Galloglaich
First Post
Mondays Mercenaries
Mondays Mercenaries
Every Monday I'm going to try to do a small post on this thread with some cool historical mercenaries which you can use as inspiration for fighter types (or bad guys or NPCs or whatever) for your campaign.
Todays Monday Mercenary is the
Gallowglass Warrior
Our best idea of what they looked like comes from this early 16th Century print by Albrecht Durer
Starting from the left, the first three guys are Gallowglass, the last two are Kern (light infantry / squires) wearing specific type of haricuts which were eventually outlawed by the British.
Gallowglass were from a mixture of Scottish / Norse stock, the descendents of Viking invaders and Gaelic locals in the Western Scottish Islands like the Hebrides. Starting in the 13th Century they used to hire themselves out every summer, mostly to native Irish Lords (and at least once famously, to Scottish King Robert the Bruce) to fight in various campaigns, only to return to their islands in the fall (if they survived) to harvest their fields.
They were extremely effective fighters who contributed to the gradual erosion of British power in Ireland until Elizabethan times, and known for never surrendering. As one British Knight Sir Anthony St Leger described it put it in 1540:
"These sort of men be those that do not lightly abandon the field, but bide the brunt to the death."
There are good articles on the Gallowglass here
http://home.earthlink.net/~rggsibiba/html/galloglas/gallohist.html
and here
Galloglaich - History and Equipment
and a shorter summary here
BBC - Northern Ireland - A Short History
The Gallowglass were specifically associated with two types of weapon, an open ring-hilted variant of the Claymore, which has been reproduced by at least three replica makers incluing most recently by the high-end Albion Armorers
http://www.albion-swords.com/swords/albion/nextgen/gallowglass-photos.htm
One is now made by Gen 2
http://www.imperial-weapons.com/Generation2/Ip-001-1.JPG
And Windlass / MRL made a nice looking one which I think they may have discontinued
http://www.aurorahistoryboutique.com/products/A000052.jpg
You can read a bunch more about these type of swords here (includes rare photos of original antiques the above replicas were based on):
myArmoury.com - Open Ring Irish Swords
And they also liked to carry a large two-handed axe called a Sparth Axe which seemed to be something like a Bardiche, and was apparently descended from the Huskarl type two-handed axe of the original Norse settlers.
Allegedly this was the same type of weapon very famously used by an unarmored Robert the Bruce to split the head of (fully armored) English knight Henry De Bohun with one blow at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the same incident depicted erroneously in "Braveheart"
They also interestingly wore Mail armor (i.e. "Chainmail"), through the time when pretty much everywhere else in Europe soldiers had moved on to Plate armor, and they continued to do so into the Gunpowder age where most infantry in particular had increasingly abandoned armor. It seemed to prove valuable for the Galloglass in close combat (Typically, 15th - 16th century battles in Ireland would be fought with a volley or two of gunfire followed by a charge and close-combat). It's quite likely that some of the mail shirts they were using were passed down from their original Viking ancestors.
Gallowglass were tough heavy infantry, elite soldiers of fortune many of whom traveled the world as they also fought as mercenaries on the continent in all kinds of places, as well as eventually (after Cromwells conquest of Ireland) for the Spanish Crown in as exotic regions as China the Philipines ... where there was even a possibility of encounters between these guys and Japanese Ronin (Samurai) who worked as mercenaries for local Waco pirates... but thats a subject for another Monday...
Hopefully this may inspire someone to make an interesting character or NPC in their campaign. And most importantly, now you know where I get my name
G.
Mondays Mercenaries
Every Monday I'm going to try to do a small post on this thread with some cool historical mercenaries which you can use as inspiration for fighter types (or bad guys or NPCs or whatever) for your campaign.
Todays Monday Mercenary is the
Gallowglass Warrior
Our best idea of what they looked like comes from this early 16th Century print by Albrecht Durer
Starting from the left, the first three guys are Gallowglass, the last two are Kern (light infantry / squires) wearing specific type of haricuts which were eventually outlawed by the British.
Gallowglass were from a mixture of Scottish / Norse stock, the descendents of Viking invaders and Gaelic locals in the Western Scottish Islands like the Hebrides. Starting in the 13th Century they used to hire themselves out every summer, mostly to native Irish Lords (and at least once famously, to Scottish King Robert the Bruce) to fight in various campaigns, only to return to their islands in the fall (if they survived) to harvest their fields.
They were extremely effective fighters who contributed to the gradual erosion of British power in Ireland until Elizabethan times, and known for never surrendering. As one British Knight Sir Anthony St Leger described it put it in 1540:
"These sort of men be those that do not lightly abandon the field, but bide the brunt to the death."
There are good articles on the Gallowglass here
http://home.earthlink.net/~rggsibiba/html/galloglas/gallohist.html
and here
Galloglaich - History and Equipment
and a shorter summary here
BBC - Northern Ireland - A Short History
The Gallowglass were specifically associated with two types of weapon, an open ring-hilted variant of the Claymore, which has been reproduced by at least three replica makers incluing most recently by the high-end Albion Armorers
http://www.albion-swords.com/swords/albion/nextgen/gallowglass-photos.htm
One is now made by Gen 2
And Windlass / MRL made a nice looking one which I think they may have discontinued
You can read a bunch more about these type of swords here (includes rare photos of original antiques the above replicas were based on):
myArmoury.com - Open Ring Irish Swords
And they also liked to carry a large two-handed axe called a Sparth Axe which seemed to be something like a Bardiche, and was apparently descended from the Huskarl type two-handed axe of the original Norse settlers.
Allegedly this was the same type of weapon very famously used by an unarmored Robert the Bruce to split the head of (fully armored) English knight Henry De Bohun with one blow at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the same incident depicted erroneously in "Braveheart"
They also interestingly wore Mail armor (i.e. "Chainmail"), through the time when pretty much everywhere else in Europe soldiers had moved on to Plate armor, and they continued to do so into the Gunpowder age where most infantry in particular had increasingly abandoned armor. It seemed to prove valuable for the Galloglass in close combat (Typically, 15th - 16th century battles in Ireland would be fought with a volley or two of gunfire followed by a charge and close-combat). It's quite likely that some of the mail shirts they were using were passed down from their original Viking ancestors.
Gallowglass were tough heavy infantry, elite soldiers of fortune many of whom traveled the world as they also fought as mercenaries on the continent in all kinds of places, as well as eventually (after Cromwells conquest of Ireland) for the Spanish Crown in as exotic regions as China the Philipines ... where there was even a possibility of encounters between these guys and Japanese Ronin (Samurai) who worked as mercenaries for local Waco pirates... but thats a subject for another Monday...
Hopefully this may inspire someone to make an interesting character or NPC in their campaign. And most importantly, now you know where I get my name
G.
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