Anyone remember a documentary from long ago (1973) entitled "Chronicle - The Longbow" and presented by actor Robert Hardy?
It's not on YouTube, and I haven't seen it for years - but I do have the associated book...
...so this next bit isn't just from memory.
Besides history of the bow itself, the documentary included several dramatised reconstructions of notable longbow incidents, including a couple from the 1180s as described by chronicler Gerald of Wales.
He tells, for instance, of a mounted man-at-arms in service to Lord William de Braose who was shot through the thigh and nailed to his horse. When he turned the horse to flee, he was nailed through the other thigh as well. That qualifies as Pinning Stuff with Arrows in my book (and in Hardy's, which is where I confirmed my recollection of it).
The arrowhead would have looked like this...
...or maybe this.
...and this image by Robbie McSweeney of Guillaume de Mello ca. 1185 shows armour similar to what that man-at-arms would have been wearing:
If Gerald isn't "drawing the long bow" himself - which means "exaggerating for the sake of a good yarn", and is an idiom still sometimes heard today - then each arrow would have penetrated:
the skirt of his hauberk (chainmail coat),
the gambeson (padded under-coat) beneath,
the chausse (chainmail stocking) under that,
one side of his linen braies (long pants),
his thigh muscles,
the other side of the braies and chausse,
the leather saddle-skirt,
and finally, as much depth of horsemeat as qualifies for nailing or pinning.
Um...
OUCH!
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Siegfried getting angry at Tristan appreciation post (featuring the yellow waistcoat)
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The Farnon brothers fleeing at the first chance, so they don't have to deal with a scary dog, has got to be one of my favourite All Creatures Great and Small moments
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ORDER OF THE PHOENIX 2007
I want you to listen to me very carefully, Harry. You're not a bad person. You're a very good person, who bad things have happened to. Besides, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.
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Siân Phillips as Clementine Churchill and Robert Hardy as Winston Churchill in "Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years"
Edward Woodward as Sir Samuel Hoare, Peter Vaughan as Sir Thomas Inskip, Robert Hardy as Winston Churchill, Eric Porter as Neville Chamberlain and Peter Barkworth as Stanley Baldwin in "Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years"
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