I laughed when I saw this picture. Here we find three middle class ladies firing a bow and arrow. Now such a hobby is indeed enjoyable, I can think of many targets I would like to use such equipment on, and this is one of those 'sports' that women can participate in happily, unless you are in front of them of course. (Or maybe behind when I think about it....) Here the middle classes of the late 19th century are at play, while the working class are cleaning the house for them during their 14 hour day! What struck me as funny was the comparison between these ladies and the 'English Longbowmen' of 1346 at places like Crecy or Agincourt!
The lass in the gray dress, with matching headgear, compares well with a smaller man dressed in tights, ripped of course, a thick quilted short length coat with short sleeves. Sometimes a conical helmet was worn, without the flowers or bows used by the ladies, and I suspect the condition of the archers outfit was somewhat tardy in comparison to these ladies. There again the lassies would have powdered themselves with all the latest overpriced ointments to enhance their chances with the (wealthy) male of the species while the longbow carriers would merely have used mud and body fluids! For some reason this comparison drew laughter from my cruel heart. Oh art, how you reflect society - sometimes!
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7 comments:
Your archery lady is wearing no leather bracer on her arm, and risks a nasty graze or cuts to her foream. She is not sighting along her projectile, nor is it perpendicular to the bow. She will not hit what she is aiming at, I guarantee.
I sure hope those ladies did not go to the extremes that the Amazons supposedly did to improve their accuracy!
Oh, now, FishHawk, that's obvious. Because all the old movie posters with amazons show them to be mostly nekkid, maybe in a soft suede bikini....
And I trust movie posters implicitly.
I suspect this picture to be merely a book-cover. And Adullamite is reading " Why, Captain Fanshawe, your advances are most uncouth, I must ask you not to flutter your moustache so, and if you decline to accede to my maidenly request, why, then, I shall see no other possible action than to raise the matter with your colonel's spouse. I do suppose you know that my mother and lady Whittingsone-Bradley are good friends?".
I have suspected as much about him. Thanks for filling me in on the details, my dear Soubriquet!
Only a slight link I know, but one of the islands I regularly visit, Inchlonaig on Loch Lomond, has a yew tree plantation which was used at the time of Robert the Bruce as a supply of timber for making longbows.
I don't think that weemin were permitted to arch at that time.Not in that way anyway.
The Archers hasn't been the same since they kiled off...oh, hang on, wrong punchline...
Soub, That is typical of wimmen.
Fishy, you said your woman was an Amazon. Or did you mean she buys lots of books?
Bigrab, Yew trees were kept in churchyards to protect them for that reason. A tree in Perthshire is claimed to be 5000 years old!
Mike, You listen to the 'Archers?'
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