What is this?

D7reamers

D7reamers

Joined
Aug 29, 2001
Messages
850
Got this in the mail, but I don't know what it is.
vikingrunicsax.jpg
 
It's called a Sax - an early single edged sword and/or long knife. From what I've read a very popular piece with germanic and scandinavian folks. Perhaps where the Saxons got their name?
 
D7reamers,

The sax was a forerunner of the Bowie/Camp knife. that is how I would use it. BTW, where was your example made?

n2s
 
It was also spelled "seax" as well but today the term "seax" is generally reserved for small axes.

Just by happy coincidence, I was looking at an authentic sax tonight!
It dated from about 800AD or so and was mostly rust, but still quite recognizable for what it was.
blade length was about 6 inches, one inch wide, approx 1/8th thick with a rat tail tang.

Sax and Scramasax are today commonly portrayed as largish knives / small short swords, and even daggers but in truth the term applied just as well to any utility/backup/hideout blade of the Viking era.
 
I don't think I've seen one with that "viking" type pommel before. Is it common?
 
It's a very early pattern I believe.
Not common, but close enough to be correct.
 
There is an example in a British museum that is being reproduced. The original is circa 750AD.

The seax in the lead post looks a lot nicer than the MRL/Windlass offering of the same genre.

Hotspur, that looks like a nice piece
 
This knife was commonly used by most northern Europeans fron the period of the Late Roman Empire in the 5th Century CE up into the 11th Century, at least. It is known as the seax, the sax, the seax(or sax) knife, and the scramasax. I have seen records of them from the size of the modern paring knife up to a monster with a 36" blade that would have qualified as a single edged sword. As you can well imagine, with that variation of size, they were used for virtually every purpose to which you can put an edged tool. They were used in food preparation, in hunting, in eating, in woodworking, and, of course, in fighting.

What is pictured is the more commonly seen variety, what we know today as the "Broken-Back Sax" for obvious reasons. But there were other varieties. There was the Frankish Sax, a form that looked like a double edged dagger, though apparently sharpened on one edge only. It is pictured in "Daggers and Fighting Knives of the Western World From the Stone Age Till 1900", by Harold Leslie Peterson, as well as elsewhere. There is a very nice reproduction of one of these made by Paul Chen for CAS-I and to be seen at http://www.renstore.com/cgi-bin/Ren...7a8273f40d40a730615/Product/View/CAS&2D1075GT Just do not be too offended at the items that they sell to the RenFaire crowd as well as the nicer items. I have one of these and like it a lot, now that I have made a field modification to the sheath to hold it in more firmly. As it comes from CAS-I, the sheat is too loose and the angle at which it hangs is too shallow, causing the sax to fall out too easily. I punched a pair of holes through the flaps at the top and tied a leather lace through them to tighten the hold on the hilt.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top