Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

[thalassa]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

Thanks! You are a poor amature scholar living in the wilderness of ignorance's best friend!

Lol, I had to request it, I couldn't get it online. Might take a few days...

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

In England, the Tyr Rune is the most popular on swords and interestingly the military still stamp weapons with it (or at least, I know they did on shell casings up until WW2 - it may still be the case but i'm not sure).

It is generally referred to as the "broad arrow," and has been used by Australia, Canada, and India as well.

I think that my WWII SMLE (UK) and my WWI-WWII SMLE (Australia) are both marked with the broad arrow. I'll have to check when I get a minute...

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

When you think of the Viking gods Odin and Tyr carried a spear and Thor a "hammer" though I found an article once that stated his hammer may have really been an axe and that hammer would have been a general word for a pounding tool. It makes more sense given the shape of it. Other than Freyr I can't think of any Norse god with a sword.

In England, the Tyr Rune is the most popular on swords and interestingly the military still stamp weapons with it (or at least, I know they did on shell casings up until WW2 - it may still be the case but i'm not sure).

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Don't recall when the English long bow made it's appearance but it played havoc against opposing forces. It's range deceived a lot of opposing forces as they underestimated it. So many were using the short bow which had about 2/3 to 1/2 the range of the long bow near as I recall.

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That reminds me of some of the bog swords that were found. Some were gold or copper I think it was and highly ornate but very poor as actual combat swords. Similar to some of the sacrificed swords found in Nippon (Japan) or their ceremonial swords that date back sometime.

Yes, spot on about the bog swords. Archaeological finds depend a great deal on the context and they don't always tell us whether weaponry was for show or for us. For example, in Anglo-Saxon graves, really large swords have been found in burials of men who were much too old to use them. It suggests they could have been carried for status possibly.

The medieval long bow really started to make its mark (pardon the pun, monsno) by the 12th century - and especially during the hundred years war. Many of the French archers used crossbows - very effective at short range, but useless over a distance.

Long bows are very hard to pull if they are to be effective, and archers on the Mary Rose were noticed to have a distinctive anatomy caused by the strain. Very effective though - could shoot through armour, a knight's leg, the other side of his armour, his horse's armour and kill the horse.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

send me your email address via pm

Thanks! You are a poor amature scholar living in the wilderness of ignorance's best friend!

[thalassa]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Volume 12, April 2017, Pages 425–436

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...52409X17301025

send me your email address via pm

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Volume 12, April 2017, Pages 425–436

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X17301025

Abstract
Vikings (800–1050 CE) are famous for being fearsome seafarers and their weapons represented an indispensable tool in their plundering raids. Sword from the Viking age often showed pattern-welding, made by welding together thin strips of iron and steel that were twisted and forged in various ways, producing a decorative pattern on the surface. In this work we present a neutron diffraction study of three swords from the Viking age belonging to the National Museum of Denmark. This non-invasive approach was used to allow us to characterise the blades in terms of composition and manufacturing processes involved. The study shows how the effects of past conservation treatments can either help or obstruct the extraction of archaeological information.

[thalassa]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

I think that the pop articles (I got to the Livescience article from a repeat on Fox) claiming that Viking swords were decorative are drawing overly broad conclusions based on a limited number of example. That's why I wanted to read the original article...

(this is where Thalassa jumps in to talk about the deplorable state of science reporting in pop media. And would be absolutely right...)

Lol, right!

Find me the article title and author and publication and I'll see if I can get my hands on it (grad school library acess).

[Ula]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

When you think of the Viking gods Odin and Tyr carried a spear and Thor a "hammer" though I found an article once that stated his hammer may have really been an axe and that hammer would have been a general word for a pounding tool. It makes more sense given the shape of it. Other than Freyr I can't think of any Norse god with a sword.

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

Even in ancient Greece, the bow was seen as somehow 'cheating' because it allowed archers to kill at a distance, while the armed hoplites tended to come from wealthy families (on account of their armour and weaponry being so expensive.) The Greeks did use archers of course, but rarely against themselves. They saw nothing wrong with using them against outsiders, since these were considered barbarians anyway. Of course, the Scythian archers - and the Greeks used these - went a step further with poisoned arrows...

One point about the Anglo-Saxons - they didn't (generally) build stone castles. That was the Normans who didn't arrive until much later, 1066.

Not exactly stone castles but didn't the Celts and maybe other northern groups use the heat-melted stone forts in Scotland, perhaps parts of Ireland and northern section of England? Not sure how high they might have been but vaguely recall stone walls that show signs of being submitted to high heat and stockade's probably built upon them with villages or forts inside of them. Definitely not the castle type structure we think of now but still something like 8 - 12 foot tall mound walls is what I seem to recall reading about. Sorry been sometime since I read about them so not real fresh in my mind.

Don't recall when the English long bow made it's appearance but it played havoc against opposing forces. It's range deceived a lot of opposing forces as they underestimated it. So many were using the short bow which had about 2/3 to 1/2 the range of the long bow near as I recall.

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At least, when Greeks were fighting Greeks. I've gone off topic a bit though.

I must say here that I'm not sure the original article is all that accurate. It does depend on the context of the find. Swords intended as offerings to the gods are never always all that good - they were intended to be symbolic with real swords used for fighting. Swords found in graves ought to be properly used for fighting - but of course, again they might have been symbolic of status.

I've managed to find an interesting article about Viking swords and if anyone is interested do please pm me.

That reminds me of some of the bog swords that were found. Some were gold or copper I think it was and highly ornate but very poor as actual combat swords. Similar to some of the sacrificed swords found in Nippon (Japan) or their ceremonial swords that date back sometime.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

When you say "It's the same steel used in the Middle East to make the legendary scimitar blades",is that what is known as a Damascus blade?

Yup - same. Historically. What we call Damascus steel now, though, is pattern wielded & twisted steel, which is what the Viking swords in the studies were made of. That's known because there are known examples of cast ingots.

I'm not sure if anybody has refound the technology to make wootz steel (last time I got curious the answer was "no"), and the pattern wielded and twisted steel was an attempt to replicate it. Wootz steel, though, is made in the refining process, somehow.

Wootz steel:


"Damascus" steel:

[anunitu]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

When you say "It's the same steel used in the Middle East to make the legendary scimitar blades",is that what is known as a Damascus blade?

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

What about the Ulfberht swords and crucible steel? Weren't they thought to be of Viking origin? Granted, I've never looked into this academically or done any particular fact checking, and weapons are well outside of my sphere of knowledge... so I could be completely and utterly misguided on this. But if the Ulfberht swords are truly Viking Age then we have like 150 or so examples of strong swords that were well ahead of their time, don't we?

This is something I was actually thinking about when I read that article. There are examples of outstanding Viking swords - most notably those marked "Ulfberht," that are made from crucible (or wootz) steel, and are definitely usable. It's the same steel used in the Middle East to make the legendary scimitar blades, and it's not exactly rare, either (I have a Bedouin scimitar made of wootz steel in my collection).

Anyway, they ARE of the right time period, and the right culture. The question about them is more about whether they were made of home-made steel or imported steel. The Norse could have learned to make the steel in the Middle East - they were there at a pretty early date, or they could have traded for it. The the swords were definitely usable, and of high quality.

I think that the pop articles (I got to the Livescience article from a repeat on Fox) claiming that Viking swords were decorative are drawing overly broad conclusions based on a limited number of example. That's why I wanted to read the original article...

(this is where Thalassa jumps in to talk about the deplorable state of science reporting in pop media. And would be absolutely right...)

[ThePaganMafia]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

There is a really good series called "The Saxon Tales" which is a series of historical novels set in the time of the Danish invasions of England. The author is Bernard Cornwell is famous for the Richard Sharpe series. He goes into fairly good detail on combat and has a section at the end of each book explaining the historical events and what he did and did not embellish for the sake of the novel.

It was also turned into a BBC series which is really, really good and on Netflix. The television series is called "The Last Kingdom".

[Rae'ya]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

What about the Ulfberht swords and crucible steel? Weren't they thought to be of Viking origin? Granted, I've never looked into this academically or done any particular fact checking, and weapons are well outside of my sphere of knowledge... so I could be completely and utterly misguided on this. But if the Ulfberht swords are truly Viking Age then we have like 150 or so examples of strong swords that were well ahead of their time, don't we?

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Did Vikings use swords, or just wave them around?

Huh... I wonder if burial swords might have been something like the paper money used in some Asian funerals - not intended to be real, but more symbolic?

If so, that would mean that you can't judge tool swords by examining burial swords. You'd have to look at battlefeild artifacts...

I think, maybe, we've hit the nail on the head..?