As a child I was able to watch the men in the workshop with no question, althoug sometime I was treated like a dog who sleeps in the middle of the way. They just yelled at me so they could move around with the tools and the glowing hot metal. So everytime it wasn't too cold outside I watched from some distance.
The local chieftain had just arrived from a travel and commissioned a sword from the headman of the workshop. The crew was there for about five years at that occasion. The chieftain held him in high regard and defended the village with all his forces to maintain the workshop at his control. None would let the power to forge good swords slip through their fingers easily into the hands of an enemy.
The head blacksmith didn't care, actually. He was so passionate about his trade and accepted the sword commission without questioning the provenance of that steel only to seize the chance to work with it. He used to forge by day and by night chanting like a dvergr to his new beloved one. Everytime he made a sword he called it this way.
The truth is the man was a bit maddened. Some said it was due the time he worked with the franks in the south. Some said it was due to a curse called uppon him by the dvergar themselves. I never knew. But he knew how to evoke some magic from the forge.
“Air to boost the fire. Earth becomes iron. And the water hardens the steel”. He used to recite this every mornig before he lit the charcoal. And anytime he would quench the blades, would it be a knife or a sword, he also repeated for it to never break, never chip away and never bent in a way it couldn't return to it's original form. If it isn't magic, I don't know what eles could be.
After two weeks refining and forging the steel he had a vaguely sword-like bar. And then he got some lesser quality iron and forged letters from it. He said to the others that he would trap his name forever on the steel and also the name of the blade he was producing in the way the southerner smiths were doing for the emperor. So the generations could come and go, but his legacy would endure. But he said to the chieftain with as much proud as he could have that he wouldn't waste a good blade using the letters or the language of the romans or franks, but he would make it with the language of his people, using the runes that his own gods discovered and shared with the mankind.
Day after day he laboured on the steel and iron and once the blade was hard and well he let his apprentices to polish and etch the blade and also to prepare the wood and a fine piece of linen for the scabbard as he worked on the hilt. The silver coloured cooper he had was turned into a fine wire that he carefully trapped on the iron with punch-like tools.
On the pommel, as some of the pagan warriors still do to this day, he wrote twice the name of the god Týr and on the inside of the handguard he inlaid another rune of unknown meaning for me, but I could recognize a giant, a god and a man.
He, then, let again his apprentices make the final adjustments and finish the scabbard. And only when it was all assembled together he went to the whetstones to make it sharp. I was a child then, but one of the men working for him let me wield that sword for a moment. And even then I knew it was a light and well ballanced tool of killing.
I didn't knew how to read the pagan letters, but they said the name of it was Wrath of the Wolf. After that I saw the chieftain going to war with the blade and there was a local song about how many saxons it had killed before it was lost forever on the distant land. How the Wrath of the Wolf could split shields in half and pierce through mail and flesh alike.
Some songs last forever. Some songs are forgotten after a decade or less. But the name of the smith and of the sword will both lay for eternity on the surface of the steel, even if none but me can sing them aloud now.
*********
This was a very pleasant commission to work on for me. I could practice a little more of inlaying and the results got better than i could anticipate, even if I have much to evolve in this art.
The blade was mostly done by stock removal, but the tip and the tang were forged prior to the grinding. It was made using 1070 steel.
The hilt is of a variation of Petersen's type L and it's components are made in mild steel and the inlays are nickel silver. The twisted wires are also nickel silver. It was then oil coated and lightly heated to make it look darker, so the contrast with the cooper-alloy would be even more visible. It is also a good way to prevent rust.
My signature this time went on the inside of the lower guard, as the blade carries my maker's name. And on the pommel is asymmetrical in decoration: one side carries a similar decoration to the guards and the other a "double Týr" bind rune.
The idea of peening it on the pommel cap is also a historical method, but I made it mainly because it would be more secure than peening the upper guard and attaching the pommel cap to it.
The handle is pine wood wrapped in cord and then covered with pig skin.
The scabbard is also pinewood, as well as it's belt-bridge. It is lined inside with natural wool and covered with linen cloth. The chape is also mild steel and the bridge is held by leather strips.
All the decorations were made to fit a late ninth century fashion, although it is a simplification of the Borre style rather than a more elaborate version.
The runes on the blade are inspired mainly on inscriptions of later, 10th and 11th century blades commonly made in Latin language such as Ingelri or Gecelin, but also inspired on the famous Tizona of El Cid and the Cortana from the legend of Holger Danske when it comes in the naming process of it. The use of the runes or local language was a choice of the owner, although I'm aware of only a single sword with runic inscriptions from the period (according to Petersen, B1622), but I have no access to what is written on this exemplar.
They read:
ik er ulfsmoþRin
(Ek er UlfsmóðrRinn - I am the Wrath of the Wolf)
hioruarþR kirosi mik
(Hjörvarðr gerosi mek - Hjörvarðr made me)
They are all written in old norse and I used the danish long-twig young futhork to write them.
The sword was exposed at one of the biggest blade shows here in Brazil, where it was awarded the prize of Best Sword of the show and is indeed a proud weapon to display, as well as is swift and powerful to wield.
Overall length: 94,0cm
Blade length: 79,7cm
Blade width: 5,4cm
Blade thickness at the guard: 0,5cm
PoB: 17,2cm
Length of the grip: 10,3cm
Weight: 1,150kg
The blade was mostly done by stock removal, but the tip and the tang were forged prior to the grinding. It was made using 1070 steel.
The hilt is of a variation of Petersen's type L and it's components are made in mild steel and the inlays are nickel silver. The twisted wires are also nickel silver. It was then oil coated and lightly heated to make it look darker, so the contrast with the cooper-alloy would be even more visible. It is also a good way to prevent rust.
My signature this time went on the inside of the lower guard, as the blade carries my maker's name. And on the pommel is asymmetrical in decoration: one side carries a similar decoration to the guards and the other a "double Týr" bind rune.
The idea of peening it on the pommel cap is also a historical method, but I made it mainly because it would be more secure than peening the upper guard and attaching the pommel cap to it.
The handle is pine wood wrapped in cord and then covered with pig skin.
The scabbard is also pinewood, as well as it's belt-bridge. It is lined inside with natural wool and covered with linen cloth. The chape is also mild steel and the bridge is held by leather strips.
All the decorations were made to fit a late ninth century fashion, although it is a simplification of the Borre style rather than a more elaborate version.
The runes on the blade are inspired mainly on inscriptions of later, 10th and 11th century blades commonly made in Latin language such as Ingelri or Gecelin, but also inspired on the famous Tizona of El Cid and the Cortana from the legend of Holger Danske when it comes in the naming process of it. The use of the runes or local language was a choice of the owner, although I'm aware of only a single sword with runic inscriptions from the period (according to Petersen, B1622), but I have no access to what is written on this exemplar.
They read:
ik er ulfsmoþRin
(Ek er UlfsmóðrRinn - I am the Wrath of the Wolf)
hioruarþR kirosi mik
(Hjörvarðr gerosi mek - Hjörvarðr made me)
They are all written in old norse and I used the danish long-twig young futhork to write them.
The sword was exposed at one of the biggest blade shows here in Brazil, where it was awarded the prize of Best Sword of the show and is indeed a proud weapon to display, as well as is swift and powerful to wield.
Overall length: 94,0cm
Blade length: 79,7cm
Blade width: 5,4cm
Blade thickness at the guard: 0,5cm
PoB: 17,2cm
Length of the grip: 10,3cm
Weight: 1,150kg
