In my monthly copy of Airwaves I couldn't help but notice this program about the Ulfbehrt airing on Wisconsin Public Television.

I was simply wondering if anybody else knew more about the program, such as who was being consulted/interviewed.

Oh, and for those who are curious, it will run Wednesday, October 10th at 9 PM.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/secrets-viking-sword.html

Ric Furrer, fellow forum member and Wisconsinite, will be featured:

http://www.doorcountyforgeworks.com/NOVA.html

The dvd is also available as a pre order.

Robert

Thanks! It will be fun to watch, as he seems very knowledgeable. Also, that time listing was in Eastern time, I just forgot to label it.

yeah i wanna catch that show. i wonder, do they have any listing for it airing after midnight eastern? my work schedual stinks. and my old school vcr is broken.

I wanna see this show, though I have questions about their conclusion. It seems to be based on Dr. Williams' hypothesis that the H+T crucible steel Ulfberhts were the originals. However, the work of Anne Stalsberg seems to indicated that the H+T Ulfberhts show up in later finds, and that some of the +VLFBERHT+ variants that are being called "copies" tend to show up earlier. Kind of hard to be a "copy" in 9th century of a 10th Century H+T variant.

Still I wanna see the show, I'm just saying to read everything out there and form your own conclusions.

Some suggested readings
THE VLFBERHT SWORDS REEVALUATED by Anne Stalsberg
http://jenny-rita.org/Annestamanus.pdf

STUDIES OF VIKING AGE SWORDS:
METALLOGRAPHY AND ARCHAEOLOGY by Eva Elisabeth Astrup and Irmelin Martens
(google it, I can't get the link to work right)

We (The Chicago Swordplay Guild) and Roland Warzecha of Hammaborg were both involved with this project in the early stages to do the weapon testing. Unfortunately, the production time was during WMAW, the "tests" they wanted us to perform very nebulous and the budget to get realistic Viking armour and shields to try the weapon against so minimal that we had to decline to do the actual cutting. Consequently, they turned to John Clements of ARMA. If you're in to John and how he "cuts" with a sword, it may be fun, if not, stick to the parts where Ric Furrer talks about making the sword, as that part will be cool. ;)

Greg

Many of us are very into how John Clements "cuts" with a sword and unless the film editors had too much fun the cutting should be very fun to watch. As I understand, there is some nice comparisons of Viking swords to Katanas, not only in their cutting abilities but also in how they react to hitting armor and shields (be it minimal). Of course, we can only hope that the film editors have not hacked up what was filmed. Sorry to hear that you did not take part, it would have been interesting to watch how you "cut" with a sword. Without a doubt, the Ric Furrere talks will be interesting.

Ran Pleasant
ARMA

Just a reminder - it's on PBS tonight, 10-10-12

PBS is usually stingy when it comes to posting online.

I thought the sword looked pretty good (wide.) The spelling thing was cool too

I loved it and I plan to order the DVD.

It comes on again on October 12, at 4:00 AM (at least on my local station.) for anyone interested.

I missed it the first time so I'll be tuning in, thanks Luke!

Over all it was an enjoyable show. As expected it did leave out a lot of the better things filmed of Clements but the editors could have done a lot worst. I really like that they showed that this type of sword was being ripped off by other blacksmiths during the period.

Tristán Zukowski wrote:

...most every sword capable of cutting has been compared at one point or another to the great and almighty katana, because to average TV consumer...

Clements tried hard to keep the katana out of the shown but the producer and director insisted since they believe the public expects it. At least they didn't include ancient aliens. lol


Ran Pleasant
ARMA

Was the quality of Medieval steel (excluding Ulfberht's) as inferior as this show makes it out to be?

:lol: @ ancient aliens - at least our pbs hasn't gone the way of the history channel yet . . . or nat geo . . .

i was also a little concerned with the findings of other steels from the time period presented. i don't didn't see any mention of 'pattern welding' which attempted to spread the impurities of steel throughout the blade (but pattern welding done badly can cause problems of its own with failed welds etc.) was not discussed. then again maybe at that time period pattern welding was falling out of use.

felt like the show was very informative and enjoyable for anyone who is looking to learn more about period swords.

Good show, but I was confused about why they seemed fixed on Ulfberhts originating in Scandanavia. At one point it was acknowledged that Ulfbehrt is a Frankish name, but this was explained away as Vikings wanting to sound Frankish.

Perhaps the producers adopted this angle so they could refer to Ulfbehrts as Viking swords and keep things simple for TV?

Is there any more to this?

Watched it last night! Just happened across it after getting home from work. It was a great show!! Thank you, Richard Furrer, PBS, and NOVA!!!