I came across this interesting Fauchard that was recovered from grave 437 at Buckland. If it really is a pole arm, it is very rare in an Anglo Saxon setting. Most people say it is an agricultural tool, at least in England. But it seems to be a distant relative of the bill. Daegrad in their reproduction, have chosen to reproduce it as a short handled tool. But Parfitt and Anderson say that when it is found with a burial it is mainly thought to be a weapon, It does have a split socket, so could have had a shaft.

Since it was found in a grave with a sword, to me it gives credence to it being a pole arm. So does it seem likely that one of the very few burials with a sword would also have a farm instrument. A warrior lucky enough to have a sword would also be a field laborer?

Just my take.

Regards
Robert

The weapon appears in this manuscript,
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/4580/12372/
When you consider the wielder is in armour with a surcoat I doubt he's a labourer.

Hi Ron,

Very interesting. It looks much the same. Of course that illustration is about 600 years later!

The sword shows a lot of of similarities to the swords of the Folkeslunda-Zaspy and Ejsbøl-Sarry types, which IIRC date to the late 3rd and early 4th C. The shape of the peen button especially reminds me of some very early Migration era swords. Indeed, it is a dead ringer for the sword from the Opotów grave 289 and there is another almost identical sword in grave 2 at Lilla Bjärges. The British Museum database dates the Buckland grave finds to the 6th and 7th centuries, so perhaps this sword was a few hundred years old when it was buried? Very interesting stuff. The bill shown below is from colonial America, but I am sure I have seen pics of an identical bill from Roman era Levant, so we are talking about a very basic design that did not change much over the better part of two millenia. I would tend toward believing that the Buckland bill was a farm implement, but that does not necessarily preclude its use as a weapon. Perhaps we are seeing the grave of a farmer who had an old, rust-bitten sword passed on for generations or robbed from an older burial on the continent and brought over in the initial Anglo-Saxon colonization? Fun to think about, anyway. Thanks for posting.

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Well weapon as some believe, or agricultural instrument as some lean to here it is in the flesh!

I was thinking it would be larger, but scaled out from the published art work we have this:


Again by Peter Szabo

I hope you like it.

Interesting piece, in the flesh. Will you post some stats? Are you planning to mount, and, if so, what length of staff? Once mounted, would love to see in milieu, to get an idea of how wicked it might look in the hands of someone wielding with purpose. ;)

Hi Victor,
It is 334 MM long and weights in at 1 lb. 2.3 oz. It will be some time before it is mounted. As you may have noticed, I am selling down my sword collection in preparation for a move overseas. I figure I can keep my spearheads and a few seax. So at present most are not mounted. I would mount this on about a 6 foot shaft as shown in one of the earlier illustrations in this post. Although much later in time, it is certainly being used as a weapon. This is sharp only on the inside edge and the small ax head protrusion as the original would have been judged by the profile.

Robert

I wounder if this is the "Viking Halberd" that museum replicas talked about ?

Thank you for sharing, Robert. That is a fascinating piece. The length is surprising. How long is the small, sharpened protrusion? I can think of ways to use that in my garden or a shield wall.

The small sharpened protrusion that looks like a miniature axe is just under 3 inches. Kind of hard to see any use to it.
Robert

You may well be right, my only basis for thinking this a weapon is the authors who state that when found in a grave it is usually thought to be a weapon (Parfitt and Anderson) and the brother of this fauchard shown clearly in use as a weapon by someone in maile. Of course it is several hundred years later. It is something that I doubt anyone will ever be able to prove for or against. That being said, I only know for sure, that this is not what I would want to carry into battle.

It also fits well into my small collection of Anglo Saxon weapons, and you have to admit you don't see a replica of this every day.

Robert