No Falchion?
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In a viking society (and I expect this to be pretty much the same) swords were quite rare and were mainly brought from France and the Byzantine Empire because the vikings lacked the metal and cunning blacksmiths. A good sword could often cost more than a house.
That's why vikings are often depicted with axes - because it was a weapon that packed much power and was easy enough to make.
As for the seax; according to the Rosala viking museum the real purpose of the seax knife is unclear but it's possible that it was used as a weapon. Make of this what you will.
That's why vikings are often depicted with axes - because it was a weapon that packed much power and was easy enough to make.
As for the seax; according to the Rosala viking museum the real purpose of the seax knife is unclear but it's possible that it was used as a weapon. Make of this what you will.
aurgelmir
Sergeant
You are right that swords were a status weapon, good swords were very expensive (not as expensive as a mail hauberk though). But the Vikings did make their own swords, just like the peoples of the vendel age and long before that. Frankish (depending on how certain you are that Ulfbehrt swords really are Frankish in origin) and middle eastern swords were of better quality and/or indicative of greater wealth and status but vikings did make swords and Scandinavian weapons industry was pretty well developed thanks to readily available Iron and relatively advanced iron smelting techniques.UnholyNighmare 说:
I'm pretty sure they are just being a bit to precaucious about making definitive statements. I think it is pretty uncontroversial that the Seax was a name applied to a whole variety of short swords and daggers.UnholyNighmare 说:
aurgelmir
Sergeant
UnholyNighmare 说:Yeah, I think we're on the same page here. I didn't know they knew of all the iron, though, and that it was very advanced.
Always good to learn something new from people who know more than you
Very advanced is perhaps streching it but it was totally ok for the time, and considering the quality of the ore (too little carbon content) they couldn't have done much more with it than they did as far as I understand
The iron came from bogs and wetlands where they either harvested lumps of bog ore or burned larger quantities of peat to get to the small amounts of iron in it.
vv31
Regular
there is another way for the best sword - iron rods buried in moist soil (so that was the access of air) and leave for 5-20 years (more years, the higher the quality of the sword)aurgelmir 说:UnholyNighmare 说:Yeah, I think we're on the same page here. I didn't know they knew of all the iron, though, and that it was very advanced.
Always good to learn something new from people who know more than you
Very advanced is perhaps streching it but it was totally ok for the time, and considering the quality of the ore (too little carbon content) they couldn't have done much more with it than they did as far as I understand
The iron came from bogs and wetlands where they either harvested lumps of bog ore or burned larger quantities of peat to get to the small amounts of iron in it.
So what? I found on the Internet that falchion first appeared in ... Assyrians!Nasferatu 说:
though it turned out that the Assyrian sword looks a bit like a translator and decided that since the right one
Spongly
Knight
Nasferatu 说:
Translation being the operative word. Beowulf wasn't written in modern English. It's written in old English, and this is pretty much the passage above:
sáwle sécan: þone synscaðan
aénig ofer eorþan írenna cyst
gúðbilla nán grétan nolde
ac hé sigewaépnum forsworen hæfde
ecga gehwylcre.
The word he's translated as "fairest of falchions" is gúðbilla, literally "good bills". Bill in old English doesn't specifically refer to the hedging tool, it simply means a cutting implement, and is here being used as a kenning for a sword.
