Hi All,

Last year I made a Dacian Falx for a customer, blade by Owen Bush. The blade from tip to hilt is about 24" and 28" if measured along the cutting edge. The shaft/handle is ash. The blade is about 1/4" thick with a pretty steady taper toward the point and then a more rapid transition over the last few inches.

When making this it was frankly terrifying as with the length and the curve there was always some bit wanting to bump something else when I was polishing etc and was rather glad to sdimply hand the thing over to its new owner.

As a point of interest this mail landed in my box this morning and I thought you may want to see it.

Quote:

Tod, I had the opportunity to test cut the falx at the weekend. I thought you may be interested to know effective it was. My fencing school (the School of Traditional Medieval Fencing) held a cutting weekend last saturday/ sunday. We bought a couple of pigs and cut it up with weapons ranging from daggers to longswords. Needless to say I was told to go last with the falx! It is as much a thing of great beauty as it is utterly terrifying! When I say that it cut through bone like butter I DO mean it. Felsh and ribs offered no resistance what so ever, it cut clean through the pigs entire front leg as if it were not there. The only part of the carcass to offer any resistance was the spine. This weapon of the Dacians is utterly terrifying. Thank you so much for taking the time to create this beautiful weapon for me. Kind regards, Simon Fern

I unfortunately can find no pictures of the falx except for one on this page of my site http://www.todsstuff.co.uk/gallery/tods-gallery-page-2.htm

I have asked Simon for permission to post this mail and I hope he can come in with some pictures or further commentary. I think it pretty much speaks for itself.

Regards

Tod

Afternoon, I am currently waiting for the photographs from last weekend to be sorted and made available by those with cameras and hope to find a few decent ones in due course. I have also approached a member of STMF (School of Traditional Medieval Fencing) regarding a falx simulator with a view to investigating its martial practicalities and strengths and weaknesses vs. both other tribesmen and Romans. Suffice to say this will take a while!

Does anyone know of any reliable resources regarding the employment of this weapon?

Thanks,

Fern

Sounds great, those tests are always fun.

As I can see the handle is longer than the blade, so I would say that such lengthy grip, as well with the balance it creates may be good part of the devastating effect.

I'm generally able to deal most powerful chops with my axe when I first speed it up with the hand relatively close to the blade, and then moving it down, close to the second hand during the swing.

Bartek - That is a particularly interesting observation. I tried two basic cuts with the falx at the weekend - both holding the weapon the same way: left hand at the end of the handle and right closest to the blade. A cut from my right shoulder was fairly nasty but by far the worst (or better?!) was the cut drawing the weapon over my head and cutting from my left shoulder - this cut necessitates the motions you mentioned previously. Whilst you can see the application of body mechanics here it does leave you seemingly rather open to a counter attack...