Vikings tv show and traditional Nordic patterns

silenthunterstudios

silenthunterstudios

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It's that time of year folks, when roaring wood stoves and hot coffee give thought to times long past.

At least for me it does, in the mid Atlantic winter, consisting of mainly cold rain, which makes my back think it's a can can dancer.

Anyway, I have been catching up on previous seasons of the tv show Vikings. This show is highly stylized retelling of the Viking sagas of Ivar the Boneless, Bjorn Ironside, Ubbe, Sigurd Snake in the Eye and Hvitserk, the sons of the supposed amalgamation known as Ragnar Lodbrok, or Lothbrok on the show. So far, I'm really enjoying the axes, swords and even the seax featured. Even saw the movie the Last King several weeks ago, and really enjoyed it.

I love to see movies and tv shows about my ancestors the Vikings and the Mongols, among other bloodlines, and would love to see a Hollywood mashup, it didn't happen as far as we know, but would have been awesome...

I've always been fascinated by the puukko, but what about the actual Nordic blades? Let's see them all. From the Vikings ever present seax, to the battle axe and sword, spears, to the barrel knives of yesteryear. Leukus, puukkos etc.
 
I really enjoyed the Last King, it was a lot of fun seeing the characters using some form of skis (not sure if there is a traditional term for such things). I have only seen the first season of Vikings and have enjoyed it for the most part.

The problem that I have with movies in general in regards to their representation of knives and weapons is that they usually are over stylized which, in my opinion, tends to take away from the original designs. Weapons from past times tended to follow the function over form rule but Hollywood, in its efforts to add something to a character, usually provides them with weapons that are "special" as opposed to giving them weapons that are purely functional. The caveat to that historically, is that wealthy individuals did have weapons with a lot of ornamentation, it just wasn't terribly common. The large "fantasy" double bit axe that one of the main characters in The Last King has almost ruined the movie for me in the beginning, but I got over it as the movie itself was quite enjoyable.

That all being said, I would love to see what others have to contribute. I do not own a seax style blade yet, though I have been looking at having one made. Design-wise, it is rather functional. I have also been playing around with the idea of taking a traditional spear head with me on my wilderness outings and making a shaft for it.
 
Pàdruig;16855966 said:
The caveat to that historically, is that wealthy individuals did have weapons with a lot of ornamentation, it just wasn't terribly common.
Click to expand...

For weapon ornamentation, and jewellery in general probably the finest craftsmen in the ancient world; at least in Europe, were the Anglo-Saxons. They came from what is now Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands and invaded Britain in the 5th and 6th Centuries AD.
Probably the finest example of this craftsmanship so far discovered came from the Sutton Hoo Burial found in southern England in 1939 and now in the British Museum.

http://anglosaxon.archeurope.info/index.php?page=the-sword-and-its-fittings
 
Don't know if this is inline with the thread or not, but cold steel, did release some "seax" machetes some time ago. They always looked like a comfortable and inexpensive way to try out the pattern, they had one short one that might have been analogous to the real thing, as I've read that some had blades long enough to almost qualify as short swords.
Thanks, Neal
Ps -great topic
 
tongueriver said:
If you go to Wikipedia for "seax," you can chase hotlink after hotlink and find a lot of fascinating reading and images. Meanwhile, here is the real deal:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/secrets-viking-sword.html :thumbup::cool::thumbup:
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Thanks tongueriver, simply one of the best things I watched relating to blades ever👍 52 minutes of pure BLISS. I learned something so very interesting today so it makes it a great day. I've watched every episode of Vikings as I'm a history junkie. I enjoyed this immensely 😉
 
I'm just about to start a puuko project myself- got the blade -enzo puuko in 01, some spacers ,copper pins and buffalo horn scales. I'l get it happening once the kids start back to school next week.
I'm a big Vikings fan -I know Travis Fimmell is an Aussie but where the hell did they get the Emu from that Isaw in the Kattegat market place?
 
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