The Magical Sword

Hi sword people,

I guess you are all familiar with magical swords from fiction and fantasy. King Arthur’s Excalibur, Aragorn’s Andúril, or swords from Germanic lore such as Notung spring to mind. Swords bore names, some cultures believed that they had a will and a life of their own, and had to be ritually killed e.g. by deforming their blades.

​

At Hedeby harbour, no less than 12 swords in their scabbards were recovered by archaeologists in a relatively small area. It is quite unlikely that all of them were accidentally lost in the port basin. A conscious deposition related to magical or religious beliefs is the best explanation for depositing swords in lakes, rivers and shallow waters – a custom that goes back to the Bronze Age.

Today’s newsletter is all about symbols inlaid into medieval swords. Their meaning is, in most cases, lost on us today. However, there is good indication that many of them had magical implications, rendering the swords objects of power beyond their function as a bladed weapon.

I hope you will find this subject as fascinating as I do.

​

---

​

Unexpected Discoveries

As a modern practitioner of historical swordsmanship, I am most interested in the physical properties of a sword. Weight, balance, ergonomics and handling characteristics of a weapon are crucial for a fencer. Recording these aspects is indeed the main reason why, supported by my patrons, I go to collections, trace a sword’s shape, take stats, record video and take photos. (In this post I share my considerations for designing a I.33 training sword based on my examination of period originals.)

However, when drawing a sketch of an oftentimes corroded blade, there are unexpected discoveries to be made occasionally. For example, when examining a two-handed 14th century type XIIIa sword at the Sankt Annen Museum in Lübeck, I noticed a cross design inlaid into the blade that had previously escaped attention.

​

​

Curiously, cross symbols like this one tend to correspond with a weapon's point of balance. It is worth noting that the idea of balance and equilibrium was at the centre of intellectual discourse in the late 13th and 14th centuries (compare to: Joel Kaye ”A History of Balance, 1250–1375“, Cambridge 2014). This is exactly the period of this particular sword too.

​

---

​

The Name Of God & Magical Seals

During one of our excursions to the National Museum in Szczecin, Poland, we examined a particular medieval sword (MNS 1743). My friend and archaeo metallurgist Ingo Petri spotted a pair of faint marks on either side of the blade. See him pointing out their positions in the image above. The marks are placed in the same places on either side.

​

On each side of the blade, there was a double spiral and what looked like a wheel. I had seen similar designs before in specialist literature, and I was thus able to reconstruct their original appearance (see more images of this process in this post).

​

However, another two years had passed before I became aware of the symbols‘ meaning. In an article on a specific sword, Mark Lewis points out that the formula of inscriptions is in line with typical magical amulets of the time. What is more, I learned that, by the 13th century, translations of non-Christian esoterica became more widely accessible, and drew scholarly attention in the Latin west. The corpus of so-called Solomonic ritual magic and kabbalistic works played a particularly significant role. In a medieval Christian context, the various names of God known in the Hebrew language were believed to render a charm particularly powerful.

To cut a long story short (the full version is available in this extensive post), the double spiral symbol is in fact a combined alpha and omega. This would render the symbol a powerful and complete name of God: 

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." Revelation 1:8

So clearly this is a power symbol. But what about the wheel?

​

One of the images in Lewis‘ article shows the so-called Canterbury amulet. This is a densely inscribed leaf of parchment with some magical sigils depicted in the top left corner. These symbols look exactly like the blade marks mentioned above. Thus it is clear that these inlays are not mere decoration but rather magical seals which likely had some apotropaic function, rendered all the more powerful by the name of God.

​

Shortly after our excursion to Szczecin, Justyna Bądkowska, who had kindly provided access to sword 1743 for us to examine, sent me the above photo (which I have edited for clarity). While working on another sword (MNS Rz 1703), which bears a long and fine inscription along the fuller, a further mark was discovered which had gone unnoticed for years. Mrs Bądkowska was excited to recognize it as an example of the sigils discussed above, which she had become aware of by reading the respective post of mine.

It is delightful and fantastic, when research turns out to be so fruitful for everyone involved.

​

---

​

Another Find

On a sword which Cornelius Berthold and myself consider to date from the 13th century, Cornelius spotted a further symbol while taking stats. In the above image, the pencil marks its position.

It is close to impossible to see it in a photo. It does indeed require close inspection of the original to spot it – which is another good reason to get a first hand impression of original swords. In the image below I have marked the faint traces in red.

​

The fine engravings and chisel marks have thus far gone unnoticed. They reveal what looks like another example of a magical sigil which originally was inlaid with silver. It makes you wonder if the process of inlaying magical symbols into blades was accompanied by any rituals or chants. Too bad that we will probably never know – but it would make for a great sequence in a feature film or novel set in the 13th or 14th centuries when the interest in esoterica and magical charms was just as alive and widespread as in the centuries before and after.

Thank you very much for your interest.

May the Force be with you!

Roland

​

---

You are receiving this newsletter because you have signed up for it, or because you have previously expressed your interest in my work and events. If you prefer to not receive further emails, you can unsubscribe below.

---