Middle Earth Ranger Forum

you would get this conversation going right when I was thinking of making modern-ish gloves. Curse you, waking my inner stitch counter!

... that said, full finger gloves are documentable to the 12th century: (Fécamp Psalter (KB 76 F 13, fol. 5v), c. 1180, via larsdatter.com

.. and Pliny the Younger in the second century AD mentioned some kind of glove:

A shorthand writer constantly attended him, with book and tablets, who, in the winter, wore a particular sort of warm gloves, that the sharpness of the weather might not occasion any interruption to my uncle’s studies

(or at least some manner of hand covering translated as "glove" anyhow)

So personally, I think I'm somewhat okay with modern (ish) gloves in ME. The more primitive version you picture wouldn't be out of place to my mind either.. certainly for those like rangers who don't have armies of tailors at their disposal.

(edit: I gotta say all that belt bling is tres cool. Doesn't fit what I'm doing I think, but I like it! )

I'm only digging the fingerless thing because I HATE the dexterity lost with fingered gloves. I want something like this that can serve for archery purposes, but be worn under a pair of wool mittens or a hawking glove, but alone wouldn't interfere with tying knots on a shelter tarp or jerkin.

Your reasoning suits fine...I just don't want full fingers myself.

I love the idea of fingerless gloves which is why I've been sort of working up a pattern for a pair for myself for a while now. Still have to finish the suckers. They've been kind of a pain. Anyway, I feel like both half-finger gloves (like "biker" gloves, if you will) and completely fingerless gloves like the ones at the top of this post are both quite practical. I'm making my own pair long, with laces along the sides, to act as under-bracers (Greg, I wore a prototype of one of these on the hike with you earlier this month, and you can see it in several of my other pictures as well).

Also, with regard to the glue and your bow, are you planning on getting the hide glue from a 3rd party source, or are you thinking of making it yourself?

I don't always wear them but here's an example of mine. They started life as rose gardening gauntlets that I cut down. The ends of the fingers have been whipped stitched. Right now they have simple ties at the cuff but I have plans to add a flap that wraps around and buttons. I left the right hand fingers longer to act as tabs when shooting. To date I've never heard of them used historically.