Things of Middle-earth
Steel-bows of Númenor
Type: Weapons
Description:
Great bows of the Númenóreans, made of steel and used with steel-tipped arrows:
[Shooting] with bows on foot and on horseback was a chief sport and pastime of the Númenóreans. In later days, in the wars upon Middle-earth, it was the bows of the Númenóreans that were most greatly feared. 'The Men of the Sea,' it was said, 'send before them a great cloud, as a rain turned to serpents, or a black hail tipped with steel;' and in those days the great cohorts of the King's Archers used bows made of hollow steel, with black-feathered arrows a full ell long from point to notch.
Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 1, A Description of the Island of Númenor
[The Orcs]... kept at a distance out of the range of the dreaded steel-bows of Númenor....
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 1, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields
Contributors: Elena Tiriel 11Nov07
