Lately i've been reading Azincourt by Bernard Cornwell.
I enjoy his detailed way of telling a story very much, as well as the effort he puts into his research. Once in a while you may stumble over mistakes here and there, but that never spoiled his storys for me.

In the above mentioned book i especially stumbled over on scene.
An archer is complainig that there isn't enough silk to fledge the arrows, so he has to use sinew instead. He ends up stealing silk from a church.

A question came to my mind: Why doesn't he just use linen thread? Always worked fine on my arrows.

I am curious about the thoughts of the experienced archers in the myArmoury community (as well as anyone elses).
There should be a few. ;)

I have no idea why the character would be made to insist on silk, I've used it and linen and cannot tell the difference. Another question is why is this archer fletching his own arrows? The British Crown would have supplied both the bow and the arrows, ready made from the south of England, the bow of imported yew and the arrows of ash from managed forests. The notion of a military archer making his own tackle just doesn't seem realistic.

Perhaps this archer has to make a repair to some of his arrows. Or perhaps the author of the book hasn't a clue and figured it sounded dramatic, as this is a work of fiction. We all know how accurate historical fiction can really be. (wink wink, nudge nudge).

Linen works as well as silk and is a heck of a lot cheaper for an expendable object.

For the sake of plot :)

Or maybe he's a real high-brow killer ;)

M.

I can understand the reasons why the author used this as a plot device, I am just tired of Bernard Cornwell a bit perhaps. I purchased and read his Saxon series and the Grail quest as well as Azincourt recently and came away thinking, hmm, viking Sharpe, oh, and Sharpe with a longbow, and Sharpe with a longbow again?

Maybe the archer is allergic to linen? ;)

Anyway, "plot necessity" seems to be the most plausible answer here, regardless of how (im)plausible the scenario in question is. I certainly enjoy Cornwell's HYW series a great deal less than I enjoyed his Sharpe and Arthurian stuff.