Finnish archery

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Jaro		#21	[-]
Posts: 253 (03/18/09 9:25 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	On picture there are Czech mercenaries at siege of Milano helping Friedrich Barbarossa. The question is whatever early medieval connection to kyevan russie was strong enough to bring these bows here. But the eastern christianity was cast out of Great moravia and Czechs and it seems that at that time (1000-1100) these followers took refuge towards russia. The writting above these archers is "Boemi" means "Czechs" aparently the help to the emperor was quite good since the czech duke was granted right to wear crown 4 times a year - as a first czech king. There is also couple of more pictures some with bows with spiral curved tips - which can be found in scandinavia also. The manuscript also contains some pictures of bavarian crossbowmen with primitive crossbows. Good guess on oyur part Kviljo. Jaro
Juri		#22	[-]
Posts: 447 (03/18/09 12:02 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Wow, Kviljo! How do they shoot? Any change to see more pictures, full draw? I would be very eager to make one too, but its so difficult to find compression pine nowadays here in south Finland.
Simo Hankaniemi		#23	[-]
Posts: 281 (03/18/09 3:11 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	sumpitan wrote: Simo's suggested Medieval period doesn't apply to Finland, where 500 - 800 AD is labeled the Middle Iron Age, and Medieval times start not until 1200 AD or so. What's interesting is that there's still not evidence of yew ever growing on the mainland, and the wood spread to Åland, too, not until the early subboreal period a few thousand years ago. Many other woods must've been in use. Soon after the Ice Age there already were woods like birch, rowan and several species of the denser willows alongside juniper here, all of which make bows when appropriately handled. As a Northern "instinctive" bowyer kid I always opted for rowan and pussy willow despite juniper growing all over the place. It was infinitely easier to pick flawless, easy-to-work stock from the first two compared to the gnarly, pin-riddled juni. Alaskan natives used birch for their big game bows and willow for small game bows, not juniper. Tuukka I was not writing about Finnish Medieval period (about 1150-1550) which has no meaning to English speaking readers outside Finland. Medieval period is internationally calculated to have started when Western Rome was destroyed, and the Modern period started around 1500 (in Italy, Modern period started much earlier). These years are not important now, only the fact that Finns were mostly farmers & fishermen, and hunting had a minor role in the economy. Cattle and sheep etc. were also important in the south. Finns could have recieved yew from Estonia by trade, there was much interaction with that country and many people moved from Estonia to Finland. Even wild pigs sometimes swim from Estonia to Finland, it´s not far. The old Finnish word for yew proves they knew the wood, and if they knew it, they very likely had at least some bows made of it. There are always exceptions to the rule, but I know hundreds of Finns, who have made and used juniper bows as a child. When I spent few days last summer in a hunting and outdoor exhibition making bows and arrows for show, plenty of people (again) talked with me telling of their early archery experiences. Everyone of them talked about using juniper, no other wood was mentioned. The story has remained the same for decades, always these juniper bows. Even some women have made them as girls. I am part of this juniper tradition, most of my childhood bows were juniper and the same was true of all the other kids I knew then. The only other "natural" wood we used were spruce boughs, just like Lapps are said to have used in emergency. Later after reading a little more about archery I experimented with apple tree, oak and hazel, even willow.
Kviljo		#24	[-]
Posts: 125 (03/18/09 4:27 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I see! Thaks, Jaro! I guess a variety of different bows would be natural there. I've never heard of a saami-style two-wood-bow beeing found further south than Oslo though. These illustrations are so frustrating when it comes to interpreting anything between longbows and hornbows. Juri, they shoot just like any other wood-bow. Those with contact recurves are pretty cool though. For a wooden hunting bow these have quite a few nice design-elements. They're especially stable due to the mass at midlimb. You don't need compression wood to make bows like these. You could even make them as selfbows, with glued on siyahs, like this one: Or like the 18-th century Ørbyhus-bow from Sweden, which have the same two-wood-tech:
DarkSoul		#25	[-]
Posts: 280 (03/19/09 3:16 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I have to ask. What's that funny helicopter on the bottom nock all about? "Sonuit contento nervus ab arcu." Ovid, Metamorphoses VI-286
Fundin		#26	[-]
Posts: 1892 (03/19/09 4:01 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	i dont know the word in english, but in swedish its a "truga", and it is used at the end of skipoles to stop them from sinking in the snow. Skiing with just oone long skipole was the norm back then, and if the bow could double as skipole, there is less to carry. Kviljo, Nice bows, how strong did you make the Örbyhus bow? Thats an exceptional piece of compression wood, very long and clean, what size/shape of tree did it come from? I believe the originals had birch bark covering wrapped around the limbs, at least the Örbyhus bow.
Kviljo		#27	[-]
Posts: 126 (03/19/09 6:21 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	It's about 70# @ 26-27". I made it as close to Insulanders measures as I could. It's birch and compression pine, though. The tree was about 15cm diameter. Cutting 10-12mm laminates from it, I got 4 or 5 good long laminates. I'm not sure wether the shorter recurved ones have been wrapped with birchbark, because of the decorative lines on the belly. None of the finds from Bergen, Oslo or Trondheim had such wrapping, although one from Northern Norway was found with birchbark wrapping. This compression wood seems to enjoy (relatively) high humidity, so they might have been uncovered as long as the glue line didn't suffer from too much moisture.
Simo Hankaniemi		#28	[-]
Posts: 282 (03/19/09 2:33 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Some Siberian bows of this type have a birchbark covering only on the back. The bark is very thin, like paper, and it is glued in quite short sections on the back and sides of the bow. The purpose is clearly to protect the glueline against moisture.
Kviljo		#29	[-]
Posts: 127 (03/19/09 3:40 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Ahh, that's very interesting information!! It really confirms and explains a lot! Are some of these Siberian bows on display in some Finnish museum? - or have you come across that bit of key information somewhere else? It would be really great to see some of these two-woods first hand some day.
Hartung		#30	[-]
Posts: 576 (03/19/09 11:53 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	That's an exceptional thread! Thanks to all for those very interesting information and pics posted. Would be great to see and read more about it. Possibly the period these bows were used or how old the finds are….
Redhorse		#31	[-]
Posts: 1487 (03/20/09 3:06 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	http://www.bahnhofbredband.se/~wb304054/2-wood.html http://www.bahnhofbredband.se/~wb304054/fenno-urgian.html http://198.170.107.188/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=963
sumpitan		#32	[-]
Posts: 695 (03/20/09 7:17 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Kviljo wrote: Are some of these Siberian bows on display in some Finnish museum? - or have you come across that bit of key information somewhere else? There's one Khanty bow and it's arrows on display at the permanent exhibition at the Museum of Cultures Helsinki, right in the center of the city. The bow has a peculiar strengthening lam crudely tied onto the upper limb belly - a case of shifting tiller. The craftsmanship on these bows really varies as in any bow style. Some of the bows from the Russian Kunstkamera collection on display at the same museum some years back exhibited extreme skill (especially considering the tools the peri-Uralian hunters had at their disposal). Flawless gluelines and even, five-inch reflexes on the century-old weapons. Birch-bark covers so fine one could barely notice them. Tuukka
NOMADIC PIRATE		#33	[-]
Posts: 1478 (03/20/09 7:33 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	that skipole bow is wicked
sumpitan		#34	[-]
Posts: 696 (03/20/09 7:47 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Hartung wrote: Would be great to see and read more about it. Possibly the period these bows were used or how old the finds are…. One enters some murky waters when studying the origins of these bows (or any bows, for that matter). None of the dated finds (belly slats) are older than late Iron Age, most are Medieval (c.1200-1500 AD). But the complexity of the oldest finds, as well as the vast size of the use area, and the great variety in construction detail all point to a much longer ancestry. We're talking about early first millennia AD, most likely. I'd tend to believe these bows are a wooden adaptation of the composite bows further south (many Siberian bows have a stunningly similar form to Mongolian / Manchu composites). Features such as the long, steep-angle siyahs may have been incorporated into already extant two-wood bows at a later date. The already cooling climate in Northern Eurasia took a steep turn for the worse during early Iron Age, probably greatly limiting the earlier bow wood options of the northern hunters. Pine, spruce, birch and willow, not much else. Compression pine is excellent in compression but will readily shatter in tension, while birch takes a good bend but is crappy in compression. A truly stunning idea to put two third-string woods together and make a super-bow, the only natural-material bow in the world that performs better in high humidity, the standard here. At any rate, these bows were used by the Saami until the 17th-18th centuries (although crossbows and muzzleloaders dominated), and in certain Western Siberian locations well into the 20th century! This is why we have pristine two-wood bows in museum collections. Tuukka Last Edited By: sumpitan 03/25/09 1:17 AM. Edited 1 times.
Redhorse		#35	[-]
Posts: 1488 (03/20/09 11:24 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	One thing about this bow design is, its more efficient bow then a corresponding one wood bow. Even it have a stiff area with a heavy ear its faster then a one wood bow. And as mentioned, it works in bad climate. With the glue line it can be made stiffer and much lighter in tips then the bows I have done and other we have seen made.
Fundin		#36	[-]
Posts: 1894 (03/22/09 12:18 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Now I will throw in a wild card. In the book "Ren och Varg" (Reindeer and Wolf) by Yngve Ryd, he describes an episode when he visits an old saami and is shown an old bow made only from compression pine, WITHOUT BACKING! When they pull the bow it breaks, and the old saami gets mad and says it has to be softened with fish fat before useage. I first considered this a misunderstanding, a mistyping or something, but then a swedish novise bowyer of saami ancestry tried this, It is only 48" long but pulled 54#@22" He said the fish fat made the compression wood flexible and less brittle. As this was the first try, I believe we need to do a lot of experimenting to understand this. The bow later broke, probably due to a too long pull for the short bow, and possibly also imperfect tiller. Considering this bow is ONLY pine, its rather amazing. I will try to persuade the bowyer to create an account here and give us first hand details, otherwise I have to get out there in search for a perfect compression pine log.
Orien M		#37	[-]
Posts: 2742 (03/22/09 7:33 AM) Administrator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Wow! Amazing little pine bow. Very interesting thread too, thanks all! I need to go cut some compression Juniper to try a proper replica of one of these. I made a bow last year based on the "Novgorod" bow find, very similar but sinew-backed, and thought it was quite a nice design. It's too bad the history of these bows is so vague. I've wondered a lot about the similarities between Saami-style two-wood bows, Siberian bows, and even Inuit 'static recurve' types. I suspect they may have all influenced each other at some point, and it seems like they might be related to horn-sinew composites too. The siyah concept especially seems to have been very widespread.
anglobow		#38	[-]
Posts: 245 (03/22/09 7:50 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	These bows are really interesting. I'd love to try to build one some day. I bet elm would make for a good backing wood, especially since you could probably find a piece a little lighter than birch. I wonder how well compression wood from Norway Spruce would hold up as belly wood? I have a big tree in the back yard that has some straight limbs on it. The Inuit used compression spruce if I remember right. Scots pine is introduced here, and pretty common, but I wouldn't be able to cut any. Only other option is white pine, and it's garbage. "Sing as you raise your bow. Shoot straighter than before." -Robert Plant
Fundin		#39	[-]
Posts: 1895 (03/22/09 12:14 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Anglobow, If I remember correctly the belly of the Örbyhus bow (see the replica abowe) was Norway Spruce (Picea abies), and the backing was goat willow (Salix carprea) willow is even lighter than elm and birch, and strong enough in tension.
Simo Hankaniemi		#40	[-]
Posts: 283 (03/22/09 11:26 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Kviljo wrote: Ahh, that's very interesting information!! It really confirms and explains a lot! Are some of these Siberian bows on display in some Finnish museum? - or have you come across that bit of key information somewhere else? It would be really great to see some of these two-woods first hand some day. There are such bows in the store rooms of the National Museum of Finland. This storing place is in Orimattila, not in Helsinki (where the museum is located). I have examined these bows many years ago and we had one in en exhibition in the Saarijärvi Museum in 1995. I´m not sure what exhibitions the National Museum and the Museum of Cultures have at the moment (both in Helsinki). I doubt if they have any bows now. I think similar material is in the ethnographic museums around Europe, at least in England, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. And of course, Russian museums have such bows, for example Kunstkamera Museum in St. Petersburg.

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