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Chapter 4

Odin's Flame

Many and varied were the types of swordhilt used by the Vikings; many also were the vivid and evocativc poetic phrases which the skalds of the North used in their verses to replace the plain noun "sword." I gave instances of some of these "kennings" in the previous chapter, but I cannot resist a few morę here -"corpse-bramble," for instance, and "war snake," "viper," and perhaps the most frequently used one, particularly in Anglo-Saxon poems, "ancient heir-loom." This, as a synonvm for "sword," mav seem a little odd, but in fact it describes some-thing very real. As we move front the period of the migrations into the Viking Age, we find that many of the swords used by characters in the Norse Sagas indeed were ancient heirlooms, swords either handed down in a family for generations, or taken out of burial-mounds for re-use, often a couple of centuries after their original interment. In the same way, many of the swords which were madę new during the Viking Age (which we may cali roughly between A.D. 750 and 1100) were still in active use as late as the 13th century. In the Swiss national Museum in Zurich, there is even a pattern-welded blade of 7th-century datę re-used with a "landsknect" hilt in the early 16th century; and I have on my wali a fine sword with a pattern-welded 8th or 9th century blade with inlaid inscriptions added c.1075. There may be many other similar examples yet to be found. This period which we cali the Viking Age was a linking time between the Heroic Age of the migrations and the Age of Chivalry; for the roving and raiding of the Vikings was the finał manifestation of the migrations, while the Age of Chivalry began during the finał century of Vikingdom, and was in fact the product of the Viking heroic ethos added to the imaginative romanticism of the Celtic peoples of France and Brittany and Western Britain.

So at the start of the Viking Age, swords from the migration period were still in use, and at its end (as we shall see) we find that swords of types that have always been associated with the Age of Chivalry were put into the graves of Vikings.

In between these two "periods" of swords, were the various types which are always known as "Viking Swords." A most complete and masterly study of these hilt-forms was published in Oslo, in 1919, by Dr. )an Petersen. His study was mostly confined to die hilts because tlić forms of blade did not vary much. Nothing to compare with Petersen's work has been done -nor, indeed, is it ever likely that morę work will need to be done, so sound is his study. However, it is possible to reduce his 26 types and numerous sub-types to just nine, which makes die whole diing morę manageable. In Figurę 23,1 have drawn these nine forms; I have shown no morę than the basie outline, for if I were to go into all the infinite variation of decorative styles, I would need four or five chapters of this lengdi, and to very litde purpose.

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Figurę 23. Basic Yiking Hilt Types.