King Harald
About eleven years old. My friends and I were big into bows and arrows. All home made using suitably bendy branches for the bow and garden canes (the thin dark green ones)for arrows and fishing line for the string.. We all got good at this and could fire arrows 50m or so.

Another thing we had discovered was that if you hacksawed a golf ball open you would find a ball of elastic wrapped around itself many many times.

A good idea was hatched. Tie one end of the elastic to the arrow and the other to the bow, so when fired the arrow would return to sender and could be fired again.

I tried this, only to find the plan worked perfectly. The arrow came straight back like a bat out of hell. It hit me on the bony bit between above the eye and below the eyebrow. I ended up with a huge scab, but that was it. Just 2cm lower and . . . ?

I told my parents I had caught myself on a branch. I was too ashamed to admit the stupidity of what I had done.
(Bitter and Twisted, Thu 19 Aug 2010, 20:14, Reply)