I was doing some research into the Varangian Guard and the other units of the Byzantine Armies in the 9th and 10th century as Ringulf in the SCA is a Varangian Archer/Fighter.
As I was looking at the classes of different fighters and archers, I found the main Byzantine archer, the Psilos.
The Psilos is a light Infantryman whose main weapon was the bow.
They generally used composit recurves and carried a hip quiver of forty arrows. Often on certain campains they would also carry a spare quiver on the back with additional arrows and/or javalins.
They sometimes substituted javalins, crossbow or staffsling for bow for different scenarios, and archers were sometimes issued a sling as a secondary missile weapon.
For hand to hand close combat they were normally given only a light hand axe called a Tzikourion and/or a spathion, a shortsword/long knife kind of weapon that looked a bit like PJ's "Sting" with it's leaflike blade.
The Tzikourion was a good primary weapon with a secondary weapon like the shortsword, knife or even buckler. Or could be used in pairs. They were balanced for throwing and often employed in that manner, if several were carried at once.
They rarely wore armor, but it says in the research I did, that the manuels for the Commanders encouraged, if they could, armoring as many Psilos as possible with mail shirts, leather lamelar or scale corslets.
They also carried a small buckler/targ around a foot in diameter, whose straps went around the forearm and through the palm but was light enough (and I supose far enough away from the bow hand or shifted to the wrist) to allow shooting the bow while holding the shield.
They utilized leather bracers and greives when armored or stiff, below the knee boots and wrist cuffs when going light
So I can see Ringulf as a cross trained Varangian archer, having some of this equipment and yet retaining much of his traditional dress and gear as it applied. (Less and less of it as it wore out from use.)
Back to the Tzikourion. I am going to put up the picture that started this little jaunt into what had been my first choice of persona in order to allow my persona a bit more variety in the selection of arms and armor.
I drifted away from it when I felt incapable healthwise of doing heavy armored combat and moved into the live weapons and archery.
Jumping between 12th century RobinHood-esque persona and a Danish mercenary defecting from King John's Army, I felt unsettled and not true to my orriginal concept. Till now!
This 10th Century Bizantine mixture allows me to do my Ranger type Archery, Combat archery and my Live Weapons (ie axes, seaxes, javalins and now sling!!!), look very Norse and make complete period sense.
And I will point out to you the one element that I found so serendipitous that it tied it all together for me...
Look at the dude's Tzikourion axe on his belt....seen it before?
"I got your Tzikourion right here!!"
(in fact I have two!)
The top horn of the blade of mine is longer but there was a tremendous variance of shape in the the research anyway, the criteria seemed to be a light hand axe with an edged blade and either a spike or poll. The shapes of both varied as did the legnth of the handle.
Like I said this one will throw and thrust better than the bearded style or the one on his belt though it is very close.
Ringulf "Tvier Ox" is back on the trail!
She could teach me a thing or two... or a few ... about using a torch! That is some mighty fine cutting! Can't wait to see what you do with it.
