Sword bead finds associated with swords appear to dissapear with finds of sword pyramids appearing in graves during the Late Migration period. See British Artifacts Volume 1 - The Early-Saxon (AD400-650) 2009.

Best
Dave

I have a few extra raw amber beads, if anyone wants one give me a shout (No charge)

Trust me, children are remarkable as rather than just the obvious they spy the smallest and seemingly insignificant items (sword bead for example) then ask a mountain of questions about it..As part of the trading post we made small trinkets and then gave them out. Most with amber, as amber is said to cure and heal, and also ease the stresses on the mind.

Personal problem i've found is the large amount of crap I collect going to events, the odd glass/bone bead..sea shells, and yards of jute or thread which is useless til you need it then you can't find it.

So anyway, googling these 'sword beads' I can't find any pictures of them..so would they be any sort of material? i.e. bone/wood even?

i know some migration period spathaesque blades have the ring hilt to tie a lanyard around the wrist, and i remember reading in the icelandic sagas about men tying a thong around the base of the grip and putting their wrist through it (i'm guessing that predates the viking period starting after the decline of ring-hilts, seems counter-intuitive to take them off then put them back on differently without changing the fundamental construction of the sword) so were the beads affixed to the lanyards or the scabbard?
just sort of putting that out there. i have absolutely no knowledge of the beads, i'm just planning to make a ring hilt and would like it to be as accurate as i can manage.

I posted about the Kormakssaga earlier, it mentions swords with life stones. This saga is dated to 10th century AD as it mentions Harald Hårfager who is a real historical person. It's on Iceland.
-This is not Anglo Saxon but Scandinavian use of life stones in mid viking era.

Yes, these are at least semi-fictional hero stories not archeological evidence, but if life stones weren't still a living part of viking cutlure to some degree at the time the stories were made they wouldn't be in there.

Kormak -the 10 century skald
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korm%C3%A1ks_saga

Here's the entire Kormakssaga. As you can see it begins with dating the story to Harald Hårfager which is a real historical person.
http://www.sagadb.org/kormaks_saga.en

Just curious, can Amber be effectively used for whetting?

The saga also refers to magic swords etc, and not much archeological evidence for these either Johan..only pulling your leg :D . No doubt though that amber was believed to have magical properties, and perhaps 'life stone' could refer to its 'healing properties'.

Sword beads of the migration period come in a varity of materials, amber, glass, bone, crystal and meerschaum.

Sword rings have been discussed before,and it is unlikely that that they where used for tying a restraining thong on, some of the rings can be found on other artifacts, and some of the sword rings morph into a solid facimile construction of two rings entwined, quite impossible to loop a thong through.

Of course this does not preclude a thong been tied to the grip in the later Viking Age!

best
Dave

David Huggins wrote:

The saga also refers to magic swords etc, and not much archeological evidence for these either Johan..only pulling your leg :D . No doubt though that amber was believed to have magical properties, and perhaps 'life stone' could refer to its 'healing properties'. Sword beads of the migration period come in a varity of materials, amber, glass, bone, crystal and meerschaum. Sword rings have been discussed before,and it is unlikely that that they where used for tying a restraining thong on, some of the rings can be found on other artifacts, and some of the sword rings morph into a solid facimile construction of two rings entwined, quite impossible to loop a thong through. Of course this does not preclude a thong been tied to the grip in the later Viking Age! best Dave

I'll have to look it up for details, but I've heard there was this viking sword found in recent years that turned out to be at least partially stainless steel. Would that count as magic to a Viking? ;)

I totally agree that sword rings go on the sword, securely riveted in place and they would be migration era only. Well, perhaps if the legends have some truth to them Skofnung would be a migration sword so it could still be that type and be used later. But can we separate between those and the other type with a loose hanging stone from the scabbard, as we see in the photo posted earlier?

[ Linked Image ]

Or is this a flawed reconstruction?

So after attending TORM last weekend and having a chat with the bead people I've got a few peices of news.
Firstly, the sword beads they sell are based purely upon those found in some early Anglo-Saxon burials and so I must apologise for reffering to them as viking beads.
Secondly, as regard to materials it seems that they have been found in both amber and ivory, its also believed that some of the pieces of the Staffordshire hoard which are gold inlaid woth garnets.
I'm still unsure whether the vikings used these or not as 'life beads' as previously suggested, but those sold by Tillerman are based on pre-viking age finds.
There is also still debate on where the beads were mounted/hung from.
Just thought I'd offer these bits of info and hope they are helpful,
Nick

Sorry for the resurrection.

In western Norway at least, there are a few instances of graves with weaponry where "three-to-four large beads" have been present in the material.
There has been some speculation wether or not these were from necklaces or if they were sword beads.
One such example is the case of the so-called Storhaug chieftain, where one of the beads certainly looks a lot like the sword beads provided by Tillerman, made of red glass.
The hiltless single-edged sword from the burial had a semi-intact decorated scabbard that was fitted with "larger and smaller" buttons made of bronze, copper or brass. Apparently similar to other examples of scabbards for single-edged swords in Valsgärde and the around the Rhine. The burial has been dated to the year 779.

I have a picture of the beads in a book. I plan on going to the library to scan some stuff, so I'll bring it along and scan the picture as well.

Finally got to go to the library and have a few pictures scanned.

The picture of the beads came out badly though, and I didn't notice anything before I checked the scans later on, so please bear with me. The bead in question was the one on the far left, which was similar to the anglo saxon sword beads mentioned, luckily all of that one came through.
It is described as being red and shiny opaque, and something like 2cm in diameter.

I also included a watercolor of one of the beads. I think it illustrates well the lack of justice the black and white photography does the craftsmanship.

The burial is dated as I mentioned to 779, but some items in the grave seem a bit out of fashion for their time. The osteological study of the remains suggest he was between the ages of 25 and 50, My guess is he was probably a bit closed to the latter, rather than the former.

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The beads from Storhaug

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Watercolor painting of one of the beads

Thanks for posting those!

So these are all made from glass?

I found some more pictures of life-stones on Jeroen Zuiderwijks's site. Scroll down on the images. http://1501bc.com/page/Umha_Aois_2008/Nationa...190569.jpg and http://1501bc.com/page/Umha_Aois_2008/Nationa...190594.jpg

Actually, when you're on the site you have to scroll down, not on the link.

Perhaps an interesting read on this topic:

M.Biborski, P.Kaczanowski
Magic sword pendants

http://jam.nyirbone.hu/muzeum/nka/biborski.pdf