Scottish Claymore

D

Daqar

Joined
Feb 1, 2009
Messages
11
Heya,

I was recently in Edinburgh and found the coolest shop on the 'Royal Mile', a shop dedicated to selling swords, knifes, axes, daggers and armour from medieval times. I got to talk quite well with the shopkeepers. They knew alot about the swords and history.

They had this real size claymore, done by their local weapon smith. It was 6ft. 2" or something like that. Bigger than me!

Shortly after I bought me a smaller claymore and had them ship it here. Now I found a place on the wall for it and I'm looking foreward to having it.

I have trouble identifying it from pictures. It seems to have 'clovers' at the ends of the cross guard, and a large circular pommel.

Sadly I don't remember wether it is a Highlander or Lowlander claymore. Does anyone know the difference between the two?

What was wierd was that the claymores seemed waay to heavy compared to what I expected. I thought they were just as light as the continental European two hand great sword, as this site explains:

http://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html

Apparently I know a bit about these swords but not nearly enough...

Daqar
 
Have you handled an origional? Could it be as the article explains, that most replicas tend to weigh a lot more than actuals since they are based on the heavier ceremonial varients?

So real Scottish Claymores would in fact weigh the same amount as their continental cousins?

The density equation sure makes it seem that way.
 
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Maybe, but the shopkeeper told me that the Claymores that were actually used, was usually larger than the swordsman wielding them. The means that the sword was longer than the man was tall. According to him, the largest claymores actually in use and wielded on battlefields where up to 7ft 2 !!

Since the guy knew alot more about history than I, I didn't question the validity of his statement. He did however tell me that the Claymores usually were heavier than the continental European counterparts.

And according to the essay I linked to, I remember one of the museum pieces, being 1.85m and weighing less than 3kg. So the Swiss and German two hand great swords could be as large as the claymores in terms of length, and still be lighter. The shopkeeper told me it had something to do with the still they used.


On a side note...they had another insanely cool blade there. A German mercenary sword. Light as a feather. I (wieghing app. 65kg and app. 1.7m tall) could easily wield that mercenary sword in one hand and it was larger than a hand-and-a-half/bastard sword. It looked like a real no bullshit two hander.


Jacob
 
I have a 58" two handed claymore from Armour Class that weighs in at less than 5.5 lbs. That doesn't seem too heavy when you consider the size of the sword and it's certainly within the wieght parameters of continental two handed swords. Personally, I think the shopkeeper was slinging it (and I don't mean a sword).
 
Take this for what it is worth.
Many sellers of things like ethnic weapons will have a lot of Historic facts. Not all the facts are true. People who sell swords in a high tourist zone ( with high rent) are selling dreams, not authenticity. The sales talk you got is most likely more related to what he wants you to buy than what he knows. As to "Their swordmaker", he may well be in Mumbai. I see the same things you describe at Highland Games. The sellers are merchants, not weapons experts.....but you would think they were the curator of The Royal museum of Ancient Weaponry from their patter and facts.

Any sword made for battle had to be usable. If it was too large it could not be efficiently used. I'm not an expert on Scottish swords, but there were no magical brawny Scots and huge swords. All the information I have read states that the average is about 55" and the weight is from 5 to 6 pounds.

Final comment - 7'2" claymore !!!....this guy has watched too many episodes on The Knife Network.

Stacy E. Apelt, FSA Scot
 
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