- Joined
- Jun 29, 2014
- Messages
- 1,291
JC - congratulations and well done my friend. I’m happy for you. 
Gev - you’re a good man. I’m glad to know you.
Jer - thanks for reinstating your rant - I always enjoy reading your thoughts, particularly on this subject.
I’m both a big fan of the Norse Sagas, and the metallurgical studies of their swords.
Others here may be able to correct me, as I’m recalling information I’ve read over the last 30 years or so.
The mention of named swords in the (mostly Icelandic) Sagas is particularly fascinating.
I recall (perhaps in the Orkneyinga Saga) an account of a bunch of longboats that were grapnelled up against each other and some hard fighting was going on.
The King on one side was unhappy with the progress of his warriors and was shouting at them like a coach on the sidelines.
They shouted back that their swords were dull, and he had to pull out a bunch of freshly honed ones he had stashed under his throne on his ship, and throw them over to the ships where his boys could reequip themselves and charge back into the fray.
A few accounts of duels - holmgangs - have the participants having to stand on their swords and straighten them back out in the midst of combat.
One sword named Greysides was passed down through multiple generations. Once it was taken by the wronged wife of its last owner when she left him on a boat, taking their children with her.
He ran down to the beach pleading that she could take everything else, but just leave the sword.
She threw it into the sea.
Someone else picked it up on a stony beach later on, and it resumed its bloody career.
Greysides later snapped in a duel, and it was recorded that the broken stub was used to kill its owner’s adversary.
The leftover piece was then reforged into a spearhead and Greysides the sword became Greysides the spear.
In Egil’s Saga, Egil’s brother, Skallagrim dived into the Icelandic ocean to find a stone that he could use as a smithing anvil.
The Ulfberht swords are particularly fascinating. There are multiple Ulfberht swords which have survived to posterity, from a roughly 150 year period.
We don’t know whether Ulfberht was a man or a smithy, or perhaps a line of smiths, but what we do know is that the genuine Ulfberhts, which were possibly Frankish, were evidently much copied.
There are many Ulfberhts which are metallurgically inferior, and even contain spelling mistakes on the inlaid text in their fullers. Some of the fakes are richly appointed and decorated.
An analysis of some of the surviving Ulfberhts shows that the presumably genuine ones are miracles of advanced craftsmanship, like the Muromachi period Japanese katanas. That is, they are about as good a sword as a modern skilled bladesmith with knowledge of modern metallurgy could forge today.
There are examples which are differentially heat treated to the high 50s on the Rockwell scale at the edge, and some of the carbon content is in the region of modern Shirogami 1 steel - about 1.4%.
This is the exception rather than the rule, of course.
Many examples are in the 40s on the Rockwell C scale, which explains the fast dulling and bending in extended combat in the sagas.
Those isolated examples of smithing masterworks though, must explain how some storied swords were known by name, and coveted by all, and passed down through the generations.
This is a paper which examines some surviving Ulfberhts.
And a so-so documentary on the Ulfberht blades.
And some better BBC docos on the Icelandic Sagas and Viking history.
If we could be transported back to those times, like Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, pretty much any of the blades we now have in our pockets would be deserving of a name as an heirloom quality cutting tool, considering the cleanliness and quality of the steel and more controlled heat treatment.
Gev - you’re a good man. I’m glad to know you.
Jer - thanks for reinstating your rant - I always enjoy reading your thoughts, particularly on this subject.
I’m both a big fan of the Norse Sagas, and the metallurgical studies of their swords.
Others here may be able to correct me, as I’m recalling information I’ve read over the last 30 years or so.
The mention of named swords in the (mostly Icelandic) Sagas is particularly fascinating.
I recall (perhaps in the Orkneyinga Saga) an account of a bunch of longboats that were grapnelled up against each other and some hard fighting was going on.
The King on one side was unhappy with the progress of his warriors and was shouting at them like a coach on the sidelines.
They shouted back that their swords were dull, and he had to pull out a bunch of freshly honed ones he had stashed under his throne on his ship, and throw them over to the ships where his boys could reequip themselves and charge back into the fray.
A few accounts of duels - holmgangs - have the participants having to stand on their swords and straighten them back out in the midst of combat.
One sword named Greysides was passed down through multiple generations. Once it was taken by the wronged wife of its last owner when she left him on a boat, taking their children with her.
He ran down to the beach pleading that she could take everything else, but just leave the sword.
She threw it into the sea.
Someone else picked it up on a stony beach later on, and it resumed its bloody career.
Greysides later snapped in a duel, and it was recorded that the broken stub was used to kill its owner’s adversary.
The leftover piece was then reforged into a spearhead and Greysides the sword became Greysides the spear.
In Egil’s Saga, Egil’s brother, Skallagrim dived into the Icelandic ocean to find a stone that he could use as a smithing anvil.
The Ulfberht swords are particularly fascinating. There are multiple Ulfberht swords which have survived to posterity, from a roughly 150 year period.
We don’t know whether Ulfberht was a man or a smithy, or perhaps a line of smiths, but what we do know is that the genuine Ulfberhts, which were possibly Frankish, were evidently much copied.
There are many Ulfberhts which are metallurgically inferior, and even contain spelling mistakes on the inlaid text in their fullers. Some of the fakes are richly appointed and decorated.
An analysis of some of the surviving Ulfberhts shows that the presumably genuine ones are miracles of advanced craftsmanship, like the Muromachi period Japanese katanas. That is, they are about as good a sword as a modern skilled bladesmith with knowledge of modern metallurgy could forge today.
There are examples which are differentially heat treated to the high 50s on the Rockwell scale at the edge, and some of the carbon content is in the region of modern Shirogami 1 steel - about 1.4%.
This is the exception rather than the rule, of course.
Many examples are in the 40s on the Rockwell C scale, which explains the fast dulling and bending in extended combat in the sagas.
Those isolated examples of smithing masterworks though, must explain how some storied swords were known by name, and coveted by all, and passed down through the generations.
This is a paper which examines some surviving Ulfberhts.
And a so-so documentary on the Ulfberht blades.
And some better BBC docos on the Icelandic Sagas and Viking history.
If we could be transported back to those times, like Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, pretty much any of the blades we now have in our pockets would be deserving of a name as an heirloom quality cutting tool, considering the cleanliness and quality of the steel and more controlled heat treatment.
Last edited:
