Here are photos I took at the British Museum a year ago. The description is from the display card.

Viking Sword
Viking, 10th Century AD
From Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, Ireland

This sword is small by Viking standards, but is similar to native Irish weapons. The pattern on the blade shows it is Ottonian, with Viking hilt fittings added.

MME 1864,1-27,3

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10th Century Viking Sword

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10th Century Viking Sword

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10th Century Viking Sword

Outstanding stuff, Nathan. I've always been a fan of that hilt style. Thanks so much for the pics!

Nice to see some color photo's of that sword, i have only the paperback version of the book Swords of the Viking age :)
Thanks Nathan!

Thanks Nathan!

That's an excellent picture of the iron inlay and gives, I think, a fair picture of the appearance of iron inlay on a polished sword. Verey nice!

Jeremy

Some stats from Swords of the Viking Age
Overall length: 76.3 cm (30 in) Blade length: 66.6 cm (26.2 in)
Length of cross: 7.7 cm ( 3.03 in) Length of grip: 6.8 cm (2.67 in)
Balance point: 14.6 cm (5.75 in)

It also appears that Ollin Sword Design makes a sword with a very similar hilt, Peterson type Q, but that is much scaled up.
http://www.ollinsworddesign.com/osd-custom-qg5.html


After a bit of hunting I found this thread
http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=6755&highlight=
which confirms that the Ollin sword was based on this find.


Edited to add another link

Excellent shots, Chief .... nice work !

I know, ".....and don't call me Chief " ;-) Mac

Nice shot, here is mine along along with a strange warhammer that caught my eye.





Regards,

Will

I have split off the posts regarding the two-handed poleaxe to their own topic because this topic about a 10th century Viking Sword.

This sword has always been one of my favorites. I was the customer for OlliN Swords reproduction of it. It's called the Lough Gur sword. The fittings seem like they would be very uncomfortable, but it actually feels pretty sweet with the handshake grip. I'm posting pics of the repro, no inlay on it and it was scaled up to fit an adult's hand.

Tim;

Yes that was the first thing I was thinking when Nathan posted the museum pic.

I remember seeing your sword and liking it a great deal: I'm seriously considering some custom project with OlliN when my current projects are finished. Not sure what yet ?

This type of grip pommel sort of forces you to use the handshake grip and the T shape should lock the sword in the hand even with a looser relaxed grip: A relaxed grip being a good thing for cutting as long as one doesn't loose the sword.

I would think that this IS the design intent.

A long time ago I made a handle for an "antenna " type sword using an old bayonet when I was reading up on bronze age swords and discovered then the usefulness of this pommel type. ( Even wider with the "antenna " style. )

I certainly ruined a perfectly good bayonet :blush: But this was around 1970 and you could get these bayonets for $20.
I don't even want to know what the value would be today and hope I didn't destroy something rare ! I wouldn't want to use one of these for a D.I.Y. now that I know better.

..

( Edited / deleted as it was too off topic. )

Keep it on topic, folks.

Discussing custom projects is best handled privately anyway.

Sorry, will continue through P.M. & e-mail. :blush: