How did the carrying device look for a sword like this? Was it carried on the back for transportation and just leaned on the shoulder in the field perhaps? Would imagen having a sword like the Dane around your waist would be tricky..

How about rings?

I´ve heard there was custom to carry swords of that size in two rings attached to a baldric or a belt. At least when in armour.

being that a true dane axe is about as big as a person for the shaft, over teh shoulder is prob the best way to go if your walking around with it. i dont know of any viking finds with rings yet. a dane axe isnt something one would carry around with him all of the time. if he was raiding it might be something he used for small periods of time and left it on the boat at others. i figure teh saxons during 1066 just carried theres in their arms when running from london to stamford then to battle(hastings)
there werent any wagon trains or pack horses we know about.

and to the castle walls bit.?

make a leather sheath for the face of the axe. if your worried it will come off, make a strap from teh face around the handle and tie or buckle on the far side.

There where many german swords-for-hire fighting for the danish in Sweden. And quite many illustrations of those landsknechts especially, fighting simple farmers still wearing sallets whilst these guys had their flamboyant clothing and tweihanders.
But where there ever scabbards made for swords of that size? I mean a scabbard longer then a normal 1 1/2 hander would look pretty odd ehy..?

The blade on the A. NG Dane isnt going to be that long I think. If one suppose the conceptdrawings are roughly in scale it´s going to be a total lenght of under 150 cm and the blade around 110 cm. But still it is quite long.

BTW here is a picture of Paul Dolstein, a landskecht fighting in Sweden 1502, of a farmersoldier.

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Yep thats the one i was thinkning of..awesome pictures those. They speak more then any weakhearted socialistic *Jan Guillou-"history" show ever will..;/



* (Jan Guillou - French/Sami history-hack active in Sweden...)

Yepp, they do!

I´m in the finishing state of a replica of the gear of one of those young fightingboys. Will put up pics in a other thread this week. (Still dont have the helmet though.)

Martin

Looking at contemporary artwork as well as a few documents such large swords be they Dane style or 'Zweihanders' would be carried with a scabbard. Most images show them simply carried across the shoulder in the same way as a pike or a polearm.

Wouldn't say that there are 'many' pictures of Landsknechts fighting Swedish yeoman soldiers since there are exactly two of them , both by Paul Dolnstein. None of his 'Swedish' images show Zweihanders in use, it's all katzbalgers, pikes and halberds, indeed I can't find an actual zweihander in any of his drawings.

Someone posted this picture a while ago...

The landsnecht have scabbards on the swords that they are carrying over thier shoulders...

@Martin Wallgren: Yes, Dolnstein was the guy I was thinking of. Thx a lot for posting that picture. The drawing is quite crappy (albeit much better than anything I am able to fabricate :lol: ) but one can clearly see the long hilts of the large Danish (or Swedish in this case) longswords. Looks pretty odd. They must have been a nuisance for the soldiers to wear, at least when in massed pike-formations with little or no room between the men. Nevertheless I think these swords look just great.

@Russ Ellis: IIRC that pic is a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, part of the Triumphzug he made Emperor Maximilian. There are a couple of other woodcuts depicting soldiers with harkebuses, Messer-like swords in combination with shields and pikemen. That's the only picture I know of where Zweihänders are actually carried in scabbards but given the frequent accuracy of Dürer that must have been a common practice.

This is from that site of Russians reenacting Swiss Merv Cannon posted about. I don't know what manuscript is this, but it's perhaps 15.th century. Some of the images show soldiers with very large swords, or at least swords with very long grips. They seem longer than the usual one and a half swords:

Link to the gallery: http://www.bern.ru./v2/?t=gallery&ig=33&gp=1

Several images. Sorry for the size:



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ah hell, totally misread the title. sorry chaps.

still think the two handers would be carried with no scabbard over teh shoulders. lots of them seem to be parade swords too.

Heres a picture from the front page on a book I own.

http://peecee.dk/?id=32018

http://peecee.dk/?id=32019

Where youn can se the sword being carried on the shoulder.

best regard Klaus