The Dangerous Book for Boys

by Conn Iggulden

  Don’t spoil such moments by doing something stupid with yours. The bow and arrow here could be used for hunting or target practice in a garden. Remember at all times that it is a weapon. Weapons are never pointed at other children.

  Arrows and Arrowheads

  * * *

  You will need

  Flint or bone for arrowheads.

  Soup can.

  Strong scissors and penknife.

  Straight 4 ft (1.2 m) lengths of springy wood—elm, ash or yew.

  Straight 1 yd (0.9 m) lengths for arrows.

  Thread, glue.

  Phillips head screwdriver.

  String.

  Feathers, usually found, or bought from a butcher.

  Strip of leather to protect fingers.

  * * *

  There are a number of ways to make an arrowhead. Stone Age man used flint, and it is still intriguing to make a simple arrowhead with this material. Flint is the fossilized remnant of small organisms, and it is extremely common. Our selection came from a plowed field that was absolutely littered with pieces bigger than a fist. It is usually found with chalk—on what was once the bed of an ocean millions of years ago.

  Find yourself a good big piece like the one on the right of the picture. One of the very few benefits of wearing glasses is that your eyes are better protected from shards. If you don’t wear glasses, look away as you bring it down sharply on another flint lump or wear goggles.

  You’ll find that with enough of an impact, flint breaks like glass, forming razor-sharp edges that almost instantly suggest axeheads and arrows to you. We found that with a bit of luck, five or ten of these impacts would give you a handful of suitable pieces—shards that look as if they could be shaped into an arrowhead.

  You may have seen pictures of Stone Age flints with a series of scalloped semicircles around the edge. These circles are formed by “knapping” (sometimes spelled “napping”), which is a difficult skill. Many people still do it as a hobby, producing ornate as well as functional arrowheads.

  Using a pointed implement such as a small Phillips screwdriver, it is possible to nibble away at the sharp edge of a flint until the right shape is achieved. Place the flint on a piece of soft wood, with the edge touching the wood, then press the screwdriver head downward against the very edge.

  It’s a slow and tiring process, but it does work, and if it was the only way to kill a deer to feed your family, the time would be well spent. A grindstone, patience, and spit can also produce quite decent arrowheads, though without that classic look. A combination of the techniques would also work well.

  Remember to leave enough of a “handle” to bind into the arrow shaft—and expect to have a few break in half and be ruined before you have one you like.

  The next one we produced with only a grindstone. It is very small at ¾ in (17 mm) long—but much larger and the arrow range will be reduced.

  Bone also works well—and can be shaped on a sanding block very easily. We found that if you give a lamb bone to a big dog, the splinters he leaves behind can be turned into arrowheads without too much trouble.

  The easiest arrowheads to make come from tin cans—baked beans, Spaghetti Os, anything. The base and lid will be a flat metal surface. Use a good pair of scissors, and you might find it is very easy to cut yourself and spend the rest of the day at your local hospital. Ask an adult to help with this bit. Leave a long “handle,” as in the picture. It will help keep the head securely in place.

  Note that these are not that useful for target practice—they bend. They are probably better for hunting rabbits, though we found the movement of drawing an arrow scared living creatures away for half a mile in every direction. For target practice, the best thing is simply to sharpen the wooden arrow tip with a penknife and use a soft target—an old sweater stuffed with newspaper or straw.

  The arrows themselves are traditionally made out of very thin, straight branches, whittled, trimmed and sanded until they are perfectly smooth. Dowel rods, however, are already perfectly straight and smooth and can be bought from any large hardware shop. The arrow we made is from an English elm, but any wood that doesn’t splinter easily will do.

  There are three important parts to making an arrow—getting it straight, attaching the point and attaching the feathers. The old word for “arrow maker” was “fletcher”, and it is a skill all to itself.

  If you have a metal tip, simply saw a slit in the end of your arrow, push the head into place and then tie strong thread securely around the arrow shaft to keep it steady. Attaching a flint head like this is only possible if it is a flat piece.

  Now to fletch the arrow, you are going to need feathers. We used pheasant ones after seeing a dead pheasant on the side of the road. If this isn’t possible, you’ll have to go to any farm, ask at a butcher’s, or look for pigeon feathers in local parks. Goose feathers are the traditional favorite, but are not easy to find. Make sure you have a good stock of them at hand. Feathers are much lighter than plastic and are still used by professional archers today.

  With a penknife, or just scissors, cut this shape from the feather, keeping a little of the central quill to hold it together. You can still trim it when it’s finished, so it doesn’t have to be fantastically neat at this stage.

  You should leave an inch of bare wood at the end of the arrow to give you something to grip with your fingers as you draw. We forgot this until actually testing the bow.

  Also note that the three feathers are placed 120° apart from each other (3 × 120 = 360). The “cock feather” is the one at 90° to the string slot, as in the picture below. Use your eye to place them on the shaft for gluing. During a shot, the arrow rests on the outside of the hand gripping the bow and the cock feather points towards the face of the archer. The other two feathers can then pass the bow at speed without hitting it.

  A touch of glue holds the feathers in place, but for tradition and for the look of the thing, you should tie a thread securely at one end, then wind it carefully through each of the three feathers until you reach the other end. This is a fiddly job, but strong thread will create an arrow that is a joy to behold. Tie both ends off carefully, trimming the ends of the thread.

  It’s a good idea to prepare five or six of these arrows. There is an excellent chance you are going to break a couple, or lose them. Use a little common sense here and don’t fire them where they can disappear into someone else’s garden.

  The Bow

  Ideally, the wood for your bow should be straight and springy. It should be cut green and then left somewhere to dry for a year. However, our childhood experience of bow-making was that they were always made on the same day they were cut, so we did that again here. Elm works well, as does hazel and ash. The most powerful bows come from a combination of yew sapwood and heartwood, the dense hedge tree found in every churchyard in Britain. In earlier times, Druids considered yew trees sacred and built temples close to them, beginning an association with places of worship that continues to this day. The red yew berries are extremely poisonous. Do not cut yew trees. They are ancient.

  Freshly cut bows do lose their power after a day or two. They should not be strung unless you are ready to shoot, and you should also experiment with different types of local woods for the best springiness.

  The thing to remember is that the bow actually has to bend. It is tempting to choose a thick sapling for immediate power, but anything thicker than three-quarters of an inch is probably too thick.

  If you have access to carpentry tools, fix the bow gently into a vise and use a plane to taper the ends. Most ones you find in woods will have some degree of tapering, which can be redressed at this stage.

  We cut all the notches and slots for this bow and arrow with a standard Swiss Army knife saw blade. However, a serrated-edge bread knife would do almost as well.

  Cut notches in the head and foot of the bow, two inches from the end. Use a little common sense here. You want to cut them just deep enough to hold the bowstring without sl
ipping.

  You’ll need very strong, thin string—we found nylon to be the best. Fishing line snapped too easily. Traditional bowstrings were made from waxed linen or woven horse hair, forming miniature cables of immense strength. The Romans even used horsehair to form great springs for their war catapults!

  The knot you’ll need is a good everyday one, from tying up a canal boat to stringing a bow. Its advantage is that the actual knot isn’t tightened under pressure, so it can always be loosened when you need to move on. It is called “the round turn and two halfhitches.”

  First wind your rope fully around the bow end, as shown. This is the “round turn.” Then pass the end under the bowstring and back through the loop—a half hitch. Pull tight. Finally, do another hitch in the same way: under the string, back through the loop, and away. You should end up with a knot that doesn’t touch the bow wood but is very solid.

  As a final note, it is a very good idea to wear a glove on the hand that holds the bow as you draw back the string. The arrow passes over it at speed and can take skin off. Also, we found it much easier to pull the string back if we had strips of leather wound around the second and third fingers. You can probably get a piece of leather from a furniture shop as a sample, or an upholsterer’s offcut bin. Alternatively, you could just wear another glove. It may interest you to know that the rude gesture of sticking two fingers up at someone came from the English archers at Agincourt. The French had said that they would cut off the arrow-pulling fingers of those men when they beat them. Instead, the French were defeated and the archers mocked them by showing off their fingers—still attached.

  Archery can be a fascinating and highly skillful sport, and this isn’t a bad way to start.

  Understanding Grammar—Part One

  IT’S STRANGE HOW SATISFYING it can be to know right from wrong. Grammar is all about rules and structure. It is always “between you and me,” for example. If you hear someone say “between you and I,” it isn’t a matter of opinion, they’re just wrong.

  The grammar of English is more complex than can be contained here, but a skeleton of basics is well within our reach. You wouldn’t use a chisel without knowing how to hold it. In the same way, you really should know the sharp end from the blunt one in everything else you use—including your language. The English language is spoken by more people on Earth than any other, after all.

  The first thing to know is that there are only nine kinds of words. Nine.

  1.Nouns are the names of things. There are three kinds. Proper nouns have capital letters e.g. “New York.” Abstract nouns are the things that exist but you can’t touch: “courage,” “loyalty,” “cruelty,” “kindness.” Common nouns are the words for everything else: “chair,” “eyes,” “dog,” “car” and so on.

  2.Verbs are words for action or change: “to become,” “to wash,” “to dissect,” “to eat” and so on. There are six parts to each verb, known as first person singular, second person singular, third person singular, first person plural, second person plural, and third person plural.

  Most verbs follow this simple pattern.

  To deliver

  First person singular: I deliver

  Second person singular: You deliver

  Third person singular: He/She/It delivers—note the s

  First person plural: We deliver

  Second person plural: You deliver

  Third person plural: They deliver

  Irregular verbs like “to be” and “to have” are not as . . . well, not as regular. They must be learned.

  To be To have

  I am I have

  You are You have

  He/She/It is He/She/It has

  We are We have

  You are You have

  They are They have

  Note that the second person “you” is the same in the singular and plural. In older forms of English, you would have used “thou” as second person singular. In modern English it makes no difference whether you are addressing one man or a thousand, you could still begin as follows: “You are responsible for your behavior.”

  3.Adverbs are the words that modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. They are important as there is a huge difference between “smiling nastily” and “smiling cheerfully.” Clearly the verb is not enough on its own.

  Most adverbs end in “-ly,” as with the examples above.

  If you say, “I’ll go to the store tomorrow,” however, “tomorrow” is an adverb, because it adds detail to that verb “go.” Words like “soon” and “often” also fall into this category. As a group, these are sometimes known as “adverbs of time.”

  As mentioned above, an adverb can also add detail to an adjective. “It is really big” uses “really” as an adverb. “It is very small” uses “very” as an adverb. He walked “extremely quietly” uses “extremely” as an adverb for an adverb! This is not rocket science. Take it slowly and learn it all bit by bit.

  4.Adjectives are words that modify nouns. In “the enormous snake,” “enormous” is the adjective. More than one can be used together, thus: “the small, green snake.” Note the comma between the two adjectives. Putting a comma between adjectives is correct.

  As a general rule, adjectives come before the noun. However, as always with English, rules have many exceptions: “That snail is slimy!,” for example.

  5.Pronouns are words that replace nouns in a sentence. It would sound clumsy to say “John looked in John’s pockets.” Instead, we say “John looked in his pockets.” “His” is a pronoun.

  Here are some examples: I, you, he, she, we, they—me, you, him, her, us, them—my, your, his, her, our, their.

  “One” is also used in place of “people in general,” as in the following sentence: “One should always invest in reliable stocks.” The informal form of this is “you,” but it does sometimes lead to confusion, which keeps this unusual use of “one” alive. The British Queen also uses the “we” form in place of “I” during formal announcements.

  6.A conjunction is a word that joins parts of a sentence together. “I tied the knot and hoped for the best.” Tying the knot is a separate action from hoping for the best, joined by the word “and.” Conjunctions can also join adjectives, “short and snappy,” or adverbs “slowly but surely.”

  Examples: and, so, but, or, if, although, though, because, since, when, as, while, nor.

  The general rule is: “A sentence does not begin with a conjunction.” Yes, you will find examples where sentences do begin with a conjunction. Professional writers do break this rule, but you should know it to break it—and even then do it carefully.

  The examples above are fairly straightforward. It does get a little trickier when a conjunction is used to introduce a subordinate clause. (Clauses are covered in Grammar Part Two.)

  “Although he was my only friend, I hated him.” (although)

  “As I’m here, I’ll have a drink.” (as)

  In these two examples, the sentences have been rearranged to change the emphasis. It would have been clearer, perhaps, to write, “I’ll have a drink as I’m here,” or “I hated him although he was my only friend.” It’s easier to see “although” and “as” are being used as joining words in that way, but many sentences begin with a subordinate clause.

  7.Articles are perhaps the easiest to remember: “a,” “an” and “the.” That’s it.

  “A/an” is the indefinite article. Used when an object is unknown. “A dog is in my garden.” “An elephant is sitting on my father.”

  “The” is the definite article. “The dog is in the garden” can refer to a particular dog. “The elephant is sitting on my father” can mean only one elephant—one we already know: a family pet, perhaps.

  “An” is still sometimes used for words that begin with a clearly sounded “h”: “an historical battle,” “an horrendous evil,” and so on. It is seen as old-fashioned, though, and using “a” is becoming more acceptable.

  8.Prepositions are words that ma
rk the position or relationship of one thing with respect to another. Examples: in, under, over, between, before, behind, through, above, for, with, at, and from.

  “He fell from grace” demonstrates “from” as a preposition. Another example is “He lived before Caesar,” or “I stood with Caesar.”

  The general rule for prepositions is: “Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.”

  It is not correct to say “This is my son, who I am most pleased with.” It should be “This is my son, with whom I am most pleased.”

  9.This is another of the easier types. Interjections are simple sounds used to express an inward feeling such as sorrow, surprise, pain or anger. This can be a wide group, as almost anything can be said in this way. Obvious examples are: Oh! What? Hell! Eh? Goodness gracious!

  Note the last one—interjections don’t have to be a single word. It could be a whole phrase like “By the Lord Harry!” or a complex oath. They tend to stand on their own and often have exclamation marks following them.

  That is all nine.

  Bearing in mind that English has more words than any other language on earth, it is quite impressive that there are only nine kinds. The first part of grammar is to learn those nine well and be able to identify them in a sentence. If you have, you should be able to name each of the eight kinds of words used in the following sentence. If it helps, we didn’t use a conjunction.

  ‘No! I saw the old wolf biting viciously at his leg.”

  (ANSWER: “No!”—interjection, “I”—pronoun, “saw”—verb, “the”—definite article, “old”—adjective, “wolf”—common noun, “biting”—verb, “viciously”—adverb, “at”—preposition, “his”—pronoun, “leg”—common noun. Eight different types.)