It's amazing what you pick up...

[kengr]

.. when you read a lot and your reading covers SF, fantasy, historical fiction, history, and few mysteries as well.

Tonight I was reading a fantasy story in a semi-medieval setting. A character was treating another character who was sprouting several arrows with barbed heads She'd taken the medical kit off the victim's horse and was about to cut out the arrows.

My *immediate* thought was ""Why isn't there an arrow-spoon in the kit?"

Then I realized the writer likely had no idea such a thing existed. *sigh*

For those not familiar with such things, an arrow spoon is a somewhat spoon-shaped device. You slip it into the wound along side the arrow and they "spoon" part goes over the head of the arrow and the "bowl" of the spoon is wide enough to cover the barbs on the head.

That let's you draw out the arrow without the barbs getting hung up on things and ripping the hell out of them.

Works better than having to "cut out" the arrowhead, and lots better than the "break off the shaft and push the head the rest of the way thru the body" that are the only other alternatives.

Comments

[conuly]

...like a shoe horn?

[kengr]

Kinda sorta, but going the opposite way. IE getting something out, rather than in.

[stickmaker]

I think I already knew about this, but appreciated the reminder. Though I don't need it just now.

I'm currently trying to sell a novel set in an alternate universe where they've had overt magic use for more than a thousand years. Technology has advanced, but in different ways than here. (They're only just getting automatic gunpowder weapons and internal combustion engines.) They have had practical firearms for a while, and arrows are pretty much obsolete. However, that info could come in useful.

Here's a similar bit of Medieval arrow trivia. While layered silk armor would not stop a hard-shot arrow, it was so elastic that the arrow would push it into the wound. Just tug on the silk cloth (I don't think this works with just one or two layers, like you'd have in a garment) and pull the arrow out. :-)

This would also work with very low-powered firearm bullets. A frontier doctor reported pulling bullets this way out of two recently deceased gamblers who had been caught cheating. It just happened they were wearing folded silk handkerchiefs in their shirt or vest pockets.

Silk is actually stronger than kevlar (speaking very generally about two variable materials) but is *too* elastic to make good ballistic armor.