Customer Reviews

Witchery of Archery

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The documentation of two brothers who go into the woods to escape yankee persecution after the civil war. Living off the land and surviving in the swamps of Florida, they live off the land with what their hand-made bows and tackle can produce. If you're into archery or the post civil war this is a must have(if someone had not seen fit to steal my original copy I wouldn't be looking for another).

A gentle book telling tales of archery in the deep south of USA, poetic and visually descriptive of the slower life of holiday adventures and the enjoyment shared by two brothers with the bow and arrow during the late 1800's, don't be put off that it is a photocopy book of an out of print edition, the print might be bad, but the content is good. Good bedtime reading.

Like twenty serpents bound together hissed the flying arrows feather. Mauriece Thompson wrote this book in a gentler time for a less politically correct reader.

This book presents quite a romantic perspective on archery and hunting with bow and arrow, something which can kindle interest in the sport, but also bring up sadness for a way of life that at the present time is largely lost and gone. One of the great ironies of the book is that while the author condemns those who would plunder nineteenth century wildlife with the lowly shotgun, (which required so much less skill to use than the longbow!)he himself tells story after story of going out into various American wildlands and shooting dozens of herons, cranes, woodpeckers, and pretty much any number of any bird that the whim of the moment inspired in him, including the now-extinct Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Which just goes to show that one can be as irresponsble with a bow and arrow as with a gun, in spirit if not by numbers. Yes, Maurice Thompson, many a US citizen who in this day and age attempted to find himself a place to live out your beautiful stories of the grand old days when boys had plenty of space to explore and camp and dream, would be saddened to find himself limited to the tiny spaces left between ever-increasing private property holdings and restrictive US Fish and Game laws. And if he tried to imitate your adventures, he might well end up in jail. NOt that it isn't valuable to dream. And the romance of archery can certainly be kindled by this sweet book with its delightful nineteenth century flavor. The book also has an appendix on the concrete specifics of building a bow, fletching, string and shooting techniques.

Wish I had an original print of this gem. Two fellow Hoosiers, deprived of their firearms following the civil war because they served for the Confederacy, take to their old friend - stick and string. If you are an archery nut like me this is an absolute must read. This is the book that started it all. The Tri-Fecta: The Witchery of Archery by Maurice Thompson, Hunting the Hard Way by Howard Hill and Hunting With The Bow and Arrow by Saxton Pope - these should be in every archer's bookcase.

This book was rewritten in some foreign country. There were lots of misspellings, grammer errors, misplaced punctuation, missing letters, and printed way too small. In all poor quality. Waste of money.