Viking Swords (with Blake Winter)

[@blakewinter1657]

I neglected to properly credit the title to Dr. Crawford's assistant Stella, who pointed out this kenning (The Stiff Trout of the Battle Blizzard) for swords to me when I talked to her about swords previously, and it was too good not to use.

[@kennethking416]

the "ring" on the end just seems like a nice comfy spot to rest your hand while standing around

[@korgen-rock]

Takk for denne. Veldig mye bra informasjon!

[@Brendan-jy6yb]

I will be ordering your books soon Dr. I myself and part Swedish and part German among other things and am really getting excited about Norse culture.

[@wulfgreyhame6857]

I know Rolf Warming well; he's an archeologist and a martial artist. He and his collaborators have done a lot of work on the construction and use of the shield. He and Lars Lind (a martial artist but not an academic) did extensive experiments with the best current replicas of both shield and sword, the latter being razor sharp. The shields work.

[@thescholar-general5975]

A quick correction about "liquid steel". It is not the same thing as crucible steel, but blast furnaces in China were used to melt steel as early as 400 BC. However, the product of this not crucible steel, but cast iron which is far too brittle to be used in weapons directly and has to be decarburized to make a workable steel.

[@stevo271]

I'd be interest in general academic podcasts with this guy! I feel he'd have a lot of insight in thing beyond just Old Norse stuff.

[@OBXDewey]

I like how the archaeological evidence supports the poems. It lends credence to the literature making them better historical documents.

[@Blockhaj]

1:22:20, a generational retold saying in my family (Sweden) goes that 'the viking warriors struck so straight and hard that they split "both heads" in one blow'.

[@command.cyborg]

Very interesting stuff. 😊👍

[@faramund9865]

This'll be a good watch when I'm relaxing outside, see ya soon!

[@tord9707]

Super interesting video thx to JC and Blake Winter

[@strpdhatldy]

20:30 I wonder if those rings were added to alter the balance of the sword. If they were heavy enough, they would bring the center of mass back toward the hand, rather than extended out toward the opponent. So the maneuvering would be more like that of a modern handgun than a traditional sword (as mentioned earlier in the discussion). Doing so would add both advantages and disadvantages, in the same way that a modern handgun is not appropriate for all types of fighting. The rings may have fallen out of fashion as the needs and styles of battle changed.

[@wulfgreyhame6857]

When Warming and Lind tried the sword on the shield, Lars Lind used a relaxed grip, whipping the blade around its centre of rotation, which is how we use the much later longsword. That gave him the best cut on the shield. He found the hammer grip much more restrictive. For one thing, when you make contact with a hammer grip the blade is essentially at right-angles to your arm which seems to dissipate energy rather.

[@MrEnaric]

Fantastic topic! It reminds me of something personal: In my family, through maternal side is an ancient Frisian family name: Sy(g)brand. It goes back at least six centuries, there the annals stop. It literally means (in proto West Germanic) ‘victorious’ (Sig*) ‘with the blade’ (-Brand). My youngest son now carries it into a new generation. Wês hiel, alle-gearre!

[@marleenab5677]

There is a Swedish folk ballad recorded down in the 19th century caller Bergatrollets Frieri more commonly known as Herr Mannelig. Garmarnas version is my personal favourite. This is a song where the mountain troll, offers a young man some fantastic gifts if he were to wed her. It's like in the medieval ballad Scarborough fair.... A list of impossible things. One of the things is a invincible Sword that rings with 15 gold rings. Doesn't make sense if you don't know about rings on Vendel swords. As a blacksmith, married to a swordsmith and both of us being Norse history nuts it makes sense. To me this harks that there are elements in this song that hark back a lot earlier. And that time if one imagined a great sword, it came with rings. The other verses also tend to throw it back for me, but that's a different story! I've sung this song about a thousand times (as a lullaby)! 😜

[@blakewinter1657]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/nXvco3ewgbOXe5o

[@johanneswerner1140]

I used to sing more peaceful stuff. "Parti de mal" and 'ja nuns hon pris" (or how it is written), never managed to learn too many stanzas of Herr Mannelig...

[@marleenab5677]

@@johanneswerner1140 Nothing like repetition to sink things in. It does help to have a little schooling in Swedish too. If I can understand the words I find it easier to remember them. Memorising bits from beowulf was a lot harder as I had fewer reference points. I gave up on a garlic song as it felt I was just stringing sounds together!

[@johanneswerner1140]

@marleenab5677 I learned those by repeating them. A lot. And yes understanding the language helps. I am fluent in Norwegian, so Swedish works for me. Still, it is a long song 😀 Enjoy music! I need to get the band together again (medieval up to early renaissance, I play fiddle and crummhorn). I miss it!

[@Eulemunin]

Lovely work, Petersen and Oakshot put in huge amount of work to make those typologies. They are amazing resources.

[@THXn11]

Fullers for the most part weren't cut out of the blade. They were hammered in using a fullering tool. It pushed more materiel towards the cutting edges where strength was more needed as these were the percussive contact points. It's also why pattern welded blades used soft inner core metals and harder steels along the cutting edges, to give better cutting performance and strength. Interestingly, though very different forging techniques, the performance abilities and end result construction between Norse and Japanese swords were very similar although used in entirely different ways. I've studied both Japanese and European sword martial arts for about 30yrs and I also have a life long love of all things Vikingr (Norse). It never ceases to amaze me, when it comes to swords forging that a common need produces similar results even though the construction techniques are entirely different. I'm enjoying the vid, and have been a long time subscriber to Jackson's channel, which is always enlightening. Tyvm.

[@blakewinter1657]

Yeah, I wasn't very clear on how they got the fullers in there. What's important structurally is that if you don't put material there, you get an I-beam effect for structural strength.

[@44dton]

if you send all day stabbing humans like I do, (I'm a nurse) you would realize it's hard to push a round needle into the body of there was a groove that would break the friction of the skin on the needle. A sword would actually be very difficult to pull out of a body, yes fuller makes the blade lighter and stronger but I still think those are secondary to the sword being able to stab and withdraw a blade without much difficulty.

[@LadyValkyri]

Absolutely fascinating! Thank you so much. The field of experimental archaeology is giving us an incredible opportunity to see what was possible. I think great strides in understanding the past will be made by actually trying to replicate and utilize the available techniques and materials. So very cool. Great job, guys! Hugs

[@YolayOle]

Thanks for answering my question about the shields again Blake! This whole interview was incredibly interesting and I'm sad I had to miss the recording.

[@DarrinCalvinRoenfanz]

At 48:25, he's asking about (in English) "garb", which is chiefly a heraldic term for a sheaf of wheat, coming from French, but is cognates German "Garbe." From what I can tell, they are related to the words in the slide. The word comes from Proto-Germanic, but I couldn't find a derived word in Old Norse.

[@venm5887]

Another great and informative video, being a collector this is right up my alley. Thanks Doc, maybe some more on artifacts and weapons. I also have an interest in norse fishing tackle, they had some really neat lures ( spoons ).

[@EA-History]

I suspect that the birch grain you see on the hilt handle of T16054 A type L is from parts of the root or part of the tree that has grown together into a knot/ ball shape. I have a knife with a wooden handle with the similar shape and pattern. I can not say this for sure, but this type of birch root have been popular material to make kuksa cups, knife handles and the like for many generations. If this goes back to the viking age, I can not say for sure, but they certainly had the knowledge and tools for it.

[@karennielsen9248]

Good unusual topic! I thought I’d be bored senseless with this one, but it was really interesting.

[@melissahdawn]

Regarding the rings on the hilt, it reminds me of arm bands in purpose.

[@bautaballe6016]

Regarding the Ulfberth blades and swords, I would guess that they were made solely for the Scandinavian market, and made by Scandinavian blacksmiths. One of the reasons is that most of the swords that have been found have been found in Scandinavia. There are other swords that have been found in the rest of Europe,, but not that many!

[@larrywave]

Ring thing is fascinating 🤔

[@AThousandYoung]

1:28:41 Matt Easton of the Scholagladiatoria channel has addressed the topic of very short handles on Dark Age Germanic swords. His suggestion is that it is analogous to the short handles of south Asian scimitar type swords (e.g. Indian Tulwar). It forces the blade of the sword to make a sharp angle with the arm, PREVENTING extension of the blade so that slashes with the sword hitting the target in a way that causes the edge to run along the enemy like a draw-cut. Let me see if I can find the name of the video.

[@AThousandYoung]

Matt's playlist for this topic is called "Migration & Viking Era Weapons & Warfare" (posted on the KZbin account named "scholagladiatoria") . Some of his videos on this topic are titled "Thoughts on how to analyse a specific sword type - example the Viking era sword", "How to hold the Viking era sword - maybe", " Gripping the Viking era sword hilt - comments on the handshake grip from Dimicator", "Viking Swords", "How to grip the 'Viking' sword - summary", "Late Viking Era & Early Norman Swords". I have not seen any mention of "ring swords" on his channel; Matt would probably be excited to learn about them from Blake. I expect him to release a video on the topic soon once he hears about your discovery.

[@LSDANNY7x]

🎉🎉🎉

[@signespencer6887]

Hi, so interesting

[@greywuuf]

I wish i would have have caught this live. I would have loved to ask if there is any evidence of specialization of sword smiths.... for example a type B could be a smith only item ( military issue type ) ....where as the special swords in later europ at least the hilting was passed of to a cutler ......the embelishment is a specialization of its own. Gem setting incising and inlaying etc .

[@dubiouslyemo]

❤

[@sogoma7797]

Men of culture!

[@basilbrushbooshieboosh5302]

Overly large and heavy swords may be used for tasks/rituals such as horse or cattle sacrifice, or used with the half-swording technique possibly in duelling against armour, or simply as a custom design for an extremely large person/warrior/soldier.

[@mytube001]

We know that people were shorter for much of the past compared to today, mainly due to various amounts of malnutrition as well as both acute and low-grade diseases, limiting growth. I don't know if hand size scales with poor growth in general, but if it does, that becomes one possible explanation for the smaller grips - they simply had smaller hands on average. I have fairly average hands, I think, and an 85 mm long grip would fit me perfectly.

[@fourshore502]

could those weird extra rings just have been extra weight? to balance out the sword? some may have preferred it that way just like many people modify their firearms today. and/or if the polish guys theory is correct about holding the sword like that, those wrings could be rested against your wrist when you hold the sword forward, taking a lot of load off so you can hold it longer.

[@MendocinoMotorenWerk]

You make a very good point in explaining the large variety of sword hilts (undecorated vs. richly decorated) by the socio-economic background of the owners. But could this theory also hold for fighting style and technique? A subsistence farmer, who only really fights when his chieftain calls up all fighting men, will be less experienced and less trained than a professional warrior, like the chieftain's huscarls who can devote more of their time to training, and who also might get much more practical experience by taking part in small scale raids, acting as bodyguard, etc. So, I think, that the substance farmer, might practice a simple fighting style, which most probably will heavly rely on powerful cuts with the sword. A professional warrior, on the other hand, might also be proficient in a more finesse-based style of fighting in addition to using powerful cuts. So, I guess, since the techniques practiced by Roland Warzecha seem to work really well with viking equipment; this might be more of a finesse-based fighting style, that could also have had its part in the viking world. Think of modern analogies. A national guards or militia man with a day job, who only does one to two weeks of training each year is very different from a professional soldier who takes part in brutality matches in his spare time. Or a modern chef achieving quite something different than a single mom with two jobs, when put in the same kitchen and given the same ingredients. I guess Hurstwic's powerful cuts and Roland Warzecha's finesse in binding with the sword are part of the same spectrum, and viking age fighters where somewhere on that spectrum. But, unless someone invents a time machine, we only can speculate.

[@frankkrunk]

48:13 modern Swedish "Kärve" sounds like the word he's looking for.

[@bigdaddy6025]

Hi from Texas 🤠

[@RuneDudeism]

The snake analogy in sagas and norse mythology has to do with the pattern on the back of scandinavian vipers. The similarity with the pattern welded swords can be striking.

[@Cyrathil]

I'm not a statistician but my degree is statistics so I have some amount of dealing with the sort of regression analysis that is shown around 1:41:00 and the second line of best-fit seems to be skewed heavily by the outliers to the right. It kind of seems like the line would have a much steeper slope than it currently does, but also kind of seems too wide to really provide a meaningful analysis. The first one seems cleaner, but there's a lot of strata, with a lot of the data points stacking on top of each other, which seems to suggest a selection bias or that there's another dimension not being accounted for in the data set.

[@Blockhaj]

53:22, valböst could possibly mean fall base, as in the base of the blade right under the hilt

[@Blockhaj]

I should note that this is called ansats in modern Swedish (onset in direct translation), a widely used term for bladed weapons, thus something akin to it should exist in Old Norse

[@greywuuf]

The analogy with the pistol is you decorate the gun, not the ammo.

[@desiree2502]

my guess would be that the bearer of the ring (is always a temporary thing) is doing something in direct order of a jarl (so showing the ring is like a symbol of authority/mandate: like collecting tax or something). Also makes sense it can be taken of, at the end of the job/mission they need return it because when you have the ring on they need to treat you like the lord (you are in his/her stead). Because i think in olden times people would not know how the loyal men of their lord would look like (i mean a bandit could in theory dress up and demand tax or something). but the ring will show your true identity of the underling of the lord (when you are doing something for a noble). so i think the ring on the sword would be proof of veracity.

[@EchoLog]

10:30 .... Alternative theory: Big man.

[@garysmith4425]

I believe the "ring type" pommel was a stylistic fashion design to enable the wearer of the sword to rest the palm of the hand on the sword in a stylish pose ,there is evidence of wear in this area of the pommel in other swords which may support this theory ? perhaps like most fashions it went out of vogue and was discontinued?

[@kspfan001]

I am no expert on this topic, but I have some experience participating in hema and handling reproductions of European weapons from the post-roman to early modern era (also have a BA in history with a focus on the middle ages for whatever that counts for). One of my notable experiences with reproductions of migration/viking age swords is they tend to shift around and even slip out of your hand much more easily unless you maintain a solid hammer-style grip, which is quite limiting. I had never seen the recovered swords with the rings on one side of the hilt before, but they seem to be right where I would want an extra bit of something on one side to prevent the sword from slipping out of my hand when loosening & changing grip to do certain kinds of swings & thrusts. Perhaps it has this kind of practical effect in addition to any symbolic or ceremonial one?

[@THXn11]

I vaguely remember the rings on the swords are a form of fielty ring. Just like one swore fielty to a Jarl with an arm ring, so to these rings made the sword swear fielty to its wielder so that it wouldn't harm its owner or his allies.

[@blakewinter1657]

That's a theory I had not heard of before, but as far as I know, we have no written evidence for what they really meant!

[@Kharazim]

Source?

[@goneforaburton]

Not exactly a source, but in his book, "A History of the Vikings", Owen Jones says that, "With [the King] travelled his hird or bodyguard, composed of hirdmen or retainers who had knelt and set their right hand to his sword-hilt, so pledging him loyalty, if need be to the death."

[@blakewinter1657]

@@goneforaburton Swearing on the hilts is likely historical, though possibly post viking age, but that doesn't mean the sword itself was thought to swear fealty.

[@EA-History]

"ME FECIT" means "He made me"

[@midshipman8654]

how do the weights compare to the heavier early modern swords light sabers and cavalry sabers? Im pretty sure on average cavalry sabers are about the same weight as medieval crusafix swords and are noticeably more heafty. And even infantry sabers are significantly heavier then smallswords which where the lighter end of swords at the time.

[@Blockhaj]

it eptra hjaltit = the aft hilt (latter hilt) it fremre hjaltit = the fore hilt (former hilt) meðalkafli = middle shaft véttrim = cap rim bloðrefill = blood rifle (blood groove) brandʀ = fired blade

[@mrchris4726]

Did you ever mention a style of carrying the sword as a reason for the rings? Imagine: upper classes had high decorated swords as a standard of their richness and status. The rings could be used to rest the palm of their hands while the sword was hanging on the hip and round shapes are just more ergonomic for the palms. I guess it is just for compfort. That would also explain why the graves of soldiers doesnt show these palmrest rings, because they used their weapons for fighting. These rings are bad for balancing the sword in a fight i guess and cutting them of before taking the sword in a fight would make sense for me.

[@savannahwhite1064]

There are so many sword KZbinrs ppl like skall or Metatron or even Matt

[@MrVvulf]

Skallagrim and Metatron cover a wider range of topics, but when it comes to medieval weapons, they are both novices compared to Matt Easton, who is not only an expert on the fighting treatises and the evolution of arms and armor, he's also a weapons dealer. Other weapon and armor experts of note would be Tod from Tod's Workshop, and Tobias Capwell of the Wallace Collection.

[@bigdaddy6025]

Y'all know that I now believe everybody who wears a cowboy hat speaks & reads in the Elder Futhork when not sharpening their swords... 🤠

[@fourshore502]

you can forgive marvel for not putting a wetstone sticking out of thors forehead but im less forgiving about his lack of goats, gauntlets and belt!

[@Blockhaj]

4:50, this is called autism, wellcome to the club

[@larrywave]

Curly birch ?

[@korgen-rock]

Men hvorfor er alle typer funnet i Norge og så mange som over 3000 ?

[@beepboop204]

[@ThePsychoticnut]

I was taught in the military that the blood groove was designed to avoid the blade getting stuck in the body due to suction. Weight makes sense in the case of a double bladed sword but on a single bladed weapon such as a kukri, I don't think it makes as much sense because the blood grooves are much smaller on these weapons.

[@daleeck4202]

I wonder if the rings on the Vendal era swords had distinct artwork on them? If so, then perhaps the rings would be symbols of specific clans, tribes, families.

[@AngelaRichter65]

This guy really needs to talk to Shad Brooks @Shadiversity. He has a weaponsmith who also knows loads about ancient swords and how they were made.

[@vorpalblades]

I don't think he actually makes any weapons.

[@basilbrushbooshieboosh5302]

Another purpose for the fuller is to prevent [or lessen, ameliorate] the suction effect from the body being thrust through. In this way, the fuller channel allows a path for the exchange of blood and air to relieve the suction effect of the body on the blade. A secondary advantage, as you note, is that the blade is strengthened through its resemblance in form to an I-beam. So, the fuller can, very well, be described as a 'blood channel' as its [possibly primary] design and usage was for the free and easy flow of blood, in both directions, through the channel, depending on the stage of movement of the blade through its stroke.

[@Paul-ki8dg]

Itinerate imagination and the thistle finch.