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Fire Crake

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GunneyG

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Has anyone heard of a device called a fire-crake? Time period is 14th century. It may be a projector of round shot but it is not a bombard.
 
Just googled fire-crake & the only gun-related reference to it that I could find was in a novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle entitled 'The White Company', which is set during the Hundred Years War. It certainly sounds like it is an artillery piece of some sort. Here's the quote from the book:

And how could man die better?" asked the archer. "If I had my wish, it would be to fall so--not, mark you, in any mere skirmish of the Company, but in a stricken field, with the great lion banner waving over us and the red oriflamme in front, amid the shouting of my fellows and the twanging of the strings. But let it be sword, lance, or bolt that strikes me down: for I should think it shame to die from an iron ball from the fire-crake or bombard or any such unsoldierly weapon, which is only fitted to scare babes with its foolish noise and smoke."
"I have heard much even in the quiet cloisters of these new and dreadful engines," quoth Alleyne. "It is said, though I can scarce bring myself to believe it, that they will send a ball twice as far as a bowman can shoot his shaft, and with such force as to break through armor of proof."
 
:grin: Actually, that is where I had run across the reference and was looking for a second source plus some details if available. I also found firedrake (drake being an old word for dragon) with a definition of rocket but one would not expect iron balls from a rocket.
 
I've seen a reference to "crakys of warre" but never "fire crake". If can get to a Complete Oxford dictionary it may have the etymology of crake and a citation in it.
 
:v Here is a passage from a book "The White Company/Chapter VII" which mentions the term----- "And how could man die better?" asked the archer. "If I had my wish, it would be to fall so--not, mark you, in any mere skirmish of the Company, but in a stricken field, with the great lion banner waving over us and the red oriflamme in front, amid the shouting of my fellows and the twanging of the strings. But let it be sword, lance, or bolt that strikes me down: for I should think it shame to die from an iron ball from the fire-crake or bombard or any such unsoldierly weapon, which is only fitted to scare babes with its foolish noise and smoke." Hope this helps :hatsoff:
 
..."crakys of war"; these were small cannons of perhaps fifteen to thirty pounds weight. "Crakys" is not a plural in -s of a singular "craky,"...but a plural in -ys of the singular crake, meaning a crow or raven....

From The Age Of Firearms by Robert Held
 
May look something like my Kracken.

k1a.jpg

k2.JPG
 
Claypipe,
That is a fine looking piece of armamnet you have there. What does it weigh?
 
Its a skosha bit under 25 pounds if you can believe the bathroom scale. Thing says I weigh 260, even though I've gone down two pants sizes.

CP
 

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