gurdymonkey: (pretties)
[personal profile] gurdymonkey
OK, this makes up for the brain suckers, who, I admit, are just asking for help when I'm trying to take over the Known World in less than a week.

So here I am, writing up documentation for my "Ballistics" entry. I keep stumbling across internet sites which parrot each other over and over and over again, plus dead links to sites on this weapon that I remember as being really good.

The not-so-good sites contain the same two medieval drawings. One is supposedly Byzantine. The other is 13th century. Victory is achieved when I trace the 13th century drawing to the chronicler who drew it and the battle it depicts.

The parroting sites refer to a 4th century Roman military text which supposedly mentions my ballistic weapon. Lo and behold, I find a digital translation of the text in several sections - including long winded, eye-bleeder dedications to the Emperor. "Aha!" I think, "I shall CTRL+F!" I find not one but two references, including a description of the weapon being deployed against elephants!!!!!!!!!

How cool is that? 

Still dithering over whether to do a throwaway instrumental on hurdy gurdy - because I can and it'll even be 14th century even though they dropped THAT requirement, or make brains go splodey with taiko....


Date: 2008-09-30 01:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gurdymonkey.livejournal.com
Am I evil and twisted for wanting one of these?
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=p-CZpjbxGhQ

Date: 2008-09-30 01:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kproche.livejournal.com
Heck no! Where can we find plans?
(deleted comment)

Re: Definitely not evil

Date: 2008-09-30 05:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kproche.livejournal.com
Aha! A little more digging suggests that his "Kaisatsuko" is a modern two-string version of a strohfiddel ("Straw fiddle"), which uses a rosin wheel instead of his modern nylon wheel.
And the strohfiddel is *old*. Maybe even old enough to be entirely legit for thems of us as really care about a touch of historical authenticity.

Haven't found drawings of a strohfiddel yet; did find a description on a dulcimer revival page. If we can find drawings then we can aspire to be luthiers and build one.

Truly Evil would be tuning one string to the brown note.

Profile

gurdymonkey: (Default)
gurdymonkey

March 2024

S M T W T F S
     12
3456 789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jan. 25th, 2026 05:20 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios