I love the look of the new Albion Mark VIking swords. I think it must be time for me to finally add one of that type to my collection. I have a question for the Albion folks about the grip lengths. As I'm sure everyone on this forum knows, most, if not all Viking swords have very short grips. When you wield one, you typically have to somehow wrap your pinky finger around the pommel. There have been lots of arguments about the right way to hold these swords. Many modern makers have gotten around this problem by adding an inch or two to the grip length, which makes the sword more comfortable and easy to use, but ain't genuine.

So which way are you Albion people going to go with your new Viking swords? There are arguments in favor of both choices. Historical accuracy will be paramount for some customers. But if you make the grips short, some will find them frustrating swords to wield.

One interesting point concerning grip length can be found in Swords of the Viking Age by Ian Pierce.

Many of the photos in that book are done in a 1:1 scale, ie. real size. It's apparent from the photos that there was just as much variation in grip length as there was in any other aspect of sword production from this period. As a result, it's difficult to determine just what the "standard" grip length on a viking sword was. If there was indeed a standard to begin with.

Howy summed it up well. In discussions with Peter, he explained that he tries to keep his Viking grips under 10 cm which is about 4" so we went with 4" for our Vikings.

As a Fiore student (albeit not a very serious student), I have to admit Viking swords are slightly difficult to grip. I think this is because we tend to incorporate later fighting techniques that where not used by the Vikings. Once you see these blades, it becomes clear that they were basically long butcher knives: wide and relatively thin in cross-section. Yes, you could thrust with them, but they are most effective with a slashing motion. So, when you grip the sword with the idea that you will be slashing, a tight grip is actually helpful.

In any event, we are trying satisfy the modern sword collector and at the same time maintain our commitment to historic accuracy. I think most people will find the grips to be comfortable.

Hope this helps.

I suppose it would seem funny to some folks, but I much prefer the shorter grip on the Viking type sword. Looks good and feels right once you are used to it. It seems a bit strange to go to a longer grip after that, at least on this type of sword, and to me...

Pictures of 3 Viking hilts in a row from the dublin museum showing variances in grip length.
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Also Pictures of 2 production grips side by side. Both were re-wrapped. The Sword on the right, a paul chen practical viking, had to have the grip made thickened. This wrap was put over the origional leather whereas the A&AM viking on the left had the origional leather removed and replaces. The Practical viking also had the origional A&AM leather wrapped around the pommel end of the grip to stop my hand from sliding back to the pommell unnessisarily.
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Just an illustration of differences..

Ciaran

Edited cos the Attachment doesnt display as a piccie for me :-)

Howy wrote:

Quote:

Eric and Jason have been working on an illustrated "How to grip a Viking/Anglo-Saxon sword" piece to add to the site soon.

Just wondered if this is still in the plans.

Cheers,

David

Hey Folks,
This is my first post on the forum so first let me introduce myself. While I've had a great interest in things sharp and
pointy for most of my life it has not ,until recently, become a passion. Why now you mighy ask? Well I recently joined
the Albion team as their new cutler and for the first time in my working life I feel like this is what I was meant to be doing.
Now part of my job , among other things, is to put the final fit and finish to the swords after assembly. As such I've
handled most all of our products. Well I'm a big guy, 6' 5" - 280 lbs and I have big hands. I've been more into hand & 1/2's
and bigger, mostly because they seem to better fit my stature, so to speak. I have to say that I have gone ass over teakettle
for the vikings. I must be a slasher at heart! The grip length seemed tight for about two minutes until I started to swing
it. Then I understood the reason for the shorter grip. What started out feeling tight evolved into a feeling of secure as
the blade swung through the slashing motions. Lock your hand into one of these grips and the only way you're going to loose it is to loose the adjoining limb, which is a distinct possibility where vikings were concerned.

Steve

If viking age swords tend to have shorter grips than medieval swords, could it be becaue medieval swords where designed to be used with a gauntlet of some kind? I dont think vikings had smaller hands than medieval warriors, since the average height of bodies in weapon-graves in Norway is around 173 cm, which is as tall or taller than medieval averages.