Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/226

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. v. AUG., 1919.

r BOWSHOT : THE LONGEST (12 S. v. 180). The subjoined excerpts from an article in The Manchester Guardian of July, 1905, may be of interest to COL. SOUTHAM :

" ' An arrow from a Turkish Bow ' has long been a poetical illustration of great speed. The recent announcement of Sir Ralph Payne Gallwey's remarkable shot with his ancient Turkish bow may be taken to confirm the poet's opinion. Sir Ralph Payne Gallwey's arrow has gone further than any known have been shot by an Englishman in recent times. Shooting at the new French golf links of Le Tpuquet, he covered a distance of 367 yards with his best arrow. There seems to be some doubt whether Sir Ralph Payne Gallwey's shot can be claimed as a ' record.' Robin Hood's celebrated shot of ' two North-country miles and an inch ' has probably been exaggerated by the chronicler ; indeed it is hinted that the phrase of ' drawing the long bow ' derived its esoteric meaning from the manner in which archers used to describe their feats. We do not know whether Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in ' The White Company' has authority for the skill with which Hordle John used to cover a mile in three arrow-flights by sitting down and drawing the bow \yith his feet, converting himself, in fact, into a kind of human cross-bow. Ascham, with all his entertaining lore, omits to mention the distance to which an arrow could be sent ; but Neade, a famous archer under Charles I., states that the ordinary range of the bow was from 320 to 400 yards. The longest shot authentically recorded in this country is that of a secretary of the Turkish Embassy who in 1794 shot an arrow 463 yards with the wind, and 416 against it, in the presence of members of the Royal Toxophilite Society, who measured the distance and preserved the arrow."

Like Ascham, Hargrove (' Anecdotes of Archery,' 1845), "with all his entertaining lore," is guilty of a similar omission as regards the distance of an arrow's flight, mentioning only the modern average of 100 yards. The famous and hitherto un- beaten record of 1794 could not be chronicled by him as his ' Anecdotes ' end with the year 1791. I may add, further, that very curiously Hordle John's feat is paralleled by a tradition, according to an eighteenth- century writer in ' Archseologia,' that

"an attorney of Wigan named Leigh shot a mile in three flights. He is supposed to have sat on a stool, the middle of the bow being fastened to one of his feet ; to have elevated that foot forty-five degrees and drawn the string of a strong bow with both his hands."

One wonders whether this tradition is the basis of Hordle John's exploit.

J. B. McGovERN. St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

The long distance bowshot of 236 yards 7 feet (sic) made in 1794, was not the record bowshot made up to 1913. In ' Archery,' by C. J. Longman and others (Badminton Library) many instances of long distance

shooting are given, all exceeding the above A bowshot of 360 yards was made by Mr. Rawson, who died in 1794, and ir 1798 Mr. Troward made a shot of 34( yards, using a self-bow pulling 63 Ibs. and flight j arrows 29 inches long. It i< said of these two instances of distance shooting that they had not been surpassec for at least a century or two previously Mr. Horace Ford in 1856 shot an arro\* 308 yards, his bow being a 68 lb*. self-yew G. A. Hansard's ' Book of Archery ' (1841) states that by Act of Parliament (3, Henry VIII. c. 9), " No person above the said age of 24 years, shall shoot at anj mark of eleven score yards or under, wit! any prick shaft or flight, under the pain tc forfeit for every shoot, six shillings anc eight pence." In those days 236 yards wa? evidently no great distance.

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

Mahmood Effendij, in 1795, shooting witl: a Turkish bow, discharged an arrow 482 yards. Mr. Troward, with (?) an English bow, in 1798, discharged an arrow 340 yards (See ' Record of Sports,' published by the Royal Insurance Co., Ltd., May, 1914, p. 26 where other lesser records will be found.

HUGH S. GLADSTONE.

Capenoch, Thornhill, Dumfriesshire.

[MR. W. A. HUTCHISON also thanked for reply.]

KELLOND SURNAME (12 S. v. 154, 189). Kellond is probably a variation of Kelland. a place-name (according to R. S. Charnoek, ' Patronymica Cornu-Britannica ') in Trigg Hundred, Cornwall, " perhaps etymologicallj connected with Helland or the same name as Kellan, q.v. Kil is a neck or promontory and kelin a holly-tree." " Kellan, this name may be from Ian, the church, or place en- closed with a hedge." Bannister, ' Glossary of Cornish Names,' gives : " Kelland ? grove, enclosure (Ian), or church."

Hence Kelland may be from two Cornish words : kel, grove ; Ian, church. But it is tc be remembered that Celtic custom in place- names puts the substantive first and the qualifying words after ; e.g., pen maen maun is hill, stone, great. The English idiom would be great stone hill. So Kellan(d) would be in English Church Grove, i.e., the grove by the church, not Grove Church, the church by the grove.

Kellan might assume the d either in- trusively as Simonds for Simons, Dymond for Dyman, Dayman, Dairyman ; or from the irrepressible desire of copyists to make sense out of what they do not understand,