Roman crossbow

[Robert]

Yew is very good for making longbows but not for making flatbows. Bogfinds are flatbows of ash and elm, these are nice springy woods which make great bows. Yew however works in a different manner and is most suited for making a D bow (the D being the cross section). This is because the sapwood of yew, used on the outside (back) of the bow, is resistant to stretch, while the heartwood of the yew is resistant to compression and is the belly side. You could call yew a natural laminate, combining two characteristics in a single trunk. Yew also grows slowly, so to get bowstaves from a yew, it is quartered, at least split into triangular sections with the pointy end toward the center. When you shave off that point, hey presto, there is the D shape you want for your bow. The back of the bow (for non archers, the side away from the archer) is stripped of bark and hardly worked at all, just smoothened. Should you try to turn a yew bowstave into a true flatbow, you will violate the grain and seriously weaken the bow. Because of the many sideshoots, getting a good piece of yew suitable for making a bow is a propper chore, the best pieces come from stems/shoots that have grown on the inside of a clump of yew, shooting upwards and not forming hardly any sideshoots, so no knots.

Any bow will become brittle in freezing conditions, yew and ash and elm alike. Yew just isn't indignious to north europe so as a bowwood would have been unknown ...