Is it a function of body
> height?
  long bows are like 5 to 6 feet long.  short are more like 2 to 3 and i
think were used mainly on horse-back.  they are partly a function of the
users height, although if you think about it, even if you were 4ft tall,
a 6ft bow wouldn't hit the ground anyway since you hold the middle up
around shoulder height.  the japanese have a wild looking bow that isn't
held in the middle.  holding it in shooting position, it sticks down
about 3ft, and sticks up about 5ft, maybe more.  i don't know the
history of the weapon, but it seems effective enough.  also, i think
either ghengis kahn or atilla the hun(SP?),or one of those type, had
'steel' bows with 100lb+ draw that his horsemen used.  they'd strap
their legs in so they wouldn't fall off and the arrows could pierce
armor like it was paper.  another couple of types of bows previously
mentioned are the recurve bow (named because it has the familiar bow
curve but whose ends curve back to the front) and the compound bow which
is the modern bow made of composite materials.  by the way, it's one
thing to break a string on a regular bow, and quite another to break a
string on a compound bow.  saw it once.  thank goodness for eye
protection.

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