[Scott Hanson]

I picked up a museum replicas hewing spear head quite some time ago, and I'm finally getting around to mounting it on a shaft. That got me thinking about the historic weapon, and how little we seem to know about it. Browsing here and other forums has me wondering: has the winged spear on the far right of the attached picture ever been considered?

I thought of that upon reading about them being described as having barbs or hooks, and the wings on that sort of spear remind me of the "parrying hooks" on later zweihanders/doppelhanders. I don't know if spears such as this have ever been dated to a similar period as the sagas describing hewing spears, so I may be way off. I'm assuming someone in the community here will have a lot more knowledge of it than me, and could enlighten me a bit.

Thanks!

[Simon G.]

Hi Scott,

In the saga of Egill Skallagrimsson, there is the description of this weapon:

[Elling Polden]

There was a looong thread about this some years back. The conclusion was pretty much what Simon says.

The Atgeir, whatever they where, where definitely in use in the 13th c. They are mentioned in contemporary works such as the Kingsmirror.

Winged spearheads exist in more or less all periods; they are however more common in the early Viking age, probably as a result of frankish influence. In the later viking age, or middle ages, winged spears where probably a matter of personal taste.

One thing that should be noted about viking age spears are that most of them have remarkably narrow sockets; often around 20 mm (0.8 in). This goes for even the long, broad winged types of the 8th century. Such a spear would break if used for cutting, even if the edge is long enough. The longer the head, the greater the stress on the shaft when striking.
Thus, a hewing spear should be relatively broad, and have a strudy socket. The best viking age candidate is thus Pettersens type G. This spear does not have wings, but individual weapons scertainly could have them.
The broad, patternwelded spearhead is an example;

[Scott Hanson]

Thanks for the info gentlemen!

I believe I have read some of that previous thread, but I didn't see anything about the blade being 4-5 feet long. That's quite the long blade, particularly for the period. As I understand it, iron was scarce enough in 900 AD that most of your common Norse warriors were armed with spear and axe or seax, and didn't really wear much armor. Maille and sword were reserved more for the wealthy. That makes me wonder if Simon's thought might not be closer to the truth: that the author of the saga was just giving the hero a ridiculously big (and expensive) weapon for the "cool factor".

Elling, I have heard that some of the later polearms had a central spike that was more important to fix it to the shaft than the socket was. Do you know if that is the case, and if the earlier winged spear ever used such a method? If so, that would allow it to survive the stress of cutting, or at least might. I will readily admit I haven't run any numbers on this sort of thing, but now I'm curious and might just have to dust off my old textbooks a bit and give it a try.

Also, I'm curious, is there any consensus on the shaft length? From the quote Simon posted, I would expect it to be quite short, as I read that as being from the ground to your grip, with your hand at roughly waist height. I suppose it could be read with your hand above your head though, which makes quite a long weapon in my estimation.

[Simon G.]

[Sam Gordon Campbell]

And then Gunnar said "Get over here!"

[Kurt Scholz]

Are you looking for the swordstaff ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordstaff )? Contrary to its name it's not some kind of naginata with old sword blades, but a Scandinavian spear with the ability to strike and pierce like a sword. We have contemporary images, artifacts and descriptions of this weapon.

[Elling Polden]

Scott; Iron was not THAT scarce in scandinavia. Iron production from bog ore was widespread. In fact, there are more finds of swords than fighting axes from the viking age, and the seax/fighting knife was also less widespread than in saxon england or the baltic region. That said, not all swords are GOOD swords. Then again, Iceland was a frontier backwater.

The Bryntvari/mail piercer is a seperate weapon from the atgeir, and seems to be have a weapon similar to the oxthounge. Nothing like it is found in a viking context, though.. It seems that the atgeir where rather short. There are instances when they are worn in the belt, indicating a weapon in the 1m+head range. Such a weapon could fill some of the same function as a long hafted axe, while also functioning as a extra spear or javelin.

The Kesje are occationaly described as "long hafted", and where thus more likely the regular reach-to-the-socet spear length. These are also described in the contemporary sagas (like Håkon Håkonsons saga) and thus where definitely in use in the 13th c.

[E. Storesund]

Here are my two cents on the matter. I agree with what Simon is saying here for the most part. I don't think the prose sagas are reliable sources for the material culture of the Viking Age, just look at any medieval manuscript depicting the near ancient past of the day: They really had little or no idea how their ancestors dressed or what kind of weapons they had. Presumably they just went along with guessing that their ancestors looked more or less like they did themselves, maybe wearing something around the lines of what their grandparents might have worn.

As a source of Viking Age material culture it would be more fruitful to look at the Skaldic poetry, as it is very conservative by nature of metre. Where the saga might describe what some monks' idea of what a viking looked like, the poetry (in many cases) was composed by a mind of the viking age for an audience of the same. Sadly the nature of their composition makes translation oftentimes tricky (or impossible).

And indeed Iceland was a bit of a "frontier backwater" as Elling comments. Some texts account some pretty simple and tough living up there in medieval times. In relation to the cult of saints we have some legends involving some pretty pathetic stuff, like peasants losing their only fish hook resulting in a lot of crying and praying to some saint (Probably Saint Ólafr or Þorlákr, but I can't really remember) to get it returned. Sure it's a bit of theological onka bonka, but life was harsh none the less.

[Peter O Zwart]

ON the Vikverir resource page I found a number of large winged spear heads that dated from the viking age, they might not have been hewing spears per say but I think they could have been used as such.