What were viking bows and arrows constructed from? What type of arrow heads were used? And how did Viking archers compare with archers from the rest of the world?
Okay, so we’re actually really lucky in that conditions in Scandinavia are incredibly good for metal preservation, and the burial culture helps tightly date things. So, we have over 1,000 finds of arrowheads from Norway alone (see 1 below for links to the catalogue on UNIMUS, or [2] for the finds report normally referred to, or [3] for the most recent discoveries by a glacial archaeology team, or [4] for the Viking finds in Ireland)! This has led to a number of good studies and typologies of arrowheads that can be used to describe what the arrowheads themselves looked like.
I would recommend Kalle Sognnes’ one ([5]), and would recommend at least opening it up now and scrolling down to the pictures (Fig 3 and 4 in particular). That will make things a bit easier to follow.
Viking arrowheads tended to be tanged rather than socketed, socketed being the preferred method of attaching arrowheads to shafts through most of the rest of Europe at the time; differences in the quality and availability of wood for arrow shafts would likely account for this; or prioritising the ease of making new arrowheads, given the number lost while hunting (tanged were easier to make). To attach the tanged heads, a hole would be drilled into wooden shaft and the tang inserted, the top of the shaft then bound tight with sinew and then covered in birch bark. Also, by this point ‘shouldered tangs’ (Fig 3d) had developed to prevent arrow shafts splitting so easily.
The arrowhead blades themselves tend to be leaf-shaped (Fig 4 III), with two cutting edges, or failing that diamond shaped. Sizes range from a few cm all the way up to 12 cm in length; they tend to be not much more than 2-3cm wide at most. This is in stark contrast to the much smaller Saxon heads, and what the Normans would use later; both cultures tended not to have heads longer than 6cm.
It’s worth noting that the ‘bodkin’ is a relatively rare find in Scandinavia, though a few were found in Ireland and in Hedeby in Denmark. (Hedeby was part of the Danish kingdom, and Dublin and Waterford in Ireland were important Scandinavian trade posts)
Two major individualistic forms exist too: a forked head for bird-hunting (Fig 2j) and a three bladed form as well. There were also ‘blunts’ for small game hunting, which wooden shafts that flared at the top to form their own head.
Arrow shafts were generally made of birch and pine, complete finds are rare, but they seem to have been 50-70cm long, 8-10mm thick, and would flatten from a circular cross-section to an ovular one at the nock. Nocks would generally be cut into the wood, but some bronze pin-nocks were found in the King’s burial at Hedeby.
Feathers would be glued on, likely with birch tar, and then bound. Earlier arrows were known to use sea-eagle feathers, later Norman accounts talk of both goose and peacock feather fletchings. Three fletchings per arrow was most common.
Several bows were found at Hedeby – the one complete one was 191cm, and had an approximately D-cross-section. What distinguishes it from the later ‘English longbow’ is that instead of horn tips, the stave extended about 6cm past the nocks, flaring out instead of tapering, and these tips were deflexed above the nocks. It’s a rather distinctive look. It has only one nock at the top, the string being bound to the bow on the lower end.
A very similar bow was found in Ballinderry in Ireland (same size, same design). There are a few bow tips from Dublin and Waterford too- these all share the long and wide tips, and are almost shaped to a decorative pattern. See [4].
These bows are predominantly yew, though there were a few elm as well, and even one of scots pine from Dublin. I’d recommend getting [6] and even just skimming through the pictures.
We don’t as far as I know have any longbows from the period in Scandinavia (we do have earlier ones), what we have instead is a whole load of what is assumed to be Finnish/Saami bows (these are laminated paddle-style flatbows with sciyahs, a birch belly and compression pine back) and three examples of a potential Scandinavian take on the Saami design- a longer, narrower version. These were found in Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim but the only information on them I know of is in Norwegian, so I can’t talk about them.
If there’s something you want discussed in more detail after this overview say and I’ll try tackle it on Sunday, or else someone else will come along.
edit- formatting and search term needed for UNIMUS