Duskbrand Hand Forged 1095 Steel Norse Warrior Sword | Broad Fullered Blade | Black Leather Grip with Steel Lobed Pommel, Etched Beast Mark and Black Scabbard | Norse Gift | RK-1645

This is a Norse warrior sword built plain and dark. The blade is double edged with a broad fuller running down the centre, ground bright and finished with a small etched beast mark on the flat just below the guard. The hilt is all steel, a straight lower guard and a lobed pommel with the grip wrapped in black leather between them, and the sword ships in a black leather scabbard with a steel throat and a steel chape.

The scabbard is the part of a Viking sword that almost nobody thinks about and it is the reason so many blades survived. Norse scabbards were built on a thin wooden core, and that core was lined with sheepskin turned fleece side in. Wool carries lanolin, and lanolin is a natural water repellent grease, so every time the sword went home it was drawn through a soft oily surface that wiped the blade and left a film behind it. The sword oiled itself. Modern scabbards that skip the lining are the reason a lot of display swords come out spotted after a winter. This sword is forged, ground, fitted and mounted in a Czech Republic workshop.

Specifications

What a scabbard is actually made of

A good scabbard is three things stacked together and each one has a job. The wooden core is what gives the whole thing rigidity and holds the mouth open at a fixed width, so the blade goes in without being scraped. Two thin slats are shaped to the profile of the blade, hollowed slightly, and joined edge to edge. The lining sits inside that. The leather goes over the outside, wet formed so it shrinks tight onto the core as it dries and grips it without glue doing all the work.

The steel throat at the mouth stops the top of the core splitting, which is where every unfitted scabbard eventually fails, because the blade levers against that point every time it is drawn. The chape at the bottom does the same job at the tip and it also stops the point wearing through the leather when the scabbard is stood upright, which is how a sword was carried and stored far more often than it was hung horizontally.

The steel and the leather

The blade is 1095 high carbon steel, forged, ground, then hardened and tempered to 54 to 58 HRC. On a blade this length the temper matters more than the peak hardness does. Taken harder the steel holds an edge better but becomes a brittle bar that can take a permanent set or crack under a sideways load, and a sword is loaded sideways constantly, by its own weight on a rack as much as by anything else. Kept in this range it flexes and comes back.

The fittings are steel rather than brass on this sword, which is a plainer and in many ways more archaeologically honest choice. A great many Viking age hilts were iron with no bright metal on them at all, and the decoration, where there was any, came from wire inlay or from the pattern in the blade rather than from cast fittings. The grip and the scabbard are leather over shaped cores, wet formed so they dry tight rather than being wrapped loose over a filler.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel, the leather or the wood. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. On this sword that means your line goes where the beast mark now sits, or runs along the fuller if you want something longer, and the scabbard takes a name pressed into the leather. See the engraving page.

Handling and balance

Pick it up and the first thing you notice is that it is lighter than it looks. That is the fuller doing its work, taking steel out of the middle of the blade where it contributes least to stiffness. The second thing is that the pommel is pulling backwards, so the balance point sits a hand span or so ahead of the guard rather than out in the blade. That is the signature of a cutting sword. It comes round quickly, it changes direction without fighting you, and it recovers at the end of an arc instead of running on.

Hold it loosely. The black leather grip is shaped with a slight swell so it seats in the palm without being squeezed, and a relaxed hand is what lets the edge stay aligned through a cut. Please treat this as a display, collection and reenactment dress piece. It is not a full contact sparring sword and it is not intended for edge on edge work against another blade.

Care

The blade is high carbon steel and it will rust. Wipe it after every session of handling, because skin oil is acidic enough to etch a fingerprint into bare polished steel within a few days, then lay a thin film of mineral oil or light gun oil over the whole blade. Do not leave the sword sheathed for months at a time. Leather and a wooden core both hold moisture, and a blade stored wet inside a scabbard will come out marked. Hang it or lay it out and keep the scabbard next to it. Feed the grip and scabbard leather with a little balm once or twice a year, and wipe the steel fittings dry. More detail is on the steel care page.

Made in the Czech Republic

This piece is made by hand in the Czech Republic, in a workshop that still works the old way. The steel is forged, ground, heat treated and finished by smiths who learned the trade from the people before them, and the wood, horn and leather are cut and fitted by hand rather than pressed out on a line. That is also why no two pieces come out exactly the same.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import these pieces ourselves, check every one when it lands and ship from our warehouse in Memphis, Tennessee. Engraving is done here in the United States after the piece arrives, so your runes or your own design go on before it leaves for you.

A note on handmade variation

This sword is hand made, not machine made and not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. The fuller is ground by hand so its width and the way it runs out towards the point vary between blades, the lobes on the pommel are filed by eye, black leather takes dye and burnish differently on every hide so some grips read as a flat black and others carry a faint brown depth, and the etched beast mark is cut by hand. The dimensions, the steel, the heat treat and the fittings are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Is it sharp when it arrives

It comes with a working edge rather than a razor edge, which is what you want on a sword that will be handled, hung and passed around. Treat it as sharp regardless.

Can I use it for sparring

No. It is a display, collection and reenactment dress piece. Edge on edge contact chips any hardened blade. Use a purpose built blunt trainer for contact work.

Why steel fittings rather than brass

Because a large number of Viking age hilts were plain iron with no bright metal at all. Steel fittings on a dark hilt are closer to the archaeological norm than a bright brass hilt is.

Is the scabbard included

Yes. A black leather scabbard over a wooden core with a steel throat and steel chape comes with the sword at this price.

What is the mark on the blade

A small etched beast mark, the kind of maker device Norse and early medieval smiths used on the flat. If you would rather have runes or your own symbol there, we will cut yours in its place.

How long does it take to arrive

One to two weeks of processing in the shop, then free shipping inside the United States. Long parcels sometimes take a couple of extra days in transit.

What is in the box

• Hand forged 1095 steel Norse warrior sword with a broad fullered blade
• Steel guard, steel upper guard and lobed steel pommel
• Black leather grip over a shaped core
• Black leather scabbard with steel throat and chape
• Care card for high carbon steel and leather
• Lifetime warranty against defects in forging, grind, heat treat and fittings
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

See more in the Viking swords, the swords and the scabbards and sheaths, or read the guides on scabbard construction and blade care.