literature has its place , i suppose , but the ballads composed by third-rate poets extolling the exploits of this or that outlaw out to rob rich mimbrates and to distribute the booty to the poor asturian peasants set the imaginations of generations of brainless asturian nobles afire , and they postured and posed in their green clothing and spent hours practicing with their bows , riddling whole battalions of straw dummies dressed in rusty mimbrate armor with yard-long arrows .