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The Bowmen
Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author and mystic, best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy and horror fiction.
'The Bowmen' is perhaps the most famous of Machen's tales. It is the iconic story of an incident from the First World War trenches. Faced with inevitable death and defeat, a battalion of English soldiers is saved by the mysterious and miraculous intervention of Saint George and a company of English bowmen who had last fought at Agincourt.
'The Bowmen' is perhaps the most famous of Machen's tales. It is the iconic story of an incident from the First World War trenches. Faced with inevitable death and defeat, a battalion of English soldiers is saved by the mysterious and miraculous intervention of Saint George and a company of English bowmen who had last fought at Agincourt.
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First published September 29, 1914
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About the author
Arthur Machen
1,055 books983 followersArthur Machen was a leading Welsh author of the 1890s. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His long story The Great God Pan made him famous and controversial in his lifetime, but The Hill of Dreams is generally considered his masterpiece. He also is well known for his leading role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.
At the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School, where he received an excellent classical education. Family poverty ruled out attendance at university, and Machen was sent to London, where he sat exams to attend medical school but failed to get in. Machen, however, showed literary promise, publishing in 1881 a long poem "Eleusinia" on the subject of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Returning to London, he lived in relative poverty, attempting to work as a journalist, as a publisher's clerk, and as a children's tutor while writing in the evening and going on long rambling walks across London.
In 1884 he published his second work, the pastiche The Anatomy of Tobacco, and secured work with the publisher and bookseller George Redway as a cataloguer and magazine editor. This led to further work as a translator from French, translating the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre, Le Moyen de Parvenir (Fantastic Tales) of Béroalde de Verville, and the Memoirs of Casanova. Machen's translations in a spirited English style became standard ones for many years.
Around 1890 Machen began to publish in literary magazines, writing stories influenced by the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, some of which used gothic or fantastic themes. This led to his first major success, The Great God Pan. It was published in 1894 by John Lane in the noted Keynotes Series, which was part of the growing aesthetic movement of the time. Machen's story was widely denounced for its sexual and horrific content and subsequently sold well, going into a second edition.
Machen next produced The Three Impostors, a novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, in 1895. The novel and the stories within it were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. However, following the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde later that year, Machen's association with works of decadent horror made it difficult for him to find a publisher for new works. Thus, though he would write some of his greatest works over the next few years, some were published much later. These included The Hill of Dreams, Hieroglyphics, A Fragment of Life, the story The White People, and the stories which make up Ornaments in Jade.
At the age of eleven, Machen boarded at Hereford Cathedral School, where he received an excellent classical education. Family poverty ruled out attendance at university, and Machen was sent to London, where he sat exams to attend medical school but failed to get in. Machen, however, showed literary promise, publishing in 1881 a long poem "Eleusinia" on the subject of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Returning to London, he lived in relative poverty, attempting to work as a journalist, as a publisher's clerk, and as a children's tutor while writing in the evening and going on long rambling walks across London.
In 1884 he published his second work, the pastiche The Anatomy of Tobacco, and secured work with the publisher and bookseller George Redway as a cataloguer and magazine editor. This led to further work as a translator from French, translating the Heptameron of Marguerite de Navarre, Le Moyen de Parvenir (Fantastic Tales) of Béroalde de Verville, and the Memoirs of Casanova. Machen's translations in a spirited English style became standard ones for many years.
Around 1890 Machen began to publish in literary magazines, writing stories influenced by the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, some of which used gothic or fantastic themes. This led to his first major success, The Great God Pan. It was published in 1894 by John Lane in the noted Keynotes Series, which was part of the growing aesthetic movement of the time. Machen's story was widely denounced for its sexual and horrific content and subsequently sold well, going into a second edition.
Machen next produced The Three Impostors, a novel composed of a number of interwoven tales, in 1895. The novel and the stories within it were eventually to be regarded as among Machen's best works. However, following the scandal surrounding Oscar Wilde later that year, Machen's association with works of decadent horror made it difficult for him to find a publisher for new works. Thus, though he would write some of his greatest works over the next few years, some were published much later. These included The Hill of Dreams, Hieroglyphics, A Fragment of Life, the story The White People, and the stories which make up Ornaments in Jade.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
May 2, 2018
For the story that created the historic legend of 'Angels of Mons' this weird tale was funny.
"a queer vegetarian restaurant in London where he had once or twice eaten eccentric dishes of cutlets made of lentils and nuts that pretended to be steak. On all the plates in this restaurant there was printed a figure of St. George in blue, with the motto, Adsit Anglis Sanctus Geogius— May St. George be a present help to the English. This soldier happened to know Latin and other useless things, and now, as he fired at his man in the grey advancing mass — 300 yards away — he uttered the pious vegetarian motto. He went on firing to the end, and at last Bill on his right had to clout him cheerfully over the head to make him stop, pointing out as he did so that the King’s ammunition cost money and was not lightly to be wasted in drilling funny patterns into dead Germans."
Machen produced an imagery of Angels protecting British forces in their fight against German soldiers during World War 1. Kinda like the 'No Man's Land' scene off Wonder Woman, except he created it a century ago, in the format of a news report, during the very time of war where people were desperate for miracles.
I found about this story from the short, 'Out of the Earth', and it has been a fun read considering the historic background.
"a queer vegetarian restaurant in London where he had once or twice eaten eccentric dishes of cutlets made of lentils and nuts that pretended to be steak. On all the plates in this restaurant there was printed a figure of St. George in blue, with the motto, Adsit Anglis Sanctus Geogius— May St. George be a present help to the English. This soldier happened to know Latin and other useless things, and now, as he fired at his man in the grey advancing mass — 300 yards away — he uttered the pious vegetarian motto. He went on firing to the end, and at last Bill on his right had to clout him cheerfully over the head to make him stop, pointing out as he did so that the King’s ammunition cost money and was not lightly to be wasted in drilling funny patterns into dead Germans."
Machen produced an imagery of Angels protecting British forces in their fight against German soldiers during World War 1. Kinda like the 'No Man's Land' scene off Wonder Woman, except he created it a century ago, in the format of a news report, during the very time of war where people were desperate for miracles.
I found about this story from the short, 'Out of the Earth', and it has been a fun read considering the historic background.
May 9, 2020
Not much to say. Based on the 1st World War an English soldier calling help before death and he gets what he wanted...
November 8, 2021
For effort.
May 14, 2019
Literally two pages, so not much to it. And I'm no fan of war stories.
July 22, 2013
The writing wasn't horrible, but it was incredibly boring. A soldier facing certain death invokes a saint, and huzzah! the saint comes and helps. Bleah.
November 13, 2022
"Though inspired by the accounts of the real-life Battle of Mons of August 1914, the supernatural aspects of the story, Arthur Machen insisted, were entirely fictional. The story was a 'composite,' he said in the introduction to the tale, of the legendary notion of spiritual intervention in wartime, of Rudyard Kipling’s story of a ghostly regiment (The Lost Legion), and of Machen’s interests in medievalism. Still, the reportorial style of the narrative convinced many that the story was true. In the year following its publication it attracted wide interest and controversy. Numerous “real-life” accounts corroborating the story began to circulate, including those of military officers, soldiers, and battlefield nurses. Theosophists wrote books and preachers preached sermons on the subject and, within a short time, the story was popularized as the legend of 'the Angels of Mons,' a title under which the tale sometimes appears. . . . The story is slight in itself. Machen said of it that he 'had failed in the art of letters' but 'succeeded, unwittingly, in the art of deceit' " https://literariness.org/2022/06/17/a...
August 4, 2021
https://archive.org/details/WeirdTale...
https://www.feedbooks.com/book/1181/t...
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14044
Weird Tales reprint of a very short story first published on 29 September 1914 [...] entitled "The Bowmen" in The Evening News, inspired by accounts that [Welsh author Arthur Machen] had read of the fighting at Mons and an idea he had had soon after the battle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_...
https://www.feedbooks.com/book/1181/t...
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14044
Weird Tales reprint of a very short story first published on 29 September 1914 [...] entitled "The Bowmen" in The Evening News, inspired by accounts that [Welsh author Arthur Machen] had read of the fighting at Mons and an idea he had had soon after the battle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_...
It seemed that my light fiction had been accepted by the congregation of this particular church as the solidest of facts; and it was then that it began to dawn on me that if I had failed in the art of letters, I had succeeded, unwittingly, in the art of deceit. This happened, I should think, some time in April, and the snowball of rumour that was then set rolling has been rolling ever since, growing bigger and bigger, till it is now swollen to a monstrous size.
— Arthur Machen, Introduction to The Bowmen and Other Legends of the War
January 15, 2024
During WW1, some British soldiers at Mons on a salient are being overwhelmed by the Germans large army of three hundred thousand men.
One of the British soldiers remembers a latin motto at a vegetarian restaurant in London and this helps sort out the matter:
Adsit Anglis Sanctus Georius (May Saint George be a present help to the English).
The soldier who had recalled the motto believes that Saint George had brought along his bowmen from the battle of Agincourt.
The Germans are sceptical.
Captures the down-to-earth personalities of the British soldiers when they are under extreme stress during a difficult battle.
One of the British soldiers remembers a latin motto at a vegetarian restaurant in London and this helps sort out the matter:
Adsit Anglis Sanctus Georius (May Saint George be a present help to the English).
The soldier who had recalled the motto believes that Saint George had brought along his bowmen from the battle of Agincourt.
The Germans are sceptical.
Captures the down-to-earth personalities of the British soldiers when they are under extreme stress during a difficult battle.
Read
October 4, 2023This short story was recommended on a list of 'best' horror short stories. Set during World War I, this succinctly told story centers the the horrors of battle and supernatural intervention by a saint and a medieval force. Had I come to my reading with a better historical knowledge of St. George and the Hundred Years War, I no doubt would have appreciated this tale more, and for that reason I have chosen not to rate it. I think a reader familiar in British and Welsh cultural history would find much more meaning and resonance than I was able to.
November 13, 2020
I read this as the story was referenced in Robert Masello’s The Haunting of HG Wells. I like the prose !
November 25, 2020
part of the bundle
March 3, 2021
The beginning of a legend, or rather a myth, which is often the same thing.
October 16, 2021
Not very interesting martial tale.
December 17, 2024
This is terrible. I was hoping it was written a long time ago but this was 2003? Yeah, no excuse IMO.
September 4, 2014
Reseña: http://www.fabulantes.com/2014/09/los...
"(...) La modestia es algo que Los arqueros guarda de puertas para adentro, un aspecto cualitativo que poco importó a la sociedad de la época dado que funcionó bien a modo de canalizador para emociones todavía más intensas que las de Mons y que aún estaban por llegar. De la mano de la utilidad, esta pequeña anécdota literaria cruzó la frontera para convertirse en la más popular de las literaturas: patrimonio de todos, narrada oralmente, representación cantada del espíritu en los tiempos de la tierra rajada por las palas y las artillería. Poco a poco, los arqueros fueron dejando de ser arqueros para transformarse en lo que serían “los ángeles de Mons”. O en aquello que tuvieran a bien imaginar los narradores de una historia con las raíces -de una manera u otra- en el texto de Machen (si tenemos en cuenta que toda mención a la aparición salvífica de los arqueros/ángeles es siempre posterior a la edición de su relato)."
"(...) La modestia es algo que Los arqueros guarda de puertas para adentro, un aspecto cualitativo que poco importó a la sociedad de la época dado que funcionó bien a modo de canalizador para emociones todavía más intensas que las de Mons y que aún estaban por llegar. De la mano de la utilidad, esta pequeña anécdota literaria cruzó la frontera para convertirse en la más popular de las literaturas: patrimonio de todos, narrada oralmente, representación cantada del espíritu en los tiempos de la tierra rajada por las palas y las artillería. Poco a poco, los arqueros fueron dejando de ser arqueros para transformarse en lo que serían “los ángeles de Mons”. O en aquello que tuvieran a bien imaginar los narradores de una historia con las raíces -de una manera u otra- en el texto de Machen (si tenemos en cuenta que toda mención a la aparición salvífica de los arqueros/ángeles es siempre posterior a la edición de su relato)."
April 14, 2011
I don't want to say I disliked it, but I don't really think I "got" it. This is the second short story of Machen's I've read that was set during war. Although the writing isn't bad, it isn't terribly sophisticated either.
I just feel like this was okay. The Monstrance which I read prior to this was a bit better, but I just can't help but feel, for both works so far, that if Machen had approached both tales in a slightly different way they may have been more exciting for me.
I just feel like this was okay. The Monstrance which I read prior to this was a bit better, but I just can't help but feel, for both works so far, that if Machen had approached both tales in a slightly different way they may have been more exciting for me.
September 25, 2023
Enertaining listening 🎧
Another will written ghost👻 story by Arthur Machen. I listened to this as part of the free book Famous Ghost 👻 Stories by various authors. I would highly recommend to readers of paramormal fantasy novels ✨🎉 2023
Entertaining horror listening🎧
I listened to this as part of Classic Tales of Horror - 500+ Stories. This story is very interesting with will developed characters.
I would recommed this individual story and box set to readers of horror stories. 2023
Another will written ghost👻 story by Arthur Machen. I listened to this as part of the free book Famous Ghost 👻 Stories by various authors. I would highly recommend to readers of paramormal fantasy novels ✨🎉 2023
Entertaining horror listening🎧
I listened to this as part of Classic Tales of Horror - 500+ Stories. This story is very interesting with will developed characters.
I would recommed this individual story and box set to readers of horror stories. 2023
April 24, 2015
This book contains the story, the "Bowmen" which is historically significant. After it was published, it essentially became legend. Even though the story comes from Arthur Machen's imagination, the public believed that it was a true story.
December 7, 2015
I wasn't much impressed by the writing. Not by the plot either. I found it just about okay. This was my first Machen , so I am yet to form an opinion of him as an author, but I suppose this is all I can say about this particular work of his.
July 30, 2012
Although I liked this book, I was disappointed when I compared it to his other stories.
November 23, 2012
St. George comes down to help the English kill Germans. Yawn.
September 28, 2020
Decent story.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews