aigil the archer : northumbrian whalebone box : Aigil is a masterly archer. He is forced by king Nidung to shoot an apple from the head of his own son. He readies two arrows, but succeeds with the first one. Asked by the king what the second arrow was for, he said that had he killed his son with his first arrow, he would have shot the king with the second. the story is also in Attar's Parliament of the Birds '(twelfth century) long before its appearance in Switzerland; and the Germanic archer guilds (if we can trust Malleus Maleficarum, a witch-hunting manual of 1460), shot "in the Devil's name" at apples similarly placed suggests Saracen influence.' —Robert Graves