The Welsh Warbow - TBX The making of a deadly weapon 

Just _one_ of the reasons why it took _so_ long to conquer Wales..... 🏹✊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

As a proud Welshman it’s fantastic to see something about Welsh bows on here. I also now want one.

I never knew about the heritage of the long bow being Welsh! This is fantastic! Thanks for sharing this video!

The longbow is a neolithic weapon most likely used for hunting, not warfare. The Welsh used the longbow in great numbers at Crug Mawr and deveastated the Norman army. Once the Norman conquest was complete, Welsh longbowmen were paid to fight in English armies. The Normans saw the power of the longbow and adopted its use in warfare across England.

Never insult a man from Gwent from afar, you're not safe.

The closest I've gotten to a authentic war bow is an 86 lb at 26" juniper shortie. Despite there being a few pretty good woods in my area, the juniper is a sacred ancient elder. Good on compression, zero tension. It requires a hard backing of sinew, rawhide or modern material. I still have a hard time pulling that bow. As noel Grayson said " I will always listen to someone else who builds bows" I'll check it out.

this is real archery no sights or any goofy modern bs just eyes n arrows

amazing craftsmanship. Great to see such being kept alive

This is my favourite video! Great to see you guys in action. :)

Very interesting video. I made the mistake of using Elm for a Welsh Longbow....... its Wych Elm that was used. And a superb timber it is......not Common Elm which cannot resist compression .

Excellent

From Texas. SUBSCRIBED JUST NOW! GREAT VIDEO!

This bow is a beast.

Excellent video

Glorious

Good Job! Pork is interesting 😋 I am learning and teaching Korean archery. You are impressive. Welsh people are frank and persuasive.

Thanks for this tidbit of welsh history. My grandma was Welsh, rest her soul, but also a mariner. This took her to Barbados in 1900. There she met my grandfather, a black man, a son of a former slave.

Good vid mate. Keep it up!!!

The Welsh archers of Prince Llywelyn (and before) were defeating the English (or rather the Normans?) long before Edward I took the archers into his army. I do wonder if the modern archers with their weights & pulleys on their best day would be anywhere near a match to a medieval archer on their worst day. 🤔

Im an english archer very intersting video on the welch warbow

I bought a recurve that was 5+ lbs too heavy to be comfortable for a decent session . Then found out the pull on a Welsh bow and the number of arrows loosed in a minute . They must have looked like cut-and-shut humans .

Great vid mate. Keep it up!!!

My far distant kinfolk are Welch hundreds of years back

indeed, the welsh didn't bring the technology to britain first, but they were the first military proponents of it in the uk and probably the finest. First recorded use of welsh longbow en masse was 633AD, in battle against Northumbria, where king Cadwallon of Gwynedd and his retainers actually killed Ofrid, the son of king Edwin and many of his men, to which the saxons had no answer. 400 years later they faced the same welsh problem when the saxon earl ralph of hereford was campaigning against Gruffydd ap Llewelyn. He also writes in manuscript (abingdon chronicle) that while campaigning in mid wales he marched his army into the welsh mountains in 1055 (11 years before hastings) where his cavalry was engaged in a surprise attack by the welsh forces armed with longbows 'of such power and accuracy that the english were put to flight before a spear was thrown', he lost some 500 men to no welsh losses. The welsh in south wales were employing the longbow militarily as a primary weapon system pre 1066, and the vikings never made any great strides in bow warfare technology at all. Wars with the saxon border and topography of the marches necessitated hit and run tactics, ambush and missile based warfare long before the norman short bows were introduced, and the technology of the longbow had been around since the Neolithic. The welsh 'warbows' were of slightly higher draw weight than the lighter hunting models. And the welsh largely used wych elm. The fact the normans were shocked to witness welsh warbows was recorded in their manuscripts, including the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis and William de Braose. So in conclusion, while the welsh were certainly not responsible for the introduction of the technology to the isles, they are the first recorded use of longbows as a primary weapon system of a fighting force (the welsh of south wales- the north walians were largely spear armed light infantry). Hope this helps. And btw- the 'welsh' element of the video is the style of the bow, their bows are based off the welsh type bows of wych elm/yew construction of the early to high medieval period- not the egyptian style bow of prehistory or the heavier french italian late medieval types which were based off the english warbow, which itself was created as an evolution of the welsh warbows edward longshanks was so impressed by in his invasions of south wales. edwards armies like many later late norman/english kings kept meticulous accounts of what troops they were taking into battle, who their captains were and how much they needed to be payed and fed. The english armies being organised by armies of scribes and quartermasters. Edward had recently completed his successful campaigns in wales, and he had vast new royal holdings in south wales (where the longbowmen came from). And he was naturally impressed by their use against his own troops, and had recently subjugated a large part of the welsh fighting age men's welsh noble employers, so he had a massive pool of combat veterans from his new holdings who were now jobless and he gladly put them to work in ireland and scotland. On the way up to scotland he complains bitterly in his manuscripts about how he has to martial the welsh under their own native officers or they refuse to obey english commands at all, and before he reaches stirling bridge he has to put down a massive drunken riot by the welsh where he is forced to send in his knights, and 80 men are killed before order is restored?!! This may have something to do with the later battle against the scots where the welsh bowmen either accidentally or deliberately fire a volley into the rear of the english knights. For this, the scots allow the welsh contingent of the army to leave the field of battle unmolested! The english don't officially adopt the welsh warbow until 1252, this is after two hundred years of fighting, often disastrously against the welsh longbow! And even when they do adopt the weapon, it takes them a hundred years to train their population effectively in its use, and in the meantime they rely on welsh mercenaries. Hope this helps

applauds in rivveted mail

Here in the US, the Osage Orange is the premium wood for bows here. I took it to a bow shop and they put it on a bow press and cranked it back. It was 90 pounds at 20 inches. I had to put it across a padded arm chair to even get the flemish on it. I'm going to take it to a bow smith and have it tilled down to about 45 pounds. I'm 69 years old and don't have the muscle I used to have. I plan on taking it deer hunting near year when I'm 70 years old. I have some cedar shafts with razor tips on them to take a deer down. Here in the US, you can only take a 6 point or better so I'm hoping for a small deer that I can drag back to the house.

Wow, I can’t believe I only just found this channel. RU-vid algorithm did a good thing for once.

I'd like to order one and a quiver of those WICKED ARROWS 👍🤙

Hi! This is so interesting, and I'd love to learn more. Could some version of these bows be fired on horseback, for example? And could a "normal" Welsh person somehow get one back in the day if they wanted? Or was it the kind of thing that you have to wait for a rich lord to get for you?

cool whizzing sounds!

damnit now I want one

How much does the species of the wood matter? I understood Yew was the go too?

Hell yes

Hi Jerry, that is a nice demonstration and video. Can you give me some details on the arrow? Weight? Bodkin?

It would be great if you could make a video on how to string or brace a warbow of say 150 pounds or more.

Is their a discount if your last name is Welsh?

I've always wondered how long it took for them to put horn in the notch, and I've always wondered if it was due to the force splitting the arrow I'm half.

Well cool. I shoot a 70 lb, aluminium & composite, compound bow, that will put a carbon fibre & steel arrow through & out the other side of a wild pig’s rib cadge at about 20 to 30 meters. It’s got arrow rests, stabilisers, sights, string silencers… all sorts of stuff. It’s amazing to see what can Still be done, buy a skilled shooter, armed with knowledge, ability, & an ancient ancestor of my hunting rig. That’s some Powerful shooting, gave me the shivers to watch. No way I’d want to be in front of a man armed with that. It would be a recipe to get real dead, real quick. Thanks for the video. Excellent. 👍🇦🇺👏🇬🇧

Would love to buy a hand made recurve bow always grew up shooting bows to find out I have 10% Wales in my blood ❤

Keep it under your hat Boy's,,

The Welsh bowmen were utterly feared. Azincourt ... just to give an example .. The French knights / nobles were not happy that day ..

loves this

at the 2:00 mark it briefly shows you stringing a longbow. What kind of stringer are you guys using? I am fairly new to archery but have quickly got up to drawing my new 80lb longbow. But the step-in stringing method doesn't feel ok/good/right when the bow becomes 74" long!

Yeah I need one. How do I get one

How would you describe the archers of yore, strength-wise, compared with us lot of today? You two are strong guys for sure but do you think any of us could keep up with the old-school archers for stamina, strength and accuracy?

Wait, steel mail? Wasn't mail then made of softened wrought iron?

How can I get one

Those are lethal but 300 yards is stretching it a bit. Did they make any laminate bows?

"How far, 8, 9 inches maybe?" If that's what your wife thinks, then that's what it is.

So what species do you use?

What is the Wood for the Bow ??

Hope that pork got put to good use?

Yarp.

I wonder how it penetrates a modern bulletproof vest...?

Didn't mention what species of wood they used.

What a load of hyped up cobblers.....some set in the middle of that 'warbow' guys.....Elliptical tiller :)

Could I buy a Longbow

Hello

Jeremy do you run classes on bow making?

The wood, the wood, what is it?

Is this the longbow?

Was that elm? Ash?

How heavy were those bows?

Do you sell bow and arrow

What type of wood do you use in 1:05 ?

Welsh warbow? I wonder about this claim. The oldest longbows found in the UK were dug up in Somerset, 2,500 years old.... Makes one wonder....

The least sophisticated of all European and Asian bows. It substitutes brute force for improved design.

It's not particually Welsh, 6ft longbows were used by the Egyptians and a six foot two example was included in a Viking burial. It was the Vikings in the guise of Normans who introduced the longbow, as well as the short cavalry bow, to the British isles. The French square cut longbow made from Italian Yew from the late 1400's is considered the best of all.

I thought the longbow was English longbow

Well... I see three problems right away. #1 - Nobody has doubted the ability of these war bows to penetrate mail at close distance. But I'll wager that these arrows would bounce off plate armor. Agincourt seems to be a myth... something else happened but it wasn't English bows decimating foppish French Knights. #2 - Again this is very short distance. By the time attacking forces got this close to lightly armed bowmen the latter were essentially dead or fled. Swords and axes have a much greater 'rate of fire' than bows. Unless you have a strong defensive wall to stand behind it doesn't matter that you can kill your enemy at very short distance.#3 - Timing. Even a controlled cavalry charge of 20 kph would deliver a solid wall of horsey death in about 3 seconds from that tree to those bowmen. There's no time to shoot again... so how many attackers would they stop with each arrow?

🍼 👶🍼 🏹

Alistair made my bow. Unfortunately, age is catching up with me so I am no longer able to draw it comfortably.

Why do the English call it the "English" longbow?

The welsh warbow was elm, not yew like we see in the intro and for the shooting. Why chop elm wood, and then only show yew?

I only shoot Irish Warbows...who doesnt know the ILB....muuuuaahahahahaaaa

1 your so close, 2 it'd take centuries to make your bows per fighter.

I hope you guys aren't hunting and testing with live animals...

Please stop making sound effects on arrows… really Awkward😅😅

Not Welsh

Dont complicate the procress.