Hello,

I'm new to this forum and don't know if this subject has been touched upon yet or not, but I have always been curious about a certain subject. Every time I look through a book depicting the "Viking" era and view pictures /art of their swords it is always of the version commonly referred to as a "Viking Sword".
My question is this: is there any documentation of the Vikings using two-hand long swords?
And if so, what did these swords look like (are there any sources, on-line or otherwise, depicting them)?
I'm really curious & appreciate any thoughts on this subject.

Thank you.

Aye.

I study the Viking Age quite a bit and there is no documentation of a two handed Viking sword. I have not read about one in any of the sagas nor have I seen one from any of the digs. If they existed they were extremely rare. Vikings typically fought with a shield.

T. E. Holmes wrote:

Hello, I'm new to this forum and don't know if this subject has been touched upon yet or not, but I have always been curious about a certain subject. Every time I look through a book depicting the "Viking" era and view pictures /art of their swords it is always of the version commonly referred to as a "Viking Sword". My question is this: is there any documentation of the Vikings using two-hand long swords? And if so, what did these swords look like (are there any sources, on-line or otherwise, depicting them)? I'm really curious & appreciate any thoughts on this subject. Thank you. Aye.

commonly? no. most are 1 handed.
there is i believe, help me here guys 1 find of a hand and a half sword?

[ Linked Image ]

http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewto...half+sword

there is a hot debate on if this sword is real or not by the profs i think that found it. i dont subscribe to the viking heritage, but i think theres an article in there about it

Here's pic of what would questionably be called a reproduction.

http://www.odinblades.com/Pages/VikingHand&aHalf.html

That was my thought, too, Eric. For me, and this is only my opinion, that pommel is quite obviously incomplete.

Lacking measurements and a sense of proportion, I've also heard it said this this is a dagger. That would be just as unusual as a Viking longsword, however. I've ruled this out, for myself.

There is at least one sword of Great Sword proportions discovered in Viking-era graves. The discovery was made by (pardon my spelling) Dr. Jorma Lepaaho. Oakeshott mentions it, but I haven't seen much more info than that.

The answer is for all intents and purposes no.
There are rumours, but rumour also has it the US government has space aliens frozen down on Area 51.

Remeber that for all the fuzz, two handed swords do not appear to any great extent outside Japan and 14th to 16th century europe, and that in both places they have been secondary, back up weapons to armoured warriors.

As such they are not a "natural step forward" in the evolution of weapons; A viking warrior with a longsword would find himself pretty dead pretty soon, as he lacks a shield or heavy armour to protect himself.

One posible explanation to the one or two reputed long hilted viking swords could be a attempt at counterbalancing; moving the CoP backwards simply by making the handle longer. Some "quick n dirty" swordsmiths still do this; I have a cheap reenactment viking sword balanced like this.
As far as I gather, it is quite posible that the 12th-13th greatswords came into beeing in much the same way; long cavalry blades balanced by long handles.

Eric, you're in good company: we're no experts either. :D twenty of us combined might make an expert though. Like Voltron, but without the sweet lasers.

I'm trying to mentally superimpose a lower pommel as I am perusing Petersen's "De Norske Vikingsverd", and on think I've not seen is a pommel significantly wider than the gaurd. If we extend the line of that pommel to form a type D (I think?) big enough to make it a single hander, it would be rather wider than the guard, which would be odd (and ugly). If smaller, it just doesn't eat up enough handle, it still seems like a lot of room. Based on the handshake grip (which I think works rather well with this pommel type) and picturing a smaller lower pommel, a smaller man might easily get a second hand above the first. Or not. Oh, this is maddening. :wtf:

Where does this pic come from, and how can we get a sense of scale? Someone must know.

After further consideration, disregard everything I just said. I'm beggining to hate this sword.

Ellis, your armor arguement makes sense to me but for one exception, cavalry. Even if I was lightly armored, but on horseback, I just might want a slightly longer sword. Not nesescarily a longsword, just a longer sword than average. If I had the wealth to own a sword, I just might own a horse as well. Complete conjecture and inductive logic - the progenitors of false conclusion.

Well, I was bored so I decided to look at this sword even closer. I used a photo program to scale that photo based on a narrow viking sword I documented in Uppsala. Using 5 cm as a blade width, I scaled everything according to that measurement. I then superimposed a lower guard modeled after the guard. I then narrowed it to be in character with the pommel and flipped it so that the arc would conform to the arc of the pommel (which incidentally fits very closely to the arc on the pommel). I then measured the distance between the guard and superimposed lower pommel piece and the measurement was 13.6 cm. While this is certainly on the longer side for a Viking sword, it is hardly a two-handed sword. I also think that the blades is much narrower than 5 cm. So, combine that with the possibility of a thicker lower pommel section and the grip on the sword could be closer to 11 cm.

Many of these narrow Viking swords seem to be of the Geibig 1 catagory. They have no fuller or a very shallow fuller. Whether they had a fuller of not, the ones I've handed were quite substantial, so Elling's theory of moving the pommel back to help with the mass of the blades seems quite plausible to me.

This photo has caused a lot of discussion mostly because they do not provide the measurements. Go figure.

hahah u did that too eh? i tried to move the guard and pommel around on paint shop. i think they go together too

[ Linked Image ]
http://www.geocities.com/midnightwolf.geo/SWORDHIL.gif

not the best view, cause i cant turn the guard to match the pommel. but its an almost exact match.

A two handed viking sword would have made little sense, you could imagine how much a normal length sword would cost to make, the cost of the extra metal needed would not only make it more expensive but also harder to forge which would in turn make it more expensive. Even if you have that much extra money laying around, without your shield you would be the prime target for any spear weilding farmer looking for some 'Fat Loots' (RPG/gaming term)

But, I'm an advocate for unique weaponry/armor, and a two handed viking sword would be a fun fantasy design.

Swords where not THAT expensive/exclusive in scandinavia; Quite a lot of places produce iron; smelting from marshes where quite common, most decent size farms had their own smithy for making nails, hoseshoes, and so on.
Quite a lot of swords could be made by local smiths. Remember that the second most common kind of norwegian viking sword is the Type M, wich is extremely simple.
[ Linked Image ]

Later on, even muskets where made locally; the schnaphause lock was simple enough to manefacture in a village forge.

This is also a reason why some odd weapons appear; Most of them are home made, and someone might just have goten a bright idea. Not every anticent weapon is a masterpiece.

Great work guy's :D
sometime can shit happen when the parts are loose, like this one, Dybäck sword :p
I have that book "Follow the Vikings" if you guy's want to have a bigger scan of it "Grobina viking sword" :)


Dybäck sword wrong assembled, upper guard are wrong way
[ Linked Image ]

this is how it should look like
[ Linked Image ]