A small wooden case lined with cloth, holding the tools of the fletcher’s trade: fine shears for cutting feather vanes, spools of waxed silk and split sinew for binding, a sealed pot of fish glue, a nocking jig of turned boxwood, a shaft plane and gauge for truing the wood, a small whetstone, and a tin of assorted heads for fitting. A skilled fletcher will dress a dozen arrows in an afternoon, each balanced to the bow that will shoot it; a careless one will fletch them crooked and send a hunter home empty-handed.
Archers, hunters, and foresters carry such kits on any long journey, since a bent or broken shaft is a nightly loss and a bundle of seasoned cane or yew weighs little on the pack. The consumables — glue, silk, feathers, heads — are replaced often, and a fletcher who has been in the field through a long hunt will return with the case empty and the quiver full.