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Joe Yurgil
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 Posted: Mon 25 Apr, 2005 11:13 am Post subject: |
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That is true, the thought had occured to me.
There are many named swords in the sagas. Some of them are famous (Skofnung and Gram), some of them less so, and some of them are just mentioned by name and never apear again. Very few times is a sword called magical or really considered such. Occasionally we find an author who tells us about one of the swords magical properties but this still tell us very little about the nature of magical swords. Think about Leg Biter in Laxdaelasaga. It is clear that this is a powerful sword and an important one, but is it magical? We would probably say yes but im not too sure the saga author would.
Elsewhere in the same saga there is another sword (skofnung) where any would it causes cant be healed unless it is healed by the stone that accompanies the sword. But then this sword is almost of no consequence to the rest of the story. Why is it in there in the first place then? Who gives these swords power? The smith? Its possible, even probable. Its just a pitty we dont have any "magic" swords that we know about to try and see why people considered them so important.
Sjá, þar sé ek föður minn.
Sjá, þar sé ek móður mina ok systur mina ok bróður minn.
Sjá, þar sé ek allan minn frændgarð.
Sjá, kalla þeim tíl min.
Biðja mér at taka minn stað hjá þeim í sölum Valhallar, þar drengiligr menn munu lifa allan aldr.
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Mon 25 Apr, 2005 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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Joe;
If you are looking for why a sword HAD magical properties it presupposes that magic is REAL: Now that is a whole different discussion. ( Or, if the question is how do you make a magical sword. )
If we assume that there is no such thing as " magic " that actually works, anything that might have been perceived as magic hundred of years ago might have been explanable by science today.
Now a sword that kills with even a small wound could have been poisoned in some way.
A far superior sword might have very good qualities that might get exagerated in the telling of a saga.
A legend could have been started if incredible good or bad luck happended to a series of owners without there being any
" real magical "cause or effect !
As to special properties I don't really think any existed if you define it as cutting stone pillars in half with zero damage to the blade. ( Now if you could make a Star Wars type light saber and time machine it back to the 8th century you would certainly create a " Legend "   )
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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Kenneth Enroth
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| Posted: Tue 26 Apr, 2005 12:23 am Post subject: |
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Swords exist today that are associated with paranormal phenomena or possess an evil spirit. Is that good enough? 
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Bob Uhl
Location: Denver, Colo. Joined: 02 Mar 2004
Posts: 32
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| Posted: Tue 26 Apr, 2005 7:36 am Post subject: Bone of Christ?!? |
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| Daniel Parry wrote: | | A BBC documentary a year or so ago calculated that if all the Holy bone relics were true, Christ would have had around 2,000 bones in his body. |
Given that He rose from the dead, I don't think that any Christian would believe that there are any extant bones of Christ floating about. The story sounds a bit like a snide comment about the True Cross, but ISTR that someone has done the figuring and the fragments of the Cross add up to less than the minimum. Which of course doesn't prove that any individual piece was from the Cross, or even that the artifact discovered by St. Helen was in fact the Cross.
As for artifacts with an 'evil spirit,' I've held a German rifle from WWII made in Buchenwald (?), and even without being told its provenance one senses something truly evil and repellant about it.
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Mikko Kuusirati
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| Posted: Tue 26 Apr, 2005 9:12 am Post subject: Re: Bone of Christ?!? |
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[quote="Bob Uhl"] | Daniel Parry wrote: | | As for artifacts with an 'evil spirit,' I've held a German rifle from WWII made in Buchenwald (?), and even without being told its provenance one senses something truly evil and repellant about it. |
Y'know, it's true that there is something... strange about certain weapons.
've seen and held historical ones that just have this aura, a completely irrational air of wickedness, that makes me nervous just being around them (which is not normal, BTW; the only kind of sharp objects that otherwise bother me in the least are hollow hypodermic needles). I can easily understand why swords were so often named and revered, sometimes even regarded as living beings... the best of them certainly seem to possess an attitude and character.
And there's a sword made by the local smith that he says has been a nasty one from the beginning - every one who has ever touched it, the smith and myself included, has cut themselves on it. It's a really good sword, a type XV cut-and thruster with a beautiful fishtail pommel, well balanced and moves like a dream, but somehow or other everybody just manages to nick themselves with it. Go figure. Ask me, it's a) bad luck, and b) weird. 
It could just be our perception playing tricks on us, of course, but that in itself is quite a feat from an inanimate object, neh? Although not quite so surprising for a work of art, art being all about perception and the manipulation thereof - the shapes and proportions of an otherwise completely mundane item can carry just as much feeling with them as a painting or a piece of music. The importance and ubiquitousness of the golden section and other aesthetic principles in both fine arts and sword design may well be more significant than you'd think at first.
"And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That's what sin is."
— Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum
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Alina Boyden
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| Posted: Tue 26 Apr, 2005 9:30 am Post subject: Re: Bone of Christ?!? |
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| Mikko Kuusirati wrote: |
(which is not normal, BTW; the only kind of sharp objects that otherwise bother me in the least are hollow hypodermic needles). |
I never hated hypodermic needles until I started needing to have my blood drawn every month. *shudder* 
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Joe Yurgil
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| Posted: Tue 26 Apr, 2005 10:58 am Post subject: |
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| Kenneth Enroth wrote: | | Swords exist today that are associated with paranormal phenomena or possess an evil spirit. Is that good enough? |
Haha. I think thats about as good as I can expect. It is interesting to think about these things though, seeing as people did really belive that a sword could be very powerful on its own just like Mikko said.
Sjá, þar sé ek föður minn.
Sjá, þar sé ek móður mina ok systur mina ok bróður minn.
Sjá, þar sé ek allan minn frændgarð.
Sjá, kalla þeim tíl min.
Biðja mér at taka minn stað hjá þeim í sölum Valhallar, þar drengiligr menn munu lifa allan aldr.
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Steve Grisetti
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 5:12 pm Post subject: Re: Bone of Christ?!? |
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| Bob Uhl wrote: | | ...As for artifacts with an 'evil spirit,' I've held a German rifle from WWII made in Buchenwald (?), and even without being told its provenance one senses something truly evil and repellant about it. |
Somehow, just reading that sentence gave me the creeps.
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Patrick Kelly
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 5:29 pm Post subject: Re: Bone of Christ?!? |
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| Steve Grisetti wrote: | | Bob Uhl wrote: | | ...As for artifacts with an 'evil spirit,' I've held a German rifle from WWII made in Buchenwald (?), and even without being told its provenance one senses something truly evil and repellant about it. |
Somehow, just reading that sentence gave me the creeps. |
It gave you the creeps because you were letting your own emotions, as well as the images that your psyche is providing, influence your reaction. There is nothing inherently evil or nasty about any object. It's simply the knowledge of it's use combined with the human propensity to put everything on the face of the earth into human context.
"In valor there is hope.".................. Tacitus
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Alina Boyden
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 5:34 pm Post subject: Re: Bone of Christ?!? |
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| Patrick Kelly wrote: | | Steve Grisetti wrote: | | Bob Uhl wrote: | | ...As for artifacts with an 'evil spirit,' I've held a German rifle from WWII made in Buchenwald (?), and even without being told its provenance one senses something truly evil and repellant about it. |
Somehow, just reading that sentence gave me the creeps. |
It gave you the creeps because you were letting your own emotions, as well as the images that your psyche is providing, influence your reaction. There is nothing inherently evil or nasty about any object. It's simply the knowledge of it's use combined with the human propensity to put everything on the face of the earth into human context. |
Except needles.
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Patrick Kelly
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 5:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Alina Boyden wrote: | | Except needles. |
Embrace the needle grasshopper.
"In valor there is hope.".................. Tacitus
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Steve Grisetti
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 5:37 pm Post subject: Re: Bone of Christ?!? |
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| Patrick Kelly wrote: | | Steve Grisetti wrote: | | Bob Uhl wrote: | | ...As for artifacts with an 'evil spirit,' I've held a German rifle from WWII made in Buchenwald (?), and even without being told its provenance one senses something truly evil and repellant about it. |
Somehow, just reading that sentence gave me the creeps. |
It gave you the creeps because you were letting your own emotions, as well as the images that your psyche is providing, influence your reaction. There is nothing inherently evil or nasty about any object. It's simply the knowledge of it's use combined with the human propensity to put everything on the face of the earth into human context. |
Of course, my own emotions, as well as the images provided by my psyche also influence my reactions to swords, and are responsible for sucking me into this hobby
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Joe Yurgil
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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Ok guys this is getting off topic unless you are discussing magic viking needles or magic viking buchenwald rifles. 
Sjá, þar sé ek föður minn.
Sjá, þar sé ek móður mina ok systur mina ok bróður minn.
Sjá, þar sé ek allan minn frændgarð.
Sjá, kalla þeim tíl min.
Biðja mér at taka minn stað hjá þeim í sölum Valhallar, þar drengiligr menn munu lifa allan aldr.
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Alina Boyden
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 5:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Joe Yurgil wrote: | | Ok guys this is getting off topic unless you are discussing magic viking needles or magic viking buchenwald rifles. |
Its name was Thorbjorn and it was big and scary and sucked my blood.
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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I don't remember the names involved but I think there were a couple of Japanese sword makers with similar names who had the reputation of making the best of possible blades i.e. Really up there when trying to determine who was the best sword maker in history. One of these smiths swords were reputed to be evil and " made " the owners act in an evil or more violent than usual even for the standards of samurai.
The smith was supposed to have a miserable personality that infected his swords. Oh, I also think they also ultimatly brought tragedy and disaster to the unfortunate onwners
Anyway that was what people believed about his swords.  
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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Joe Yurgil
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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I think i heard bout that one. I believe the Old Icelandic name for it was Þórbjörn Blóðsúgr.
please excuse the bad translation 
Sjá, þar sé ek föður minn.
Sjá, þar sé ek móður mina ok systur mina ok bróður minn.
Sjá, þar sé ek allan minn frændgarð.
Sjá, kalla þeim tíl min.
Biðja mér at taka minn stað hjá þeim í sölum Valhallar, þar drengiligr menn munu lifa allan aldr.
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Alina Boyden
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 7:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Joe Yurgil wrote: | I think i heard bout that one. I believe the Old Icelandic name for it was Þórbjörn Blóðsúgr.
please excuse the bad translation |
Ah yes, flaunt your superior old norse skills. But I have old english on my side.
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Kenneth Enroth
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 8:12 pm Post subject: Re: Bone of Christ?!? |
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| Patrick Kelly wrote: |
It gave you the creeps because you were letting your own emotions, as well as the images that your psyche is providing, influence your reaction. There is nothing inherently evil or nasty about any object. It's simply the knowledge of it's use combined with the human propensity to put everything on the face of the earth into human context. |
The wielder of that rifle might well have felt extreme fear or pain. That may have created a psychic imprint on the rifle and still be felt.
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Alina Boyden
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 8:24 pm Post subject: Re: Bone of Christ?!? |
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| Kenneth Enroth wrote: | | It gave you the creeps because you were letting your own emotions, as well as the images that your psyche is providing, influence your reaction. There is nothing inherently evil or nasty about any object. It's simply the knowledge of it's use combined with the human propensity to put everything on the face of the earth into human context. |
The wielder of that rifle might well have felt extreme fear or pain. That may have created a psychic imprint on the rifle and still be felt.[/quote]
Psychic imprint? Is that like moving a stamp with your mind?
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Joe Yurgil
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| Posted: Thu 28 Apr, 2005 9:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Jean Thibodeau wrote: | I don't remember the names involved but I think there were a couple of Japanese sword makers with similar names who had the reputation of making the best of possible blades i.e. Really up there when trying to determine who was the best sword maker in history. One of these smiths swords were reputed to be evil and " made " the owners act in an evil or more violent than usual even for the standards of samurai.
The smith was supposed to have a miserable personality that infected his swords. Oh, I also think they also ultimatly brought tragedy and disaster to the unfortunate onwners
Anyway that was what people believed about his swords. |
It would be interesting to see one of these swords. I wonder if one gets the same kind of "phsycic imprint" feeling from those swords as oen would that Buchenwald rifle. Personally I doubt it greatly as im kind of cynical about these things but everyone loves a ghost story. They speak to us as humans and to our cultures as well.
Sjá, þar sé ek föður minn.
Sjá, þar sé ek móður mina ok systur mina ok bróður minn.
Sjá, þar sé ek allan minn frændgarð.
Sjá, kalla þeim tíl min.
Biðja mér at taka minn stað hjá þeim í sölum Valhallar, þar drengiligr menn munu lifa allan aldr.
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This is a standard topic