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After yesterday's let down, due to me posting a real fact, I thought I may go for something more controversial.
Flicking the V's - contrary to popular belief and urban myth, the English pastime of "Flicking the V's" as an insult does not date back to longbowmen during the Hundred Years War with France (Crecy, Azincort et al) at all.
The story goes that the two-fingered salute or V sign derives from a gesture made by longbowmen fighting in the English army during the Hundred Years' War. According to the story, the French were in the habit of cutting off the arrow-shooting fingers of captured English and Welsh longbowmen, and the gesture was a sign of defiance on the part of the bowmen, showing the enemy that they still had their fingers.
Unfortunately this story first appeared in the 1980's and there is zero historical evidence in accounts or archaeology. What did happen if the archers were caught is that they were summarily executed as they held little or no ransom value.
No one knows why the "V" sign came into being, but the first recorded use was filmed in 1901 where a young lad doesn't take kindly to being filmed (1:02 in the video below)
<a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64ewblmTUY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64ewblmTUY</a>
Flicking the V's - contrary to popular belief and urban myth, the English pastime of "Flicking the V's" as an insult does not date back to longbowmen during the Hundred Years War with France (Crecy, Azincort et al) at all.
The story goes that the two-fingered salute or V sign derives from a gesture made by longbowmen fighting in the English army during the Hundred Years' War. According to the story, the French were in the habit of cutting off the arrow-shooting fingers of captured English and Welsh longbowmen, and the gesture was a sign of defiance on the part of the bowmen, showing the enemy that they still had their fingers.
Unfortunately this story first appeared in the 1980's and there is zero historical evidence in accounts or archaeology. What did happen if the archers were caught is that they were summarily executed as they held little or no ransom value.
No one knows why the "V" sign came into being, but the first recorded use was filmed in 1901 where a young lad doesn't take kindly to being filmed (1:02 in the video below)
<a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64ewblmTUY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64ewblmTUY</a>
