Actually, the English longbow is made from Spanish Yew, according to an
exhibit in the British Museum. English yew not being good for making bows.
Curious. This suggests a long history of trade with Spain.
Elena
-----Original Message-----
From: caysue [mailto:caysue_at_excite.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 10:56 PM
To: OliveStarlightOrchestra_at_yahoogroups.com
Subject: [OliveStarlightOrchestra] RE: Important History Lesson
hopefully this will come thru.Caroline--- On Thu 08/05, Janet Ponton <
janpon18_at_hotmail.com > wrote:From: Janet Ponton [mailto:
janpon18_at_hotmail.com]To: undisclosed-recipients@, @Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004
09:25:51 -0700Subject: Important History LessonWell, now......here's
something I never knew before, and now that Iknow it, I feel compelled to
send it on to my more intelligentfriends in the hope that they, too, will
feel edified. Isn't historymore fun when you know something about it?_Giving
the FingerBefore the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French,
anticipatingvictory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger
ofall captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would
beimpossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore theywould be
incapable of fighting in the future.This famous weapon was made of the
native English Yew tree, and theact of drawing the longbow was known as
"plucking the yew" (or "pluckyew"). Much to the bewilderment of the French,
the English won amajor upset and began mocking the French by waving their
middlefingers at the defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck
yew!"PLUCK YEW!"Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult
consonantcluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a
labiodentalsfricative 'F', and thus the words often used in conjunction with
theone-finger-salute!It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the
arrows used withthe longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving
the bird."And yew thought yew knew everything
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Received on 2004-08-20 17:42:27