United States or Jordan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Men of the sword preferred bronze for all their military purposes, just as fifteenth-century soldiers found the long-bow and cross-bow much more effective than guns, or as the Duke of Wellington forbade the arming of all our men with rifles in place of muskets ... for reasons not devoid of plausibility.
Then he and his knights charged the Saracens, who by this time had taken a stand again on the river bank. It was a great feat of arms. No man drew long-bow that day or plied cross-bow. The Crusaders and the Saracens fought with mace and sword, neither keeping their ranks, but all being confused together.
They were taller, more athletic, with immense bushy heads of hair, enormous rings in their ears, while the hue of their skins was almost as dark as that of the native African. One carried a long-bow and a bundle of arrows strapped behind his shoulders, while the others were armed simply with javelins or spears. "Those fellows mean fight," added Long. "No doubt of it," replied the Professor.
As it was hard to draw again, that added strength to the saying; but it arose from the deliberation with which a good cross-bowman aimed. To the long-bow the cross-bow was the express rifle. The express delivers its bullet accurately point-blank the bullet flies straight to its mark up to a certain distance.
And now might be seen prodigies of valor, unmatched in history or song. There were the Van Kortlandts, posted at a distance, like the Locrian archers of yore, and plying it most potently with the long-bow, for which they were so justly renowned. On a rising knoll were gathered the valiant men of Sing-Sing, assisting marvelously in the fight by chanting the great song of St.
"Well said, mon gar.," cried Aylward. "A good cock has ever a brave call. Now, I have shot little of late, but there is Johnston here who will try a round with you for the honor of the Company." "And I will lay a gallon of Jurancon wine upon the long-bow," said Black Simon, "though I had rather, for my own drinking, that it were a quart of Twynham ale."
The long-bow made noble and peasant equal on the field of battle. The revolution was made complete later on by gunpowder. I have told you much about princes and soldiers, but very little about the lowly life of peasants, and the trade of towns. The conquest of Wales, by Norman baron and English king, tended to raise the serf to the level of the freeman.
If you hearken to those who will tell you to the contrary, you will find yourself damnably mistaken, for that's a lie with a latchet; though 'twere Aelian, that long-bow man, that told you so, never believe him, for he lies as fast as a dog can trot.
To this he continually traces the decay of some favourite custom, and, indeed, the general downfall of all chivalrous and romantic usages. "English soldiers," he says, "have never been the men they were in the days of the cross-bow and the long-bow; when they depended upon the strength of the arm, and the English archer could draw a cloth-yard shaft to the head.
One of which, in remembering, always filled Myles's heart in after-years with an indefinable pleasure, was the recollection of standing with others of his fellow squires in the crisp brown autumn grass of the paddock, and shooting with the long-bow at wildfowl, which, when the east wind was straining, flew low overhead to pitch to the lake in the forbidden precincts of the deer park beyond the brow of the hill.
Word Of The Day