Thursday 6 February 2014

Quiver re-think

 I have been mulling over quiver designs in my head. I had opted for a design a bit simpler than a medieval arrow bag. The open bottom and excess bag for the quivers does not appear on any of our sources but I was going to use a leather spacer as from the Mary Rose and use a thick linen canvas for the bad. I have sourced a good great er, source of antique linen sail cloth which will be ideal.
 I was however watching these superb videos by Nick Birmingham:

which has made me reconsider this design or a design based on it. The bags themselves very much do not appear to have been worn in the style we might think of as a quiver and do not match illustrations of Gaelic archers at all. Indeed looking at Nick drawing the arrows it seems that these bags would (if worn) suit arrows being drawn from the bag point first, again inconsistent with the artistic evidence.
 It seems that in English archery and Gaelic archer have the opposite problems. The English have good evidence of bag construction from extant examples but little evidence for how they were used, while in Gaelic archery the opposite appears to be true.
 A spacer would seem  necessary to prevent arrow heads" fouling on each other "bow and arrows barbed with iron" though were not used by all cultures so maybe not. It does seem that a more simple arrow tube made of leather that leaves the fletches free would be more apt. Choices for leather include cowhide, sheep goat and deer. With cow and deer being thicker and more tear resistant. Though I promised myself I wouldn't use a hair on barbarian hide I do have ready access to hair on hides and think a summer roe would look wonderful!
Hmmmm time for a think!

1 comment:

  1. I made the Medieval bag quiver this weekend and discovered an interesting feature for the open tied bottom. Initially I thought that the quiver was tied at the bottom to keep the arrow points from piercing the fabric via the bunched up material, and that does work, but there's an even more ingenious reason, it makes the quiver adjustable for arrow height! The archer can raise and lower the arrow height depending on where they tie the bottom of the bag. When tied low, the arrows fall deeper into the quiver and the fletching flap can fold over the top protecting the arrows during travel. Then when used for shooting, you tie the bottom higher, raising up the arrows, making the shafts easier to grab.

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