I'm watching The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers at the moment and it's well known that the Rohirrim was based on Tolkien's love for Anglo-Saxon history + his love for horses. And in the films there's a large number of horse archers in the warbands.
So this made me curious about how common archers were in the various germanic armies of the early medieval period. Would you see archers popping shots during the clash of Shieldwalls? ^^^(RIP Harold 1066 Never Forget)
Was archery primarily a hunting activity and rarely employed into battle until much later?
As I summarized recently in: Were archers seen as cowardly by the vikings and other germanic as well as celtic cultures?, the mass shot of arrows [against the shield wall/ rows of infantry] was a favorite and commonplace literary imaginary for both Old English and Old Norse poets to describe the battle at least in the 10th and 11th centuries.
As /u/Libertat also illustrated the earlier use of archery among the Gauls before their integration into Roman Empire in the same thread, we don't have almost any positive evidence that the use of archery in the actual battle was despised among the people in Late Antique and Early Medieval Northern Europe.
And in the films there's a large number of horse archers in the warbands.
On the other hand, I have difficulty in finding the source to answer how common mounted archery was in Northern Europe at that time.
At least one mounted soldier in Tapestry of Bayeux equipped an bow with an arrow, though.