Origin of "Flip the bird"?

[Scott Feldmeyer]

In Road Rage stories, reporters refer to the 3rd-finger

gesture as giving or flipping the driver the bird.

I'm told it began in archery -- the 3rd-finger touching

the feather on the arrow shaft.

Is that true?

Scott Feldmeyer

[the jungle kitty]

I saw a special on the History Channel on medeival warfare and the
Hundred Years War in which it was said that English archers who were
captured by the French were not killed; rather, the fingers they used to
hold the bowstring and arrow were severed. For a bowman to flash the
"V" sign was seen as a provocation. From this, it is very possible you
are correct.

http://members.home.net/jkitty/inkhorn

[Dale Houstman]

Scott;

I don't know about the archery connection, it's probably correct, but
here's something that might be of interest. When I was a very young
child (and this game will only work on very young children) my mother
used tpo play this game in which she would place tiny pieces of paper on
the ends of her fingers...these represented "birds"...and then (simply
by placing her hand behind something quickly and changing the displayed
fingers) make it seem as if the birds had flown away...and then come
back! Really, to a baby this is almost miraculous. As she did it she
recited a nursery rhyme about birds; I found a version of this in a
nursery rhyme compendium. The middle finger, being the longest ended up
being the perch for this "bird". Interesting in regard to this question
or no?

Dale H