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Ryan S.
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 Posted: Sun 12 Nov, 2023 10:52 am Post subject: Viking Horse Archers |
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I was reading about a viking age burial, and apparently it has been theorized that the occupant was a horse archer. This seems mainly to be because "armour piercing arrows" and horses were found in the grave. That seems to be a big jump to me, but got me wondering is there any other evidence of viking using horse archers? I guess the idea is that it would have been adopted from contact with the east, and there is eastern elements in the grave.
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Sean Manning
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| Posted: Sun 12 Nov, 2023 12:30 pm Post subject: |
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I think that pretty much every culture with horses has people who shoot or throw things from horseback. Eg. the Norwegian King's Mirror from the thirteenth century mentions offhand that its good to shoot a crossbow or a hornbow from horseback.
www.bookandsword.com
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Andrew V
Location: Wales, UK Joined: 17 Jan 2018
Posts: 13
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| Posted: Tue 14 Nov, 2023 5:04 pm Post subject: |
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I’ve never come across King’s Mirror and as one interested in very early crossbows that quote is very useful. Thanks for posting
If your afraid to ask, you'll never learn
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Ryan S.
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| Posted: Mon 20 Nov, 2023 9:30 am Post subject: |
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| Sean Manning wrote: | | I think that pretty much every culture with horses has people who shoot or throw things from horseback. Eg. the Norwegian King's Mirror from the thirteenth century mentions offhand that its good to shoot a crossbow or a hornbow from horseback. |
That is interesting, I have read somewhere that the Norse knew what a hornbow was, but that it was always in the hand of their enemies. That is probably from people relying only on the sagas though. It has been said that Birka is the most important Viking Age burial site and there is evidence of eastern style bow cases there. I guess hornbows don’t survive.
I have also heard that vikings in general didn’t fight on horseback.I wonder if there is any account of viking attacks where there were a significant amount of mounted troops.
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Len Parker
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Ryan S.
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| Posted: Fri 24 Nov, 2023 11:07 am Post subject: |
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| Len Parker wrote: | | https://www.patreon.com/posts/domed-round-in-28052167 At bottom there's a bit of info on the possibility of viking cavalry. |
Thanks, every little bit helps.
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This is a standard topic