Hmmm...that sounds familiar. Does it have to do with the English bowmen showing off their two "draw" fingers? Didn't the French cut off those fingers when they captured prisoners?
Hmmm...that sounds familiar. Does it have to do with the English bowmen showing off their two "draw" fingers? Didn't the French cut off those fingers when they captured prisoners?
Yes, but you show your fingers with the back of the hand facing the enemy.
Hmmm...that sounds familiar. Does it have to do with the English bowmen showing off their two "draw" fingers? Didn't the French cut off those fingers when they captured prisoners?
Good Gaming~! Mick
There is a tremendous amount of debate among "casual" followers of history (such as me) as to whether this story is true or not.
I think it is a historical fact that the Frech did cut off the two middle "draw" fingers of the Welsh bowman to prevent them from ever doing their job again (after all, Welsh longbows from the Yew tree were over 6 feet long and had about 150 lbf of pull - by comparison, average hunting longbows now are around 65 lbf or so). Removal of those fingers made the longbowman completely useless soldiers.
As to whether the longbowman following the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 raised their middle finger or two middle fingers as a sign of contempt for the French soldiers is open to speculation or conjection. But it certainly sounds plausible.
How it eventually morphed into just the middle finger being raised as the same sign of contempt is (hotly) debated.
When the Medieval section of the Cleveland Institute of Art re-opened sometime in the late 1990's after a 10-year renovation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer published a story about the actual battle and the longbowman's use of the finger(s) in defiance to the French cavalry that were getting their teeth kicked in.
As for the phrase "f*** you" that usually goes with the use of the middle finger, that apprently started around the same time. The longbowman, known for firing at a rate of nearly 10 arrows per minute, called the action "plucking the yew", or "pluck yew" for short. Of course, over time, the "pl" was replaced with an "f" once the Welsh made "plucking the yew" an insult.
Sorry for the (unsolicited) history lesson.
Did I happen to mention that it is a great picture!?
Hmmm...that sounds familiar. Does it have to do with the English bowmen showing off their two "draw" fingers? Didn't the French cut off those fingers when they captured prisoners?
Good Gaming~! Mick
There is a tremendous amount of debate among "casual" followers of history (such as me) as to whether this story is true or not.
I think it is a historical fact that the Frech did cut off the two middle "draw" fingers of the Welsh bowman to prevent them from ever doing their job again (after all, Welsh longbows from the Yew tree were over 6 feet long and had about 150 lbf of pull - by comparison, average hunting longbows now are around 65 lbf or so). Removal of those fingers made the longbowman completely useless soldiers.
As to whether the longbowman following the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 raised their middle finger or two middle fingers as a sign of contempt for the French soldiers is open to speculation or conjection. But it certainly sounds plausible.
How it eventually morphed into just the middle finger being raised as the same sign of contempt is (hotly) debated.
When the Medieval section of the Cleveland Institute of Art re-opened sometime in the late 1990's after a 10-year renovation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer published a story about the actual battle and the longbowman's use of the finger(s) in defiance to the French cavalry that were getting their teeth kicked in.
As for the phrase "f*** you" that usually goes with the use of the middle finger, that apprently started around the same time. The longbowman, known for firing at a rate of nearly 10 arrows per minute, called the action "plucking the yew", or "pluck yew" for short. Of course, over time, the "pl" was replaced with an "f" once the Welsh made "plucking the yew" an insult.
Sorry for the (unsolicited) history lesson.
Did I happen to mention that it is a great picture!?
and i just wanted to tell all the same! i don't know about the middle finger. i think that one is older. and there is an episode of desmond morris's "human animal" dedicated to body language, where he even has footage of the prince of wales showing "the fingers of azincourt" at a pologame. i think it was charles. i like him. he's nice. sadly not on the geek. or is he?
Edit: to avoid causing offence, I will note the linked article contains one instance of an non-obfuscated expletive.
Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah...folklore and conjecture are always better when embelished by a story.
(Actually, I had heard that story debunked on snopes back when the Plain Dealer published the article. However, truth has never stopped me from telling a great story, especially when I can get a lot of non-internet savvy rubes to believe me...)
To get my kid playing Battlelore my technique was : Battleship Stratego Memoir 44...
He's 14 now, and can play a very decent Caylus game. Training and patience are the two perfect ingredients to groom a gamer.
Also getting them involved early. My daughter will be turning 7 in a couple months and has been trying almost every new game that I get. If the game is complicated I simplify the rules or just leave some out. At a young age it's more about exposure than winning or losing.
Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah...folklore and conjecture are always better when embelished by a story.
(Actually, I had heard that story debunked on snopes back when the Plain Dealer published the article. However, truth has never stopped me from telling a great story, especially when I can get a lot of non-internet savvy rubes to believe me...)
The big downfall of the story is a simple question: why cut off the bowmen's fingers when they could just kill them? They were peasants, not knights or nobility, so there was no point keeping them for ransom.
Cut off a man's fingers and he won't shoot a bow at you again. Kill him and his sons won't shoot a bow at you twenty years from now.
