Location Taken: Timonium, Maryland
Time Taken: May 2012
I love walking into restaurants (or other places, for that matter), and seeing weaponry on the wall.
This crossbow was at an Irish pub we tried while looking for a place to eat during a Science Fiction Convention. An Poitin Stil, to be specific, on York Road in Timonium. We liked it enough to eat there three times during the four days we were at the con.
They had more than just this one crossbow, mind you. There were shields on the wall, and fine polearms. There was an antique pistol display in another part of the eating area. And, of course, a bunch of swords.
It’s most often swords I see, since they’re the weapon with the most cultural mystique about them, what with all the stories about dashing swordsmen and kings pulling swords from stones. I’m actually not that fond of them. Give me polearms any day.
I remember the first time I visited the Art Institute in Chicago. If you’ve never been there, they have an area showcasing medieval arms and weaponry. Including a fantastic selection of polearms, from glaives to halberds to guisarmes. I just stared at them for a while, looking at all the intricate details that made each type distinct. And then sat down and sketched them, since, well, I was there on an art class field trip and we had to make sketches…
Crossbows, while not one of my favorite weapons, have a lot going for them. They’ve got a lot of intricate parts with plenty of space for decoration, and are quite powerful without relying on explosive components like the pistols and artillery that became the ranged weapons of choice after the crossbow. And they don’t require quite as much skill as a bow in order to be competent with it, making it more accessible.
And they are pretty.
