If Hawkeye, from the movies or the comics, were to get a look at this bow they use to set fire to Frigga’s funeral boat in Thor: The Dark World, how would he probably describe it?
I can tell it is a recurve bow, and my attempts at research have led me to Turkish and Mongolian bows, but this is meant to be a ‘bow of the gods’, so describe the ideal bow of this type for me? How would it compare with the compound bow Hawkeye uses in the Avengers movie?
I believe it’s called a composite bow. It’s made on different materials glued together which have better properties in combination than a single material like yew wood does. Yew wood itself was a favored material for making bows because its growth cycle made it the equivalent of a composite.
Interesting trivia about composite bows. When you unstring a composite bow (as you would for storage) it bends back around the opposite way to when it’s strung. This is different from natural bows which bend in the same direction.
I once read the theory that this is what Homer was talking about in The Odyssey when he said that none of Penelope’s suitors were strong enough to string Odysseus’ bow. It seems unlikely that Odysseus would have a bow so stiff that nobody else could string it. Such a bow would be virtually unusable.
But Odysseus was renowned for his intelligence and craftiness. It would be in character for him to have been using advanced technology like a composite bow when other people were using natural bows.
So stringing the bow wasn’t a test of strength - it was a test of intelligence. The suitors weren’t familiar with the composite bow and were trying to string it in the direction it bent, which didn’t work. Only Odysseus knew he had to bend the bow backwards against its curve to string it.
That is a really interesting bit of trivia, thanks!
Thanks! I love that idea about Odysseus. It works so much better with his character than the test of strength.
