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Originally Posted by fearn
Hi Jim and all,
It's a common story that the English longbow developed from a Welsh predecessor. I don't know the origin of this story, but I figure it's probably true, given how the English traditionally felt about the Welsh.
As for the others, "bolg" means belly, or possibly lightning, and caladbolg means "hard belly" or possibly "hard lightning. Cuchulainn had a spear called "gae bolg" (belly spear or spear of light) Not sure why Celtic mythology has so many bolgs (including the fir bolg) but there you have it.
Best,
F
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However,
In what I have read over the years regarding the "modern" Ed the Ist longbow development was Scandanavian southern plains Brit ish heritage and not the mountain Welsh tribes who used short hunting bows shown strung drawn to the chest and not man/long length bows drawn to the ear. If I recall correctly, it is actually Edward that first employed the longbow against the Welsh in early campaigns (I will find the battles if they seem scarce to others but this should be elementary history research for any). By the time of the 100 years war, Richard II was a darling amongst mid medieval Welshmen militaries and the infamous Cheshire archers that later blindly (and were falsely) led by the Percy camp to rise against Henry IV. Shrewsbury possibly being the epitome of British longbow warfare on both sides of that battle. Edward the oneth use of the longbow squads was to protect the more mobile and fellow spearmen. Again, I am abstracting but the notes of those actions of longbow development on the island are out there.
What particular age of medieval is the paper to address? We are looking at five centuries and more in that regard but the arms of the Welsh by 1066 and all that mostly regard the influences of other Norman and more Norse backgrounds. There is some mystical fancy in my mind that some seem to think the Welsh less organized or structured than the rest of the world. Check out Madoc on your way through mythologies as well.
The Medieval Sourcebook web pages
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/Sbook.html might help any and any graced with JSTOR access has the informations at their finger tips. Welsh arms before Ed I also include Roman and other Scandanavian influences of arms. Swords were already well formed and implemented by those owing them and showed no real outstanding ethnographic traits before Norse intermingling of the islands at large.
Look also to the writings and compilations of earlier English history by Thomas Walsingham (toss Froissart in the bucket in regard to the Welsh, you'd be better off reading Shakespeare). Also the British history online site
www.british-history.ac.uk/Default.aspx with the old histories, as well as
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ Also a great portal that pretty much began my internet interests early in the game is the Sir Clisto Tome and indexes
www.sirclisto.com/ Yes, SCCA but quite a list to browse and leads to the real depths of data well beyond poor old Ewart, et al.
Cheers
GC
