Making a Viking Longbow

[Andrea Willett]

Hi All!

I've been a Viking Age re-enactor for about twenty years though I'm new to this list and basically new to archery apart from the occasional twang with someone elses bow. I've recently decided that I'd like to have a go and that I should combine the two past times. I've some experience with woodwork but like most of the population I've never made a bow.

I want to use a European timber for my bow. I decided on European ash for my first attempt, mainly because I had access to some. I'd have preferred elm as I'd read that that was the second choice of timber for the makers of the English longbow but didn't have access to any in the near future. So last weekend we cut down and attempted to split an ash tree with a base diameter of about 20cm. We ended up with some kindling and one usable stave.

Has anybody else used ash for bows? What's it like? How long should I season the stave for? <www.primativeways.com> says only 2-4 weeks but that just doesn't seem enough.

Basically I want to end up with a bow that's 30lb @ 28" and an approximate copy of the one found at Hedeby which is ovoid in cross-section (not "D" shaped).

Bye for now,

Andrea

[archangel]

Hi Andrea,

Welcome to the site. No doubt some of our medieval re-enactors will come up with more detailed information. There are already specific posts on building period bows based on English long bows and also earlier designs.

I located this interesting article on Viking bows via google, that you may already have sourced:

I don't believe you can characterize Viking bows into any one type.
Yes, some have been found that are similar to the English longbow
(without the horn string nocks), but there were others that were of
different design. I don't believe there was a standardization of
type in the Viking Age, as occurred later in England, as evidenced by
the bows found on the Mary Rose. There may have been local styles, or
even some widely accepted styles, but different types coexisted.

Some of the first bows found in Scandinavia were with the Nydam ship.
These bows were pictured in "The Viking Age" by DuChaillu in 1889.
Though no cross sections are shown, the two bows illustrated on page
228 appear to have a round cross-section. Using the scale on the
plate to determine the length, they were around six feet long. The
Nydam ship has recently been dated by dendrochronology to 310 - 320
AD. - obviously before the Viking Age.

However, they show characteristics that are also found on Viking age
bows. One such characteristic is the nail in one end of the bow to
keep the string from sliding down the bow when it is unstrung.

These same two bows and another bow are also described in Proceedings
of the Prehistoric Society for 1963, New Series, vol. XXIX, Clark, J.
G.D., ed. The third bow illustrated has a roughly D-shaped
crossection.

The Ballinderry bow was found in Ireland, and dates to the 10th
Century. It is believed to be Norse because of the related items
found in the dwelling. It is described in great detail in "The Bow:
Some Notes on its Origin and Development", by Gad Rausing. It was 73
inches long with a D-shaped cross section in the middle, which became
more oval toward the ends.

More recent work on the subject of bows in Scandinavia can be found
in "Bue Og Pil Fra Danmarks Sten-, Bronze- og Jernalder" (Bows and
Arrows from the Stoneage, Bronzeage and Ironage in Danmark), by Dan
Hoj. He illustrates many scandinavian bows and arrows. I do not
have a copy of his book, only a few pages that the author sent me.
It looks to be an excellent book. It is in Danish, but the author is
attempting to find a publisher to translate the book into English. I
have ordering information if anyone is interested.

The most recent (1999) work on Viking bows is "Pfeil und Bogen in
Haithabu" (Arrows and Bows in Hedeby) in "Das Archaologische
Fundmaterial VI". This is in German and is difficult to obtain. It
took me over a year to find a copy. There are only two copies in the
US to my knowledge. It has both photographs and line drawings of the
bows found in Hedeby. They are around 6' long (one measured 75
inches - 191 cm) and have various cross sections. They do not
necessarily have the same type of crossection throughout the length
of the bow.
The most interesting aspect of these bows is that they
have the last few inches of the bow bent backward toward the archer
(Dan Hoj has informed me this is accomplished by immersing the tip in
boiling water)! The string is attached below this bend. On the top
of the bow, there is only one notch cut in the side of the bow. On
many of the bows there is a nail a few inches below the notch to
catch the string when the bow is unstrung. There is no notch on the
other limb of the bow. The string was apparently tied in place so
that the majority of the knotwork was on the backward bending part of
the limb, with the string attached just at the bend. These bows
appear to be roughly circular in crossection. Some that had a D-
shaped crossection became more oval near the ends of the limbs.

http://www.florilegium.org/files/NORSE/ ... ry-msg.rtf

This post from The Bowsite on how-to-build an English longbow is also worth a look:

http://www.geocities.com/salampsio/elb.htm

[Dennis La Varenne]

Andrea and Archangel,

I also thought that the Viking bows had a range of cross sections from the ovoid to more commonly, the D-section D-bow without horns.

Andrea, do you have a picture (line drawing preferably of the bow you have in mind. It would help a lot with tillering advice if you could provide one. The cross sectional area estimated from diagrams gives a good idea of how the original would have bent.

With regard to the end part of Archangel's post (the extract) where it talks about deflexing the tips, is quite practical in areas of very low humidity. These areas are in desert and arctic regions. The practice was used to reduce the bending load on the bow in a climate where the wood had a tendency to dehydrate severely.

The best examples of this practice I have seen are the pictures of American Apache indians of the dry South-West, and the military bows of the Ancient Egyptians.

The principle is this - if the bow tips were deflexed by two or three inches, the load on the bow was proportionately less at brace height than at a standard brace height of say 6 inches. In other words, the bending load was the same as at a brace height of perhaps 3 or 4 inches and consequently, at full draw as if the draw was 2 or 3 inches less.

For a first go Andrea, I would go for the flat ovoid section bow because you will have a far better chance of success at your stage and that is important.

There is also nothing to stop you using that very common and often preferred ancient European bow wood - Elm - which is common around Victorian towns and streets.

There is also nothing to stop you using it in quarter-sawn board form from a specialist wood merchant ready dried.

I understand your keeness for originality, but make things as easy as possible on yourself for a first bow and get it right. The things you learn will be of great benefit.

The Ash log you obtained sounds as if the splitting job may have gone awry in technique. It was certainly big enough for at least 3 bows if carefully split and there were not any big knots in the log.

I will have to explain about kerfing small logs before splitting at a future date.

Dennis La Varenne

[Andrea Willett]

Hello Dennis!

Here is the photo of, and accompanying text for, the/a Hedeby Bow from Viking Artefacts A Select Catalogue by James Graham-Campbell, 1980, British Museum Publications, London. This is the one that started it off.

Also the Viborg & Nydam bows from chapter one of Robert Hardy's Longbow A social and military history, 1976, Patrick Stephens, Cambridge. I've only found out about these in the last week but they're too early anyway.

I'll email in an hour or two after I've got the ferals settled in bed.

Andrea

[Andrea Willett]

Hello Dennis!

The only complete Northern European "Viking Age" bow that I know of is the one from Hedeby in my last post (what the hell did I do wrong with those photos by the way, that they came through so huge?). Of course there may be new information today that they didn't have when that entry was written. Nydam is WAY too early and Viborg predates the Vikings by a few centuries. They both, however, show that the "D" section was in use for bows before the Viking period so it's possible that the ovoid section of the Hedeby bow reflects the preference of it's original maker and/or purchaser as opposed to the main/only trend in bow-making at the time.

Regarding de-flexing the tips, please forgive my complete ignorance but, are they supposed to be bent towards the archer or the target?

I would very much prefer to use elm but I don't have access to any at the present moment. I don't think the council would approve of my attacking the shade trees in the local parks. I am going to keep an eye out for potentials along the roadside from now on though. Now if only my husband had bought me that chainsaw I was hinting about years ago....... : )

At the moment I'm going for the ovoid cross-section though I may end up tapering the ends into a pointy "D" like Viborg. I think the low degree on taper in the Hedeby bow would make it VERY stiff. We'll see how it evolves.

I actually got a second staveish out of the log which I'm going to use for bow-making practice over the next couple of weeks. I was planing away at it tonight trying to remove some small knots from one edge (pity my neighbours) and even up the width after I debarked the last of the prospective arrow shafts. I doubt it will make an adult bow , if it makes one at all. The splitting ran off in towards it and I suspect the top third will be kindling. Still, William may end up with a proper little bow to take to Taminick this year (instead of a whippy stick, a piece of string and somebody elses stuffed arrow broken in two) if it doesn't turn too badly. Not that he can do much with it yet being only 5.

The cunning plan is:
Stuff the staveish.
Make a bowish from the ash stave.
Eventually source a couple of elm staves (I need to make a bow for my husband as well) and (having learnt from my mistakes on the ash) make a couple of reasonable bows.
Someday scrape together the money to import a couple of yew staves (years away).

The log was our first attempt at splitting. Yes, please explain about kerfing, if it will make the next attempt easier and create less wastage. : )

Bye for now,

Andrea

[Dennis La Varenne]

Andrea,

Whatever you do, DO NOT remove the knots from a log stave. Leave them raised, ie as protruding lumps and work around them. Knots are areas of weakness where extra wood needs to be left around them rather than the knots removed.

Kerfing is the making of shallow starter cuts in your log so that when you split it, the splits will follow the shallow cuts and not run all over the place. The cuts can be made by chainsaw or cicular saw. Have a look at the diagrams below and see if they make sense starting from bottom to top.

Archery terminology is usually referenced with regard to the archer holding the bow in the shooting position. REFLEX refers to bending of the limbs AWAY from the archer and DEFLEX refers to limbs bending toward the archer. You will find a glossary of traditional archery terms in the Lore & Legend section of this site.

The Haithabu bow artefacts all had deflexed tips in the fashion I described earlier. Unlike the bows I referred to earlier, in the case of the Haithabu bows, it seems the string was not attached to the deflexed tip, but below it. In this case, the deflexing may have been an aid to bracing (around the leg) or just local fashion.

However, they all fall into the class of bow referred to as D-section rather than to ovoid, although there is one artefact which is clearly a very flat D-section which could be called ovoid - similar to the common Papuan bow.

Continue with the kids bow and get any practice at tillering you can then go on to the bigger stuff.

A 2-4 week drying time is not unreasonable at this time of the year and with small volume staves. Weigh them as is and do it every couple of days until there is no longer any weight loss. They are then dry. If you reduce the log staves down to roughed out bows, the surface are to volume ration goes up dramatically offering a large surface area from which to lose moisture.

There are good tips on quick drying of bowstaves in the Traditonal Bowyers Bible series where you can put your stave in your car on a hot day with the windows open and air moving through. That is a good way of doing it. Don't fall for the 7 years per inch diameter of log thing. It is a lot of unnecessary rot.

There is nothing wrong with Kiln dried commercial timber these days either so long as the grain orientation is right. You could also contact your local Council and find out when they propose to do some pruning of Elm trees and grab some of the bigger prunings before they are chopped into firewood sized lumps.

Dennis La Varenne

PS: Can you edit your pics to a smaller size? Presently, they are taking far too long to open and won't be viewable on most people's screens.

[Andrea Willett]

Hello Dennis!

Knots: The staveish was a very unevenly split beasty. There were some knots along one edge that I intended to cut back anyway to even her up. Some of them were free for a ways into the stave as well. I just narrowed the wide end so that it was vaguely similar to the narrow end, removing the problem knots on the way.

Kerfing: Goodo. Will try that next time. Thanks for the explanation.

Terminology: Will check out Legends & Lore when I have time.

Haithabu: Where are the Hedeby bows written up in detail? All I've got is that one description from "Viking Artefacts" which refers to the bow in the exhibition as "ovoid" in section? I thought ovoid meant ovalish. If there's more to be havd I'd rather have a copy before I cut into the main ash stave.

TBB Would love to get my hands on a copy. Will check with the local library & see if it's available on ILL.

Will check with council about the elm pruning.

Sorry about the piccys. Didn't realise the site wouldn't fit them to the width of the page. Graham's already emailed me privately about what to do next time.

Thanks for all the help,

Andrea

[Dennis La Varenne]

Andrea,

Try this site for what appears to be some good descriptions if you can get the pics to download properly.

http://www.vikingsna.org/translations/

The English is not all that good and the translations of the archery terminology are a nightmare. I wish these archaeological types would get the terminology correct before they start inventing their own. It is utterly confusing to the us established archers and worse for the novice. They use words like 'front', 'back', 'outwards', etc without any reference to viewing direction. And 'ovoid' . . . dear me!!!! That is most certainly NOT a bowyer's term.

I just googled 'hedeby bows' and got a lot of links of varying quality and content, esp the one for the Society of Creative Anachronisms.

However, your main pic of one of the Hedeby bows seems to be typical and the dimension about correct for an adult male bow. You could start at a 3/4 size of this bow and thin it down. For safety and a degree of authenticity, make it about your draw length x 2 1/2 times long.

An important rule of bowyery for your to remember - twice as wide is twice as heavy, but twice as thick is eight times as heavy.

A very interesting characteristic of all of these bow from Hedeby (Haithabu) is that they seem to be reflexed over the entire limb length with deflexed tips which is a similar side profile to the typical American Indian plains bow. The major differences are in the cross section shape (rectangular) and the position of the string nocks (almost at the tips) of the plains Indian bows.

Heat bending will try you out and is a subject for another session. It will perhaps make a bow which is heavier than you want for a very small dimension which could make it unstable. Leaving it strraight for such a light draw weight is reasonable at this stage.

One other thing, your main Hedeby bow pic clearly show 'raised' knots along its side which have not been trimmed off. Knots are probed with a pin to see if the centres are crumbly or soft and wood left around them even if they protrude like the proverbial bumps on a witch's nose. The depicted bow has quite a lot of shallow raised knots, but they are not trimmed off.

Here is a site with instructions form tiebinding your fletchings too. It is pretty basic.

http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/fireand ... inding.htm

Dennis La Varenne

[waynerob]

Andrea, What about the Ballinderry bow, dated to the 10th century from Dublin? It is made from yew, has a slighty wider than Tudor style D-section, and is presumed to be Viking. 1.85m long, 2.86cm thick and 3.8cm wide. It has reflexed tips and a single nock for the string.

The reference is J G Clark, 'Neolithic Bows' Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. New Series, vol. XXIX 1963.

There's also a yew fragment from a D-section longbow dated to the 10th or 11th century in the castle of Wawel in Krakow, Poland.

I'll upload a photo tonight.

Wayne

[waynerob]

I've attached the Ballinderry bow drawing from the report.

[Andrea Willett]

Ooooooo Wayne I like that one. That's even better. Could I impose on you for a photocopy of the article, or is it a big one?

Thanks,

Andrea

[waynerob]

Hi Andrea, I only have that page. The volume is in the National Library - catalogue entry at
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/cgi-bin/Pwe ... =25&HIST=1

Cheers, Wayne