[Shawn Shaw]

Dyrnwyn-"White Hilt" from Welsh mythology, the sword of Rhydderch Hael

[Richard Fay]

[Shawn Shaw]

[Richard Fay]

[Jim Bond]

Thanks for the help everybody. I am taking a lot of notes lol.

I would like to keep items from modern works off of my list. I am compiling this list as research for a work of fiction I am working on. I wouldn't want to infringe on anyone's (copy)rights.

I was just reading up a little on The Mahābhārata. There are a lot of interesting weapons in it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata

jim


PS Sorry I'm giving you guys Wikipedia links when some of you are taking exerpts from books directly lol. I am still working on my small research library...

[Carl Goff]

From the Trojan War and shortly thereafter:

The great bow of Odysseus, and his boar's tusk helm.

Achilles' armor (both the original and the set Hephaestus forged for him.)

Paris was good with a bow, but I don't remember if he had a particularly special one. He did poison his arrows, though.

Ditto for Teucer/Teukros, minus the poison.

Great Ajax had a special bull-hide shield, if I recall correctly.

Ares appeared on the battlefield in armor, I think.

Hector's armor was golden, unless I'm mistaken.

Did Diomedon, Menelaos, and Agamemnon have anything special besides just high-quality stuff? I want to say Menelaos had a belt of some kind, but I don't know if that counts as armor.

Needless to say, double-check the ones where my memory's shaky.

***

You could probably count David's sling from the Bible as well. Which reminds me of a joke:

An archeologist finds a corpse in the Israeli desert, mummified from the harsh conditions. He packs it up and ships it back to a museum with a note saying, "3000 year old body of a man who died of heart failure."

The museum gives him a call several months later: "We've run tests on the mummy you found, and he's not only 3000 years old, he did die of heart failure! How did you know?"

The archeologist replies: "Simple. He had a note in his hand that read '10,000 shekels on Goliath.'"

[Shamsi Modarai]

Also mentioned in the Icelandic Sagas are Egil Skalla-Grimursson's two swords, Nadr and Dragvandil, wielded during the holmgang with Ljot, the berserker.

(Currently I am living in Iceland, not too far away from many of the sites mentioned in Egil's saga.. How awesome is that? )


Edited to add:

I'm not sure if these have been mentioned yet, but Norse Mythology has tons of great weapons.

There are the spears of the Valkyries, which are described as having flaming barbs.

There is Hofud, which is the sword belonging to Heimdall (guardian of Bifrost).

There is Tyrfing, made by the dwarves Dvalin and Durin. It was sword with a golden hilt that would never miss a stroke, would never rust and would cut through stone and iron as easily as through cloth. The dwarves put a curse on Tyrfing, that it would cause "three great evils," and (being the way of things) the sword of course ended up being the bane of many of its owners.

One of the deadliest is the sword Laevateinn, which was forged by Volund (aka Weyland the Smith). Laevateinn made its wielder invincible in battle, but could also fight on its own without even being held. It is also known as the "Wounding Wand" or the "Staff of Destruction". Laevateinn was considered dangerous even to the gods themselves, and so was taken from Volund and brought to Asgard, where it passed into the hands of the god Freyr. At Ragnarök, Freyr would ultimately fall to his own blade, and Surtr (lord of the realm of fire) would used Laetvateinn to cut Yggdrasil's roots and so begin the destruction of the universe.

Then in Finnish Mythology, (which is fascinating btw!), we have the artifacts which Ilmarinen was tasked with forging, a Golden Bow being one of them.


There are many more....that's what I could think of at the moment though.

Keep posting these, this is a great thread!

[Justin Roland]

I had never thought about the sheer amount of "mythical" weapons before, great thread !!! would Michaels flaming sword be in this category or would that be more "christian mythology" as the Roland sword was said to contain a few highly religous items such as hair tooth and blood if I recall correctly

I'm Partial to the Roland Sword for obvious reasons lol

[T.L. Johnson]

[Shawn Shaw]

Why not? Didn't they get their hands on Excalibur at some point?

:-)

That could be even better than the knight vs. samurai question...supposing I had Excalibur and you had Dyrnwyn...

[T.L. Johnson]

Dyrnwyn bursts into flame when held. Excalibur just looks shiny.

(Of course, it's a matter of interpretation as to when the White Hilt lit up like a fougasse. There are those who'd say it'd burst into flame in the hands of the unworthy, thus denying them the ability to wield it for long. Others would say it went aflame only in the hands of a noble, as a sign of their divine grace)

[Edward Hitchens]

There's a book I had to read for a study abroad class that is actually a collection of stories about Irish mythology and legends. It's called Over Nine Waves by Marie Heaney. I cannot say enough great things about this book. It opens with early stories and accounts of the Tuatha de Danaan and takes the reader through various "cycles" of Irish myths (The Mythological Cycle, the Ulster Cycle, and on to the early days of Christianity in Ireland). And of course, there are plenty of events in which arms and armour are involved.

My favorite of these stories is called 'The Children of Lir.' It's about the three children of King Lir who were transformed into swans by their nanny who did so because she was jealous of the children. I'll say no except that after you read the story, you'll know why it's illegal to kill a swan in Ireland. I must confess, I cried after reading this story...

Oh, and if we're still talking about myths and stories, let's not forget Chaucer's The Canturbury Tales.

[Richard Fay]

Hello all!

I came across a few names of legendary arms in Paul Martin's Arms and Armour from the 9th to the 17th Century. Martin mentions the luminous "Fobitter", the Irwing's sword captured from the dwarfs; "Dusefokar", a scimitar given by the Prophet Mohammed; "Almace", the sword of Bishop Turpin of Rheims; "Mulager" belonging to Ganelon; and others that he doesn't mention the owner such as "Precieuse", "Hauteclaire", "Rose", and "Saxe".

I hope these were interesting additions to the list.

Stay safe!

[Rodolfo Martínez]

Hello,

There are Muramase´s cursed or demon sabers, Hades´ helmet, Karttikeya´s spear, Indra´s thunder blade or his lighning bolts named Vajra, the shield fo Galahad (Whit a cross painted with the blodd of Joseph of Arimathea), Cronus´sickle made of Adamantine and able to cut through anything, Grid's Rod, an iron staff given to Thor so he could kill the Troll King. Grid also gave him the "Armor of Thor" , Kongō, A trident-shaped staff which emits a bright light in the darkness. It gives a man wisdom and insight. (The staff belonged originally to the Japanese mountain-god Koya-no-Myoin)
Zulfiqar is the name of the sword of Ali ibn Abu Talib, the son-in-law of Muhammad and the model for Islamic chivalry, The Staff of Sun Wukong; while not exactly mythology, the staff of the Monkey King could alter its size whenever Sun Wukong told it to. Kusanagi-no-tsurugi, the sword of the Japanese God Susanoo, the Persian Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar which originally belonged to King Solomon and used to kill the invulnerable demon Fulad-zereh by someone wich i don´t know, Nothung, the sword from Die Walküre, The Sword of Peleus, a magic sword that makes its wielder victorious in the battle or the hunt, Curtana, the magical sword of Ogier the Dane. The Sword of Death, A grey sword that can a kill a person if you just cut a lock of their hair off. Clarent, the sword in the stone which Arthur pulled free to become King of Britain, The Grail Sword, a cracked holy sword which Sir Percival bonded back together, though the crack remained, Cernwennan which was Arthur's dagger, Arondite, Lancelot's sword, Hofud, the sword of Heimdall, the guardian of Bifrost, Tyrfing (also Tirfing or Tervingi), the cursed sword of Svafrlami, Amenonuhoko (heavenly spear), in japanese mythology, the spear used by the Shinto deities Izanagi and Izanami to create the world, Rhongomiant, which was the spear of King Arthur. The flaming spears of the Valkyries, Trishula the trident of Shiva, The trident of Poseidon (Used to create horses and water sources), the Gandiva is Arjuna's bow in The Bhagavad-Gita, Apollo´s and Cupid´s Bows , Babr-e Bayan, the mythical coat worn by the Persian legendary hero Rostam in combat, it was fire-proof, water-proof and weapon-proof , The Hide of Leviathan was supposedly able to be turned into everlasting clothing or impenetrable suits of armor, Wigar the armor of King Arthur, Dullahan (Who somatimes is depicted as a headless armour too), The Falcon Cloak owned by Freyja, it allows the wielder to turn into a falcon and fly , Tarnkappe is Sigurd's magical cloak that made the wearer invisible, the fire sword of Uriel the Archangel, The fire swords of the Seraphims, Again, the fire sword, luminous armour and lance of Saint Michael the Archangel, the spear of Saint George, The axe of the Indian hero Parasu-Rama (It means, Rama with Axe, so his true name is Rama), the swords of Kali and Durga (Who shared the weaponry of other Gods too), the Bow of Rama wich can shoot arrows wich can destroy mountains, the Bow of Ravanna (A bow wich can shoot thousands of arrows in a second, maybe becouse it´s wielder Ravanna had a lot of arms... ), Thanatos Sickle, Radamanthys´ bow, Zeus´ bolts, Briareo´s thousand swords and shields. Saint Peter´s sword...