ABSTRACT
KING Christian either did not consider or disdained to find out why the Götar and Swedes always used bows and arrows, especially stout crossbows, and, just as if there were no dangerous wild animals there constantly threatening harm to men and cattle, he published at the outset of his reign (which was only of short duration) a proclamation forbidding anyone in those northern territories to employ this sort of weapon. Bows and arrows were to be burnt under risk of severe penalty; otherwise their owners would be held guilty of treason against the crown and duly punished. 1 While the edict stood, many thousands of crossbows throughout the land were committed to the flames, even though some men, anticipating a change in affairs, preserved thousands of better bows in remote forests. Nevertheless, when the ferocity of wild beasts was observed and the way they would seize people and their cattle, craftsmen were summoned from everywhere about, the price increased, and very soon many more thousands of bows replaced those that had been consigned to the bonfires. Indeed they even fashioned and stuck together bows made from larch wood instead of horn. 2 As soon as the king’s officers set about enforcing this fixed law, the countrymen whose stock was being devastated by wild animals brought forward a plea that unless they drove off the beasts with these weapons they could do nothing. Emerging as one man to the number of forty thousand, each carrying his crossbow, they ejected from the realm the overseers and all the henchmen they could find who administered the royal decrees and sent them scampering after the king through the forests of Småland. 3
