http://books.google.com/books?id=Di9RIwxJ5pUC&lpg=PA229&dq=sling%20stone&lr=&as_brr=3&pg=PA229#v=onepage&q=sling%20stone&f=false

Killer cheese, sling pouches, staff slings..... lots of good stuff :)

must have been parmesan ;-)

I don't know, CA, I had some cheddar s when I was over there that were pretty hard. Besides, I seem to recall there are villages in Britain that do cheese rolls down hills for sport. That has to be some serious cheese to survive.

Of course, she could have been cut by it's sharpness. ::)

slingbadger wrote on Aug 5^th, 2009 at 1:09pm:

I don't know, CA, I had some cheddar s when I was over there that were pretty hard. Besides, I seem to recall there are villages in Britain that do cheese rolls down hills for sport. That has to be some serious cheese to survive. Of course, she could have been cut by it's sharpness. ::)

perhaps extra sharp aged white cheddar? the good kind (as in not 75% wax) is pretty hefty... ;D


on a more serious note, i remember a guy on you tube who makes paper arrows, just as good as your normal arrow, but only usable for 5 times, shot an untipped paper arrow at cardboard from a 30 pound bow and would have went all the way through and kept moving if the fletching had gotten in the way. a sling would be much stronger and the speeds reached could have easily been fast enough to lodge into a head. plus this is myth we're talking about...

True. There always is exaggeration in myth. There are stories of lead bullets being slung so fast they melt in mid air, stones knocking peoples brains out the backs of their heads.

slingbadger wrote on Aug 6^th, 2009 at 6:48am:

True. There always is exaggeration in myth. There are stories of lead bullets being slung so fast they melt in mid air, stones knocking peoples brains out the backs of their heads.

must have a pretty small brain... ;D

Nope, large stone that knocks the entire brain out of the persons head. Same as the story of the one eyed giant Balor who gets his eyed knocked out the back of his head.
 The idea was simply to show the strength of the hero through his weapon. Just like killing 50 people with the swipe of one sword.

slingbadger wrote on Aug 6^th, 2009 at 9:17pm:

Nope, large stone that knocks the entire brain out of the persons head. Same as the story of the one eyed giant Balor who gets his eyed knocked out the back of his head.  The idea was simply to show the strength of the hero through his weapon. Just like killing 50 people with the swipe of one sword.

heck long word or maybe his face was so ugly that when he looked at them they disintegrated...

"stones knocking peoples brains out the backs of their heads.[/quote]"

That can really happen tho.

I found the description of the "staff sling" interesting.  Rather than using the staff to hold a conventional sling/pouch arrangement, this description indicates using a rather whippy stick and the "pouch" merely holds the stone in place at the end of the stick till it's released.

Might be fun to play with....

Doesn't sound like it would work very well with a whippy stick

Medieval illustrations often show staff slings where the sling is extremely short, merely a pouch to hold the projectile. In fact there's a clip on YouTube showing such a staff sling in use. However the staff itself appears rigid not flexible.

So we need to test the validity of this Irish story. Only one way to do that!
We need to show whether or not a piece of cheese is capable of that sort of damage. For historys sake.
Hmm, the cheese would need to be edible and available in Ireland at the time. Did they have parmesan?