries that allow it, hunting instruments. But let us be honest, we would still fight each other with bow and arrow if no new weapons had been invented.

The arrow, as a sign of orientation, is the most important and most used symbol of humanity, one that is understood throughout all languages and cultures. For us, it simply means 'direction', 'go there!', 'there it is!' We are automatically guided, whether on the highway or in the halls of the tax office, voting booths, or even the morgue. No matter what individual shape the arrow has, we immediately recognize which course we have to take.

The sign of a one-way street tells us that this is not only a street we must use just in one direction; the arrow also tells us immediately which way to go.

Nothing has bullied people more than the diversion sign. We follow the command of the arrow in our cars in a well-behaved fashion. There are only a few exceptions to this rule, in countries commonly situated further south in Europe or across the Rio Grande, south of Texas. But occasionally even there, people can all move in one direction when the illegal immigrants run across the shallow river and follow the signs that point to America.

The arrow is the embodiment of speed. 'Fast as an arrow' is a generally known term. Mercedes called their racing cars 'Silberpfeile' (silver arrows).

Bow and arrow belong to the oldest weapons of man since at least ten-thousand, if not twenty- or perhaps even fifty-thousand years. The ongoing development and improvement of weapons were vitally necessary for humans since primeval times, not only in battles and for hunting but also in defense against predators.

The characteristics of humans were inferior to the physical and sensual capabilities of most animals. Power, speed, mobility, sense of smell, sight, and hearing were developed to a much lesser extent, and they had no natural weapons like teeth, horns, or claws. With their growth in intelligence and the changes in mobility of their hands, humans were able to make bow and arrow – and thus, our ancestors changed from prey to hunters.

The invention of bow and arrow, the first machine, in the same rank as the invention of the wheel or the development of language, converted the 'homo sapiens' to a 'homo technicus'.

When the basic principle of the bow was discovered, it did not only become a weapon. There are two other offspring from the bow – tools and musical instruments.

The bow drill improved the wood-on-wood technique of the fire drill. Enough friction is needed to generate heat, and instead of using both hands to twist the upper piece, a string was looped around it, kept tight by the bow. The bow drill then became the basis for the hand drill and the precursor of the turning lathe or, in another form of application, the coping saw.

Very soon, the bow emerged as a musical instrument from which our stringed instruments descend.

When Anne-Sophie Mutter enchants us with her Stradivari violin, we should remember that it was once an early man with a first musical aptitude who discovered that one could not only throw an arrow with the bow but also create a tone when plucking the string.

This discovery was certainly demonstrated immediately to other 'stone-agers' and picked up by them, and suddenly, they were all plucking the strings of their bows. Soon, it had been noticed that the plucked tones differed from each other and that they could even be altered. The variation of the sound led to the first melody and 'mutual plucking' to the first orchestral performance.

After an uninterrupted sophistication of music up to the level of Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart, we are today moving backward to the initial starting point with some musical styles and presentations.

Jazz roars through New Orleans. Rap music comes from the speakers of 'Ghetto blasters', carried on the shoulders of our brothers, tap-dancing through the South Bronx and cranking up the volume, so as to scare away mammoths and rhinos.

There are modern opera performances that often manage the balancing act to keep the music as close as possible to the original and then, they destroy the substance down to the Stone Age level, solely by the type of stage production. On the 250th Birthday of Mozart, in the year 2006, people have managed to do this, of all places in Salzburg – his city of birth.

Unfortunately, this sort of cultural derailment happens all over the world. If you think you are on the lowest level of opera performances, look for a staircase somewhere that leads down even further. Follow it, and you might find, way below, a simulcast of a modern performance by the 'Met', the New York Metropolitan Opera and their mise-en-scène experiments with a musical underscore. I am afraid, as long as this type of staging is not made punishable by law and even supported by public funds, we just have to live with it.

Kings and Queens practiced with bow and arrow and goddesses and gods (even though they never existed) wandered around with this equipment. Bow and arrow are mystic and religious and stimulate the imagination. They are a magical combination and appear in myths, folktales, legends, and stories all over the world, accompanied by their archery heroes.

The medieval archers can be distinguished from the normal mortals by their skeletons. The bowmen had to handle large draw weights in the past because the performance of the bow came – more than today – primarily from the powers of their muscles.

On July 19, 1545, the Mary Rose, flagship of Henry VIII, sank before the harbor of Portsmouth, whereby almost the entire crew (415 men) drowned. Muster roll, Anthony-roll (illustrated fleet register), and comprehensive archaeological finds gave proof of the presence of archers who had been on board the ship.

Comparative studies of the secured skeletons made it possible to identify the archers. They have shown obvious asymmetries in the left part of the shoulder (the left arm is usually the arm holding the bow). The strong pressure on the left shoulder resulted in an enlargement of the humeral head and the greater tubercle and in some cases in the formation of an 'os acromiale', normally a rather rare anatomical variant.

The sinking of this ship in 1545 was in the same year when Roger Ascham published his book 'Toxophilus'.

The word Toxophilus (archer) is composed of the Greek words 'toxos' (bow), which is also the word for the poisonous yew (toxic, poisonous), from which bows were made, and 'philos' (friend) – a friend of archery.

Roger Ascham's work, which he dedicated to Henry VIII (picture on the left), was the first book on archery published in the English language. It was written as a dialog between two characters, Philologus (a lover of study) and Toxophilus (a lover of bow and arrow). Toxophilus is a scientist and a supporter of archery as a noble sport.

This book was also important in another respect: It demonstrated that one could write books or instructions in English, in a clear and generally understandable fashion. In these days, even when the books had been published in English, the writers had used strange words from the Latin-, French- or Italian languages to make things dark and mysterious.

Roger Ascham avoided neologisms and 'flowery' terms and contributed to the success of the English language as a vehicle of wider communication. Some descriptions of the environment, like the way in which the wind influences the flight path of an arrow, were vivid and unparalleled in English writing before.

TRANSITION

If you want to put the history of bow and arrow in the Western World in a nutshell, just sum up things in a simple way:

The Germans (at least their Angles and Saxons) fashioned England and Britain, the English created the longbow, and the Americans have perfected it and it became the main driving force behind many new technical developments in archery – with a few others that deserve credit.

So, once upon a time, there was no English language. The Germanic tribes of the Angles and Saxons, who conquered this remote place, brought the basics to Britannia and gave it the seven Kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex – the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.

To us archers, England is important. It is the home country of the longbow (with some credit we can give to the Welsh), this powerful, yet largely overestimated weapon of medieval times. It was a feared weapon during the Hundred Years' War between England and France.

Modern archery – for hunting purposes and as a sport – had its comeback in the USA, and from there it spread around the world. A major push came from hunting with bow and arrow at the end of the US Civil War, as the possession of guns had been temporarily forbidden in the former Confederate States.

The 'mother' and starting point of modern archery was undoubtedly the book 'The Witchery of Archery' by Maurice Thompson, a noted American novelist, born in Indiana in 1844 and raised on a Georgia plantation.

Published in the year 1878/79, it was the first important English book about archery since Rodger Ascham's work Toxophilius (1545), and it had as much effect on archery as 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' on the US Civil War. Morris Thompson, who himself took part in the battles (1861 - 1865) on the side of the South, became the first president of the National Archery Association of the USA. I recently had the privilege to translate this book into German and it was published in the year 2012 under the title 'Der Zauber des Bogenschiessens'.

Maurice Thompson calls England 'the great mother of archers', but 'mom' did not do much anymore to move archery away from old traditions, medieval equipment, and an almost forgotten field sport for the elite.

Once the flame of modern archery was ignited, we first saw the flat longbow, then all new types of recurve bows. Finally, the compound bow was invented and produced in the USA.

Cedar wood from the Port Orford cedar in Oregon and the northern part of California remains the prime material for wooden arrow shafts, and thanks to the innovations of Easton Archery, modern arrow shafts fly through the air, made from alloy and carbon or a combination of both.

And what about our feathers on the arrows, if we do not use different types of plastic fletching, which was likewise invented in the USA?

There is a long tradition in the USA called 'Thanksgiving'. With over 45 million birds killed every year – except one bird, traditionally pardoned by the President – this results in a large amount of the finest turkey feathers for the archers. Cut to shape and dyed in different colors, they find their way onto the shafts around the world.

Turkeys are not always acquired as slaughtered animals. Once in a while, they are stolen from a pen, where they often live around the house as pets. On Thanksgiving, November 22, 2012, two teenage archers from the neighborhood of Santa Rosa County, Florida, were arrested on their way to the butcher and put in jail on $57,000 bail, for shooting such a family pet with bow and arrow.

Now back to good old England: A new language developed on the 'island of the longbows', with a little 'pep', added from the French influence. English, a West Germanic Language, also became a big success around the globe. It is still spoken by a shrinking majority of the Americans, struggling to hold Spanish in second place.

German did not become the official language of the USA, missing out by a single vote, because one of the guys favoring German sat on the toilet, just as the votes were cast in the Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the year 1776.

English, back then, extended and spread over the former colonies of the long-gone British Empire, brought in by adventurers and a great number of evildoers, banished to these places. This way, Australia did not only get the language, but also a criminal predisposition in their heredity, unequaled anywhere else.

Meanwhile, racy Yankee slang strongly invaded Victorian English, thanks to Hollywood, Computers, and the Internet.

And honestly: If you go to London and listen to the musical absurdity called 'Proms in the Park' – an attempt to bring classical music to the masses at affordable prices outside fixed buildings – do you want to 'skedaddle' or simply escape?

If you panicky run away from Hyde Park when they feed the crazy mob with Verdi's Aida to satisfy the horde's yearning for cheap opera, there is one thing to remember before you jump into your car: You must drive on the left side of the road.

The next traffic circle is a roundabout and watch out for pedestrians; they are not coming from the sidewalk but from the pavement. Walkers are not hurled onto your windshield, but onto your windscreen, after they bounce off the bonnet and not the hood.

Don't be confused when you get dressed: The British wear pants under their trousers, while the Americans wear their pants over their shorts, and the Scots may or may not have underwear under their kilts.

Back to the German origin: The monarchs of Great Britain, often maliciously labeled as 'Royal Sauerkraut', all have undeniably German roots and are descendants of the House of Hanover or the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

George V. was the first of the monarchs who spoke without a German accent – perhaps a too radical change, which might have been the cause that his youngest son, the later King Georg VI, suffered with a bad stammer in his speech.

George V., the grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II., was married to Mary of Teck, who is of German extraction and 'technically' a princess of Teck, in the Kingdom of Wuerttemberg.

While George V. could not deny his Teutonic roots, he at least wanted to get rid of his German family name and renamed the Royal family the 'Windsors', after the Windsor Castle. Good thing they were not living in Sandal Castle in Yorkshire and luckily, the Windsors have avoided becoming the 'Sandals'. It was a bit easier with the name Battenberg. 'Berg' is the German name for 'mountain'. Cleverly, they flipped it to Mountbatten.

Today, the Windsors and their scandals and scandalous stories, are an abundant source for the yellow press.

It all started to break apart in 1936 when King Edward VIII., the eldest son of George V., trashed the crown and moved away with the elegant and twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.

Before that, the Secret Service unit MI5 had even tried to attempt an assassination, just because Edward had asked for the official permission from the Yugoslav government to take a bath in the nude, together with Wallis, in the bay of Kandarola on the island of Rab (now part of Croatia).

During the reign of the German-blooded Queen Victoria, the Royal German breeding club was mostly a closed event. Victoria made it even closer – and married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha.

Queen Victoria, the mother ship of hemophilia within European royalty, had nine children, and her 'dinghies' married into noble families across the continent. Her daughter Victoria ('Vicky') later became the German Empress and Queen of Prussia.

The daughter of the present monarch Elizabeth II., Princess Anne, who meanwhile plunged from second place and out of the top ten in the line of succession to the throne, marched to a different drummer and married an English horseman.

“Ein Griff in's Klo” (a grab into the loo), as her German relatives would say. He left her for an American horsewoman and then jumped horses again to join yet another American equestrienne.

We are about to begin with the archery stories, but not without taking another look into the motherland of all that became English and British. Let's go to the Rhine River and pick it up from there.

“Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, dass ich so traurig bin, ein Maerchen aus uralten Zeiten, das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.” These are the first words of a poem by the German poet Heinrich Heine, written in the year 1823. He tries to get us acquainted with the oddly constructed story about the beautiful blonde Lorelei.

A pleasant English translation of these lines (1978) comes from Tr. Frank, keeping up the rhyme of the lines: “I cannot determine the meaning, of sorrow that fills my breast: A fable of old, through it streaming, allows my mind no rest.”

Not a German folktale, as one might initially think, provides the intellectual basis of this garbage, but a ballad of Clemens Brentano.

He in turn was getting the inspiration for his work from a variation of the ancient myth about the nymph Echo, and it was in fact the 'echo' of the trilling Lorelei that had caused a lot of problems.

Miss Lorelei combed her long blond hair, high up on a rock at the shores of the Rhine River, thereby warbling a seductive song that has irritated many skippers. They did not pay attention to their course anymore and shattered their ships in great numbers against the rocky reefs.

Though the story of the Lorelei is merely a silly fable, it lures many tourists from near and far to the Rhine. After a visit to one of the numerous wine bars, they are generally unable to keep their proper course – even without Blondie's songs.

In Japan, to this day, people believe that the Lorelei is as real as the rhythm of the tides or the effects of gravitation. She is amongst the three Germans every Japanese knows – Beethoven, Goethe, and the Lorelei.

The well-organized tourists from the 'land of smiles' come in flocks and in busses into the region around the Lorely Rock, and the clicks of their cameras mingle with the melodious sound of the rushing river Rhine and the less melodious chants in the wine bars.

The yearning for their true inner Germanic homeland is deeply engraved in the soul of the English. Tourism on the Rhine River emerged after the Napoleonic wars. In these days, practically all of the visitors came from England, and as the word 'tourist' was not yet part of the German language (which it later became in the original form), every stranger was called an Englishman.

The Loreley, this figment of imagination, honored by the poem of Heinrich Heine, does certainly not raise any special interest by the archers, except to think of practicing with bow and arrow to shoot the blond pain in the neck from her rock.

On the other hand, we know many other 'works', where archers or bow and arrow are put into the center of events in an often obnoxious way, which shall now be relentlessly investigated.

The worst is yet to come! For this reason, we will begin with a rather harmless story and besides that, probably the most famous archery tale of all times. In order to 'jazz up' that meanwhile worn-out legend, this chapter includes a few anecdotes about Howard Hill, seen by many as the best longbow-archer ever.

In this sense, let us now go over to England and step right into the Sherwood Forest to meet the mother of all twaddle around bow and arrow: The legend of Robin Hood.

THE LEGEND OF ROBIN HOOD

The best-known feature of the legend of Robin Hood is the socalled 'Robin Hood shot'.

Robin is said to have been able to shoot an arrow at another one already sticking in the target, which he thereby split in half.

A shot like this has definitively never occurred, simply because Robin Hood never existed. This does not mean that such a shot is not possible. On the contrary, this can be seen quite often and usually happens just by accident. Therefore, a 'Robin Hood shot' only makes an impression if it has been done intentionally and the archer announces it beforehand.

If I spread around several arrows in the target area and another one subsequently hits and splits one of them, the result is also called a Robin Hood shot, although this was not done on purpose. In fact, it is rather a nuisance, because of the inevitable damage to the arrows.

The figure of Robin Hood is pure fiction. It has evolved over time, originating with a Common Highwayman, from there to acquire the title of Noble Patriot and finally became an early Advocate for Social Justice – 'take it from the rich and give it to the poor'. Frequently reworked versions, which have been adapted over time, and additionally invented ballads, made him become a legend.

Owing to an entry in an administrative file, which was effected in the year 1225, the 'authentic' Robin Hood was just a simple goodfor-nothing with the name affix 'hobbehod'. Too bad, because during those times, there have been many entries with the same affix given to very different persons.

It is a well-known fact that 'hobbehod' is merely an old English synonym for a lawbreaker. The figure of Robin Hood would therefore only derive from a generally used medieval term for a thief or robber.

Then, some historians have – 'beyond any doubt' – identified Robert Fitzooth, the Earl of Huntington (1160-1247) as the 'genuine' Robin Hood.

Some 'authorities' are even more convinced that it must have been the Anglo-Saxon Robert de Kyme (1210-1285), who was banned in the year 1226 for thievery and breach of the King's peace. As a result, he has fled into the Sherwood Forest.

Roger Godberd is another candidate for the 'real' Robin Hood. He has terrorized the counties of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, and Leicestershire in the years following the Montford Rebellion (1265) as the leader of a group of outlaws.

And finally, there would yet be Robert Hood (1290-1347), who was supposedly involved in a rebellion against King Edward II. He was expelled and fled into the Barnsdale Forest.

The oldest written evidence of the existence of a Robin Hood ballad originates from a collection of folksy poems composed by William Langland around the year 1377 with the title 'The Vision of Piers Plowman'.

In one of the poems, a certain Mr. Sloth flatters himself that he can barely remember the Lord's Prayer, but knows the rhymes of Robin Hood by heart: “I kan nought parfitly my Paternoster as the preest it singeth, but I kan rhymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf Earl of Chestre.”

This Sloth was seldom in a sober state, and therefore it can be assumed that the stories about Robin Hood which he recited and spread around, became more and more adventurous, and some anecdotes contained therein have originated solely in his souse.

The Robin Hood shot was even topped as the stories went around from mouth to mouth. When Robin Hood was about to die, he was said to have shot a last arrow from his bed to mark the exact spot of his grave.

On the very top of it, some Hollywood movies about Robin Hood have aided to conserve this hogwash into the present time, and we always find his unsurpassed skills in handling bow and arrow in the focus of the fascination.

Hollywood did not want to stay behind and therefore contributed its own material to the 'completion' of the legend through the addition of further archery tricks and adventurous episodes.

After many silent Robin Hood films, a sound movie about the heroic outlaw was produced in the year 1938 with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in the lead roles.

Nowadays, it is possible to simulate the arrow-splitting Robin Hood shot and other show elements on a computer. Back then, everything had to be played out in reality. But how could this be done when nobody has the precise shooting accuracy to accomplish this task deliberately or over a longer distance?

Really? Nobody? Well, there had been an archer who accomplished the Robin Hood shot deliberately and rather accurately at a remarkable distance.

The famous archer Howard Hill – perhaps the best archer of all times – was hired. They were certain that he would just have to shoot long enough and a Robin Hood shot would come up sooner or later.

Several hundred feet of celluloid and a lot of overtime for the camera operator had been reserved to capture such a scene, but the skills of Howard Hill were totally underestimated. The shot was repeated eleven times and – to the surprise of everyone – Howard Hill succeeded to split nine arrows at his first attempt.

Based on this impressive accuracy of his shooting, they could spontaneously incorporate other effects that would be done today with the help of computer technology.

The script required that some of the performers had to be hit by arrows. The producers took a few stunt men and simply strapped suitably dimensioned boards to their chests, which could be discretely hidden under their clothes. The courageous fellows were targeted with real arrows by Howard Hill, but remained unscathed.

Howard Hill, famous for numerous other incredible trick shots, received his first bow at the age of four.

He hit a swimming duck at a distance of approximately 160 yards (146.3 meters) or an apple on a human head (the famous William Tell shot) at a distance of 60 yards (54.9 meters), whereby the head of the brave fellow was protected by a bulletproof plastic cover.