"Viking Bows"

[SuperCracker]

I've been doing a lot of reading and researching on here and around the web about Mollegabet bows and I occasionally see them referred to as "viking bows".  Is this correct? I thought that the Mollie/Holme type bows were much much earlier that what is considered to be the "viking era" and that the archeological evidence shows vikings having bows we would recognize as ELB type bows. Are are they generally being associated with the vikings as they were the bows of the people who would eventually become the vikings?

Have I missed something?

[son of massey]

There have been a few posts where this was hashed out on this site in the past, if you can find those they may be informative.

Short answer: no, that is not correct. You are correct that the Mollegabet/Holmegaard styles were not used by actual Vikings (as far as anything I have seen anyway) but they are from the same geographic region. If you were interested in Scandanavian or Nordic archery you could rightly include them, but to include them under Viking archery is not correct without the caveat that they are just bows that the 'pre-Vikings' would have used. I personally like to think of it in the second sense as the peoples of that region developed both bow styles, but that is not the way one usually sees it reported and it can certainly add confusion.

SOM

[dragonman]

I know a bit about vikings....my wife is descended from a viking chief and I have lived on an island in norway full of viking burials, and history...I have read all the sagas and whatever I could reseach on them......In the sagas dated around 1000 years ago we have the best records of earlier viking histories according to the 'scholars'.....the vikings themselves state here that they originaly came from the area around Troy...modern turkey ...and gradualy moved further and firther north......if this is true, then they would certainly had knowledge of horn and sinew bow technology.....their metal work is some of the best in the world, if not the best...their folded steel was superior to japanese....so there is no reason to assume their bows where any less well made......they where not a crude people...and they travelled widely....so their bows would no doubt have been sophisticated for their time.
   Very little of their bows have so far been found, so archeological evidence is lacking.....less than a handful of northern bows have neen found that are attributed to vikings and even they are not proven viking.....so archeology hasnt proven they used any specific bow type....but judging by the art , their silver gold and steel and wood work...their bows would have equaled the best bows found in the world in their era....no doubt.....

[JackCrafty]

A lot of people don't have a good grasp on the history of Europe or the timetable of various technologies, so the information gets thrown into a big soup.

Vikings are from the recent past (relatively speaking) so their equipment and art have been well preserved in some cases.  Unfortunately, this does not include their bows (as already stated) because wood decays very quickly.  But I think most scholars these days agree that the bows used by Vikings were long and had circular type tiller (bendy handles).  But there is debate on this issue and I'm sure I'll get chewed-out for this.   

[Hamish]

There is a book, originally published in German, Traditional bogenbauer by jurgen junkmens and a host of other European authors. It is also now available in English but I can't think of the exact title off hand.
It details originals and replicas of viking bows, including the Balinderry Longbow. They are similar to the Englishlb, full circle of arc tiller and made from yew, look to be quite powerful, but don't have horn nocks.
They have unusual tips that look to be steam bent like recurves, but in reverse, ie towards the belly/archer. The nocks are a couple of inches below the tips, where the bend starts, and are only single grooved. The area is wrapped with sinew or string to prevent splitting.
       Hamish.

[JacksonCash]

That would be a very interesting book to get a hold of.

[Bowman]

Check out the new book from Jurgen Junkman. "Pfeil und bogen" it's in german but there are lots of pictures and illustrations. The book cover the european ancient bows from early mesolitic period to the early medieval which includes the viking bows. I have built the "haithabu bow" several times.

[joachimM]

Though vikings likely knew horn-sinew composite bows (given their ancestry and travels) this type of bow is rather impractical in a cold and humid climate such as in N-Europe. Also self bows are so much easier to make and except on horseback short recurves aren't really called for. So my guess is they made long self bows made from woods performing well at high relative humidity