New Hilts for Old Swords

Hello Sword Enthusiasts.

For the up-coming Hedeby Bouts which will take place this weekend at the reconstructed Viking houses at Haithabu/Hedeby, I have pimped my old sharps which I had purchased from Paul Binns in 2006. These are the same swords which were used for combat experiments and cutting practice at the Trelleborg Bouts in October 2022 which I have reported on in a previous newsletter.

Alas, the grips were too long, so I shortened them to an authentic length, and remodeled the pommels. I also added new grip leathers and made scabbards for both swords. Read about it in today’s newsletter.

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Two New Scabbards

This project was overdue. Transporting sharp swords without appropriate scabbards is not the safest and wisest thing to do. So I am happy that I managed to complete the scabbard cores for both swords in time for the Hedeby Bouts. I will add strap-slides and leather facings at a later point (… and I hope it will not take me 17 years this time!)

This time I did not carve the scabbard halves from solid wood as I did last year (see a documentation here).

Instead, I used thin prefab wooden boards which I bent to shape. This is an easier and less time-consuming process. I have documented my work and will provide a step-by-step guide in due course.

The scabbards are lined with sheepskin which makes for a snug fit, and polishes a blade each time it is drawn and put back in. The fur of sheepskin contains lanolin, that is wool fat, which serves as rust protection. Unfortunately, lanolin is usually washed out of modern sheepskins so it is not easy to come by a historical quality.

From the 11th century onwards, scabbards were more often lined with woolen cloth. I found that this works much the same way once a textile lining has absorbed oil from an oiled blade. The same is true for fat free modern sheepskin too, of course.

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Grip Leathers

Before remounting the remodeled pommel onto the shortened tang, I carved the old wooden grip to shape. Having assembled the swords, I fitted each handle with a new leather facing. The brown one consists of a single strap of vegetable tanned goat leather wound around the wooden grip. It is attached with casein glue, a historical waterproof adhesive.

The strap’s top edge is folded inwards which creates the ridge that spirals around the grip. This was an experiment. A somewhat simpler method can be seen in the image of an original 9th century sword below.

The wooden grip of the above sword from Mikulčice is densely wound with a leather strap. The strap’s lower edge overlaps the top edge beneath, thus creating a fine profile.

A Petersen type O1 Viking sword from Káldarhöf∂i in Iceland was examined by Fedir Androshchuk who found its wooden grip to be densely wound with a leather lace of 1 mm thickness. I used this kind of grip cover for the reconstruction of a sword of the same type found at Anglia near Hedeby.

Find extensive information on this piece here.

I tried a different kind of grip cover for the brother sword. The facing consists of a single piece of leather. The spiral is created by a thin linen thread which was glued around the wooden grip beforehand. Raisers are more commonly observed on later swords (see below), however, for my on-going study of grip ergonomics, I want to test variations of sword grip covers, hence the decision to try this one here.

The leather cover is glued on, no stitching. While seams on sword grip leathers are confirmed for the 14th and 15th centuries, I cannot recall a single example from the early medieval period.

This early 12th century sword still shows faint traces of raisers. Remains of its former leather facing made me attempt a reconstruction. You can see the respective illustration in a public post on my patreon.

Go to post

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More Original Sword Grips

Not all sword grips were covered with leather. Some were wound with silver wire, there are additional metal fittings that could be added to the handle, some examples were cast from copper-alloy, and there were textile wrappings, as well as examples carved from antler without an additional facing.

The antler handle seen above, decorated with a rather sketchily incised yet appealing design, was found near the former Viking Age fortress of Aggersborg in northern Jutland. Its shape and length of 10.4 cm would render it a perfect sword grip of its time – which likely was its intended use indeed.

If you want to learn more: Tomáš Vlasatý has compiled numerous archaeological finds of Viking Age sword grips, and provides extensive information in his formidable posts.

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So, that's it for today. Take care, and keep your blade well-honed. You are more than welcome to say hello and talk swords at Haithabu/Hedeby this weekend. Would be a pleasure.

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Yours,

Roland

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