Posted: April 15, 2000 at 23:21:07: by Jim Gregors
: : I was just reading about how Legolas got a longer bow when The
: : Company left Lorien. I was curious does anyone know the range
: : of a bow of that time period? Was his bow like a long bow? How
: : far could an expert actually shoot and kill somebody?(assuming
: : that Legolas is an expert): THE LORD OF THE RINGS is set in an imaginary time period about 6,000 years in the past. All the weaponry in the book is therefore anachronistic in the strictest sense. : However, when you stop to consider that the Elven bows were probably "magical", it's impossible to assign a reasonable ability to them. Whatever a man could make, an Elf could do better, if he wished, by "putting his thought into it" (that leads into a great discussion about magic in Tolkien). Not to mention that Elves have both superior eyesight and reflexes. In fact, I cannot think of a single instance in which Legolas missed his mark (except for his meeting with Gandalf the White). In his game with Gimli at Helm's Deep, Legolas - after firing off his quiver of (20?) arrows - puts his score at at least 20 dead, seeming to indicate that he had not missed with a single shot.
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