English longbow vs. Viking longbow?

[Russ]

There is a long tradition of longbows in Scandinavia going back to the time of the Vikings - our club in Copenhagen has plenty of enthusiastic followers (though I think the revival of the longbow for recreation & sport is fairly recent here).

I've read that the English longbow originated in Wales in the 11th c. but don't know where the Viking's version of the longbow fits into the picture. Did Viking raiders bring the longbow back to Scandinavia from the British Isles? or did the Welsh borrow the idea from the Vikings? Can anyone shed any light on this one?

[Haywain]

From my memory of history at school I seem to remember that the viking longbow was around a lot longer than the English / Welsh longbow.

In fact the design of the English Warbow (it wasn't called a longbow until a few hundred years later) came about because of the availability of woods used in it's construction, namely the yew stave.

The viking bow I seem to remember was constructed differently, in that it was originally more of a flat bow in design, rather than D shaped in cross section like the English bow.

I'm sure there may be others who's knowledge is greater than mine, but I hope this helps a little.

[gorbalite]

The oldest known example of an european bow was found in Denmark in 1943.The Holmegaard bow as it is known was almost 62"long and was estimated to have pulled about 57lb at26"

[gorbalite]

On Holmegaard bow,should have added that it was flatbow type and was approximately 9000 years old

[kernowtom]

Even older than the holmegaard style bows are the stellmoor bows from northern germany (see the bowyers bible vol. 2). These are much more like the Mary Rose longbows in cross section and many other neolithic bows show a circular or D-ish shape. Several later (but still pretty old) bows have been found here in Somerset. These include D section and flat bows. It seems that both shapes have existed for a long time. Perhaps the prevalence of one or the other has depended upon local materials and the trade off between performance and ease of manufacture?
tom