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Aaron Justice
Location: Southern California Joined: 21 Aug 2003
Posts: 183
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 Posted: Wed 26 Jan, 2005 10:53 pm Post subject: Original of this Viking sword? |
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An eBay seller claims this sword is a casted mould of the sword owned by St. Olaf. Does anyone have any pictures of the original sword if it indeed does exist?
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How can there be a perfect sword when PEOPLE come in all shapes and sizes too?
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Elling Polden
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| Posted: Thu 27 Jan, 2005 4:39 am Post subject: Re: Original of this Viking sword? |
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| Aaron Justice wrote: | | An eBay seller claims this sword is a casted mould of the sword owned by St. Olaf. Does anyone have any pictures of the original sword if it indeed does exist? |
In which case his name better be Indiana Jones, because there is no sword atributed to king Olav that I know of. And if there where, it probably would have a different pomel shape...
I can't remember if anything was mentioned about Olav's sword in the saga. He is usaly depicted with an axe, and his symbol as a saint is a cross with two axes. But this is probably more due to the conception of the axe as a Norwegian weapon, with a capital N.
In the mid-thirteent manuscript about the life of Edward the Confessor, Harald Hardråde is also depicted with a oversiced axe. (Norwegian use axes, ergo the king of the norwegians must have the biggest axe of all...)
Yours
Elling
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Aaron Justice
Location: Southern California Joined: 21 Aug 2003
Posts: 183
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| Posted: Thu 27 Jan, 2005 11:23 am Post subject: |
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Yes, the sword is styled much later than what most viking swords appear as, but the same goes for a brazil nut pommel which the vikings also invented. Albion's gaddjhalt does not look much like a viking to me because of the blade length of almost 36 inches, but there are examples found. Really the only things that attract the attention on the before mentioned pice are the smaller fuller on the blade and the wheel pommel.
How can there be a perfect sword when PEOPLE come in all shapes and sizes too?
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Steve Grisetti
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| Posted: Thu 27 Jan, 2005 1:24 pm Post subject: St. Olaf's Sword |
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Oakeshott mentions St Olaf's sword in Records of the Medieval Sword, in the Introduction section on "Ownership" (page 14 in my copy). Oakeshott states that the story on this sword (recited in 1153) is that it ended up being placed by the Byzantine emperor over the altar of St Olaf's church in Constantinople. For what it's worth....
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Björn Hellqvist
myArmoury Alumni
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| Posted: Thu 27 Jan, 2005 2:36 pm Post subject: |
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As with all weapons attributed to saints, caution should be exercised. Most of them are usually several hundred years younger. I stumbled across that wall decoration a few years ago, and remember thinking "naah...."
My sword site
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This is a standard topic