Mysterious Finnish Crossbow!

Hey there crossbow-lovers, Geezer here with a mystery. A few weeks ago, Mac asked me to post particulars on an article a customer sent me... maybe 20 years ago about making ancient Finnish Crossbows. Well, I dug up the article under a pile of sawdust and assorted manuscripts pages. It's a photo-copy taken from a Finnish periodical. Based on copious pictures and drawings, the writer seems to know his stuff, but the text is all... well Gibberish, or more properly Finnish, which has essentially no cognates with English. I'm including whatever pertinent data I can wring from the title page, but will warn you all now that I don't know the periodical or date. Clues: One illustration is dated 1977.
I once did a web-search for what appear to be authors' names and turned up evidence that they're highly regarded in historical/recreation circles. Anyhow, here's what it says on the title page:
Perinteisen Suomalaisen Varsijousen Valmistus
beneath are author's names: Olavi Paateri , Martti Arkko
There are plenty of illustrations, including half a dozen archaeologist-style drawings of stocks, with scales giving dimensions. This article is the source of my model 5F stock.
So have fun stormin' the castle, language scholars.
Geezer.

Geezer is back: The article seems to date from 70's. Paateri is the author, Arkko is the artist. Both men are associated online with a Finnish hunting museum. That's all for now. I've gotta get back to the shop.

Not a language scholar...

BUT (When you can steal some time) if you can send me a link, scan, or even a decent quality picture of the article, I can throw it into my ABBYY App which converts any image into text and then we can run it through a translator.

Yeh, I really don't know anything in this world, but I've become rather proficient in finding software/books/people that make up for my lack of innate brilliance (and grateful for that).

Sounds very interesting - I'm in! Hope I can be of help and save someone a week with the Dictionary...and I believe someone asked about this exact style of bow just days ago, so not to leave him hanging.

Ivo

Ivo: My copy is a 20 yr. old photocopy, so it may not copy well, and I have no doubt the photos in particular, will degrade quickly, but I'll see about getting a scan. It's fairly extensive article... but heck, just the line-drawings of the stocks could be useful. Will see what I can do... and now I've Really got to get back to work. Geezer

That's fine, scanning is best, but if you have SillyPerson at the shop, maybe he can snap a few good shots from the top (if digital it'll be much much faster than anything else) and let me worry about everything else.

This is the app I use:



Great app, if you have some more articles that you would like to digitize/translate, just PM me and I'll send you something to help with that.

Ivo

Geezer,

If you could snap a picture of that title page, perhaps I can get my wife (a librarian, or "Information Goddess") to track it down.

Mac

Hi Mac!

I don't have the one that you are discussing but I have an article about Finnish crossbows by U.T. Sirelius.

Do you want that one or do you have it allready?

Micke,

I do not have anything at all about Finnish crossbows, and would be grateful for anything you would be willing to share.

Mac

When I searched U.T. Sirelius I eventually came to this....
http://www.perinnejousi.fi/keskustelu/viewtopic.php?p=45349&sid=240c42d9b2cdbc647b841b42c77d9062
....which seems to be from the crossbow forum of a Finnish archery discussion group, in which Sirelious' work on Finnish crossbows is discussed and partially reproduced.

Mac

Geezer wrote:Hey there crossbow-lovers, Geezer here with a mystery. A few weeks ago, Mac asked me to post particulars on an article a customer sent me... maybe 20 years ago about making ancient Finnish Crossbows. Well, I dug up the article under a pile of sawdust and assorted manuscripts pages. It's a photo-copy taken from a Finnish periodical. Based on copious pictures and drawings, the writer seems to know his stuff, but the text is all... well Gibberish, or more properly Finnish, which has essentially no cognates with English. I'm including whatever pertinent data I can wring from the title page, but will warn you all now that I don't know the periodical or date. Clues: One illustration is dated 1977.
I once did a web-search for what appear to be authors' names and turned up evidence that they're highly regarded in historical/recreation circles. Anyhow, here's what it says on the title page:
Perinteisen Suomalaisen Varsijousen Valmistus
beneath are author's names: Olavi Paateri , Martti Arkko
There are plenty of illustrations, including half a dozen archaeologist-style drawings of stocks, with scales giving dimensions. This article is the source of my model 5F stock.
So have fun stormin' the castle, language scholars.
Geezer.

I have this article also, and am a native Finnish speaker. I almost started summarizing the article here, but then came to my senses and put the content to our Wiki. Please look here:

• http://crossbow.wikia.com/wiki/Traditional_Finnish_crossbow_with_steel_bow
  

It's not a complete summary, but contains most of the important stuff. Let me know if you want to know more.

Also, there are no pictures due to copyright reasons. The original pictures from the Sirelius publication would be fair game I think, so they can probably included. If somebody has them please upload them to the Wiki or PM me and I'll do it.