[Ponte Alto] Take a bow........

Wed Nov 5 10:12:00 PST 2003

Thought some of you might be interested in this:

Copyright 2003 Times Newspapers Limited  
The Times (London)

November 1, 2003, Saturday

HEADLINE: Agincourt revisited

BYLINE: Richard Rae

BODY:
Richard Rae meets a master bowyer who crafts traditional longbows

One sniff of the raw wood and resin-scented air at the workbench of 
Simon Owens, master bowyer, and you are transported to the fields of 
northern France, dressed in leather and chainmail, watching the 
massed ranks of the advancing enemy. At a single word of command, the 
mighty longbow is raised and arrow after arrow loosed, ten a minute, 
the dark shafts arcing fully 300 yards before..."Perhaps it's the 
yew," says Owens, kindly. "The fumes are slightly poisonous, they 
make some people pretty woozy."

Well, perhaps. But is there really an Englishman or Welshman who can 
pick up a real longbow without imagining himself picking off French 
knights at Agincourt? 

Owens hopes not. As one of only three full-time master bowyers in the 
country, his livelihood depends on the current revival of interest in 
this most historic and beautiful of weapons.

A former tree surgeon, who worked on the Castle Howard estate in 
Yorkshire and in Scandinavia before building up a business in a quiet 
Lincolnshire village, Owens remembers when he picked up a longbow for 
the first time.

"It's hard to put into words, but once you've held one you want one. 
It's not just the aesthetic appeal, it's the purity, the potency. 
There's something about using a wooden weapon with no sights or 
balances - I loved that, and I started shooting."

But as a man accustomed to working with wood, he was even more 
fascinated by the craft that goes into making a bow. He contrived an 
introduction to John Randall, who has been making bows in Market 
Bosworth for almost half a century, and persuaded him to oversee his 
apprenticeship. It was three years before Randall considered Owens 
worthy of joining the Craft Guild of Traditional Bowyers and 
Fletchers, a process which requires the applicant to produce 
a "master piece", a longbow made to set specifications and assessed 
by other guild members for its quality. Standards are ferociously 
high.

The longbow must be both strong and supple, stiff and elastic, a 
combination achieved by being shaped from a piece of timber which 
includes both newer "sap" wood (nearer the bark) and "heart" wood. 
The sap wood, being more bendy, forms the back of the bow. Ideally, 
the bow is shaped from one piece of wood, and yew is indeed the most 
suitable - but not English yew, as Owens explains.

"It's a popular myth. Continental yew has always been much better, 
the Spanish grew it specifically for the English market in the Middle 
Ages."

These days the best yew comes from the United States where, unlike in 
this country, hunting with bows is still permitted. Many pieces are 
rejected before Owens finds one he is happy with; the ability to make 
the distinction is the difference, he claims, between a good bowyer 
and a bad one. Once chosen, the log is split into "staves", which 
Owens leaves to season for at least three years.

Only then does he begin the long, careful process of reducing and 
shaping the stave with a drawknife or spokeshave, cabinet scraper and 
side-axe. The bending of the bow into the classic elongated "D" 
shape, known as "tillering", is achieved by hanging it on a simple 
measuring device on a wall and drawing it, an inch or so further each 
time, until it has reached the arrow length required. Only then can 
the bow be finished, the handle bound and "nocks" - made by Owens 
from horn - fitted on either end to take the string.

Scarcity value and the long hours involved make a single yew bow the 
most expensive Owens sells; prices start at £350. Laminations - two 
or three different timbers glued together to imitate the qualities of 
yew - are cheaper, starting with hickory or maple-backed lemon wood 
at £220. Arrows cost from £5.50 each, made by Robin Shelton, a 
fletcher and fellow guild member.

It takes Owens between 35 and 40 hours' work to make a bow, and he 
tries to have three or four on the go at any one time. Many of his 
commissions come from the 2,000 members of the British Longbow 
Society, though an increasing number come from Sealed Knot-style "re-
enactors". Setting up his own internet site has resulted in orders 
from Canada, Austria, Belgium and Italy, but he admits that making a 
living isn't easy.

"It's a case of gradually building a reputation for quality - I want 
to be the Purdey of longbow makers - and maybe eventually I'll be 
able to raise my prices a little." Meanwhile, there are 
compensations. "You have that numb piece of wood, chosen so 
carefully, and you cut it out and start to shape it, and as you use 
the drawknife it starts to give a little quiver, take on character 
and life ..."

Owens pauses and smiles, slightly embarassed at his own 
eloquence. "There's a phrase I read: 'Elevating wood to its highest 
form'. That sums it up for me."

Simon Owens (01778 590674; www.simonowenslongbows.co.uk).

The British Longbow Society (www.askarts.co.uk/longbow.html).

The Craft Guild of Traditional Bowyers and Fletchers 
(www.bowyersandfletchersguild.org)
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