Thompson fought in the Civil War on the Confederate side, and after the war, Confederates weren’t allowed to run around with guns, so he and his brother took up the long bows they had learned to use from a mysterious hermit when they were kids. They subsisted largely on what they could bring down with their archaic weapons for years.
I had to keep in mind the era in which the book was written, as the author talks about shooting “anything that runs, flies, or swims,†as he puts it – anything from herons and woodpeckers to owls and other raptors, to deer, alligators, and pumas, to bass and anything in between. The author means what he says quite literally: if he saw some kind of critter, he likely flung an arrow at it with his bow, or had done so to one of its fellows on some previous excursion. This notion grates against the sensibilities of the modern conservationist; that one would shoot something just to get a closer look, or simply because it was there, seems irresponsible and wanton.
But it was a different time back then – a different world, really – and there seemed to be no end of game, nor of virgin timber, nor of marshlands and wild, untamed places. There were no game laws, or none to speak of. Truthfully, I was a little put off by the author’s attitude at first, different era or no. But it doesn’t take long to see that however carelessly the author seems to write about shooting herons and hawks, he still has a deep reverence for these creatures and the natural world. The language he uses is frequently flowery, highly poetic, and in fact there are a few poems in the book, including an ode to the Woodpecker and a few collections of verse in which he paints a particular scene so well that we imagine we ourselves are lying in a boat in some remote streamlet in the middle of the everglades, listening to the wind in the reeds and the murmur of the birds, lazily watching the world go by without a care. Beautiful stuff.
He also gives us tips for how to improve our aim, how to hunt specific quarry, and touches several times upon the healing and therapeutic properties of returning to nature, or, as I’m sure he would call it, “the savage life.†The Witchery of Archery is aptly titled. A book of philosophy, of history, and true-life adventure, it is certainly bewitching, and makes me yearn to create my own adventures “by field and flood,†to the accompanying thrum of my bowstring – though personally I don’t plan to shoot any critters just for the heck of it… I’ll only shoot them if they seem particularly tasty (and happen to be in season
). Narm narm. ~D
