Talk:Bowstaff

Source please?
--- A bowstaff is a weapon used in England in the 17th century.

The bowstaff never needs to be unstrung and when stringed is totally flat so can be used as a light staff, or a walking stick.

The advantages of a bowstaff are that it always ready to use but it requires great strength and is not extremely accurate unless you have great skill. The second key advantage is that it serves as both an offensive and defensive weapon without switching tactics.

It is commonly featured in the Robin Hood tales as the weapon of choice of Little John, and is the weapon of which Robin was forced to use to cross the river. In the Mel Brooks parody, the primary flaw of the bowstaff was illustrated as they tend to weaken over years of exposure and eventually snap when needed. --

I have never heard of this; nor has the OED, or any other reference I looked in. Furthermore, it doesn't make any sense; if you keep a bow strung, it will necessarily take a set. An unstrung bow can be used as a staff weapon or walking stick in an emergency, of course, but that risks damaging it. The picture, and some of the description, is of quarterstaff.

I may of course be mistaken, but if you want to restore this article please provide a citation. As is, it sounds like a creative misunderstanding of bo (weapon).

--

The Bowstaff closest resembles the quarterstaff in appearance in function as compared to the bo. The phrase unstringing comes not from the meaning as the sense of stringing a bow and arrow but from what is done to the ends of the staff. Typically the bowstaff has both of its ends "strung" as a matter of wrapping in order to prevent the ends of the staff from cracking and splitting from being swung as a club or repeatedly mashed into the ground. As you mentioned keeping a bow strung at all times would cause the curve to lose its play and therefore most of its power. I have been as yet unable to locate the texts for citation but I do know that detailed studies have been done in various living history texts; most of these texts are unavailable online. -- Hmmm, interesting. Thanks. -- Update: I've been informed that a weapon called a bowstaff, matching the original editor 138.89.174.154's description, appears in R.A. Salvatore's Demon Trilogy, which suggests it is entirely a fantasy weapon (though the existence of staves with wrapped ends is entirely plausible.) Megalophias 15:39, 20 December 2005 (UTC) -- You guys are so dumb. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.198.75.12 (talk) 09:57, 22 January 2015 (UTC) - The reason you're having so much trouble find information about it is because all of you misspelled it - the correct spelling is Bo Staff — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.5.149.249 (talk) 17:15, 3 November 2015 (UTC)