Viking Temple Sword – Brown Grip – Deepeeka

This Viking sword is crafted with an unsharpened blade of forged EN45 high carbon steel. The guard and pommel are of mild steel and the wooden grip is finished with a wrap of brown leather. The sword blade and hilt are fitted together with a solid peen over the pommel.

The wood-core scabbard is bound in green-dyed leather and finished with a stained green wooden suspension loop and a protective steel chape.

Archeology in some Icelandic burial sites have found over a hundred weapons interred with their owners as grave goods. Of that number only sixteen were swords. Though the sword held great reverence in Viking society, it was not the most common of weapons – spears and seax hold that distinction.

In the dark ages and the early medieval period, swords were notably more difficult to make than spears and axes. A rudimentary, but functional spear or axe merely needs to be made durably, but a sword requires good steel and a skillful tempering, for it needs to flex and return true, not bend or break. This requires a much more skillful level of smithing than is needed for the forging of spears, axes and small seax.

This ceiling in difficulty ensured that the fewer number of smiths who could craft a masterful sword could be well-compensated for their rarer skill. Not all smiths made their own blades however, as many sword blades were actually imported from continental Europe – importing brings its own add-on costs and these would ensure that swords remained a pricey, but esteemed weapon of war in the Viking age.