strange heat it was, the summer of 1399. The kind of heat that presses down on the land and makes the air thick with waiting. You could feel it in the quiet of the fields and the low murmur ofā¦...
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In the hush between the tolling of bells and the hiss of the string, something else stirred in the guildhalls of medieval Flanders and Englandāsomething older than the arrows they notched and swifter than the oaths they swore. While theā¦...
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I came across him not in a book, but in a footnote misquoted in the margin of another. It was a binding so cracked it seemed to wheeze when opened, part of a bundle I’d been lent by a Flemishā¦...
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The story Iām about to tell you is not one that fits neatly into the grand histories of kings and battles, nor does it appear in the sweeping narratives of medieval glory or tragedy. It is a whisper at theā¦...
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You never forget the first book that cuts you. The one that leaves a wound, not in flesh, but in the quiet, unguarded place where thoughts sleep before they wake to meaning. Mine was a battered volume on the Theā¦...
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The leaden days of socialist monotony in the 1970s and 80s had an odd way of pressing on the spirit, like a cold fog that never actually lifted. But even in the dreary grind of lining up for bread, sugarā¦...
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The dimly lit, rain-soaked cinemas of 1980s Soviet life provided brief but significant havens. Among the films, Sergei Tarasov's 1985 Š§ŠµŃŠ½aŃ ŃŃŃŠµŠ»Š° (The Black Arrow) stood out not only as entertainment but also as an eventāan artefact of a society struggling with its paradoxes. Under the heavy shadow of a collapsing Soviet ideology, this rendition of Robert Louis Stevenson's story connected as both metaphor and adventure, a revolt against the ordinary disguised as historical epic.
The ancient whisper from the heart of Ireland, the yew bow, sings a tune etched amongst the soft susurrations of leaves in the forgotten wood. A weapon, not truly; an amulet, a bridge into the Othercrowd, where the SĆdhe peopleā¦...
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(A monthly column) The arrow, both ancient and resiliant, has for centuries represented more than ordinary blend of wood and steel. She is an instrument of swift death, and her silent flight often brings forth something beyond a simple ending,ā¦...
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The Robin Hood legends have cemented his place as a peerless marksman, but let's be real: nobody in any kind of serious competition these days tries the "split the arrow" stunt. Real archers know the stupidity of making them waste a perfectly good arrow. But it's a story that charms-to show, once again, that when it comes to archery, as with much in life, the question of branding is paramount.