Viking swords typically have a reputation for being pretty broad as swords go, but I've been wondering; historically speaking, how slender could the blade of a viking sword be at the most?

Put another way, what is the most narrow viking sword recovered?

Greetings Anders,

The book Swords of the Viking Age (Ian Pierce) shows the narrowest blade being 4.4cm for the Type 1 blade, Gleibig's classification, from the 7th-8th century. This blade had no distal tapering so the width of the blade would have a lot to do with the weight of the sword.

The book Early Medieval Swords from Central and Eastern Europe (Lech Mareck) examined 40 Viking Age swords and the narrowest of those was also 4.4cm.

Hope this helps.

Regards.

That does help - it's nice to get such an exact measurement. :)

4.4 cm is still kinda broad by my own standards, though I seem to have a preference for narrow blades in general. (The blades I design tend to be 3-4 cm broad at the most, more likely 3.5.)

Anders,

You might also be interested in the 'maekir', a lesser-known style of Viking sword that tapers progressively to a pointy tip, giving it an overall more slender appearance than the classic parallel-edged viking sword.

There's a reproduction of one (from an original in Oslo) in this thread: http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=13558

There's also a very well-preserved example in the British Museum in London; I was just looking at it a couple of weeks ago.

-JD

I had no idea such a weapon existed...thank you for enlightening me!

M.

A picture of the British Museum sword I was referring to has been posted in this thread:

http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?p=172056#172056