Knotlobe Hand Forged 1095 Steel Viking Short Sword | 26 Inch Overall | Five Lobe Pommel and Etched Knotwork with Triquetra Leather Scabbard | Norse Reenactment Gift | RK-1933

The Knotlobe is a Viking short sword with a five lobe upper pommel, a decorated lower guard and a band of etched interlace running along the centre of the blade. The grip is black leather with a bright steel band, and the fitted scabbard is black leather dressed with a bright throat carrying a triquetra and a pointed chape at the toe. At 26 inches overall it sits between a long seax and a full Viking sword, which is exactly where a great many surviving Norse blades actually fall.

Sword length in the Viking age was far less standardised than films suggest. Grave finds from Gotland, Jutland and the Irish Sea trading towns include plenty of blades in the twenty to twenty six inch range, carried by men who fought in a press where a long sword was a liability. A shorter blade came out of the scabbard faster, worked better behind a shield rim and cost a good deal less iron. This one is forged, ground, heat treated and finished in the Czech Republic.

Pommel, fuller and grip length are what separate a good Norse sword from a prop, and what to look for in a Viking sword goes through them. That three cornered knot is a triquetra, one of several covered in our run through the Norse symbols. A board from the round shields is what usually stands beside one.

Specifications

The triquetra on the scabbard throat

The three cornered knot on the throat of the scabbard is a triquetra, sometimes called a trinity knot. It is one of the oldest continuous motifs in northern art. It turns up on Germanic and Norse metalwork well before the conversion period, it appears on the Funbo runestones in Uppland, and it was later absorbed wholesale into insular Christian manuscript decoration where it took on its trinity reading. What it meant to a ninth century Norse metalworker is not recorded, and anyone who tells you the exact meaning with confidence is guessing.

What we can say is what it is made of. A triquetra is a single unbroken line folded three times, so there is no start and no end to it, and that endlessness is why it belongs to the same family of decoration as the interlace on the blade. Both are about a continuous line that cannot be traced to a beginning.

The throat is not only there to carry the knot. It is the working part of the scabbard mouth, a metal collar that stops the leather from splaying open where the blade goes in and out, which is the one place a scabbard always fails first. Put a decorative face on a structural fitting and you have the whole logic of Viking age metalwork in one small part.

1095 high carbon steel at short sword length

A short blade lets you make different choices than a long one. On a 34 inch sword the heat treat has to protect against a blade that can whip and take a set. At 20 inches that risk falls away, so the steel can be brought to a properly hard state and left there, and the edge behaves accordingly. Ours is 1095 hardened into the 54 to 58 HRC band, ground flat with a secondary bevel and finished satin.

The etched interlace along the blade is masked and bitten into the steel after the polish is complete, so the lines sit below the surface rather than on top of it. That order also means the surrounding steel is fully finished before the acid touches it, which keeps the pattern edges clean instead of feathered.

1095 is simple stuff. Iron, a little under one percent carbon, a trace of manganese and nothing else worth naming. It is not stainless. It sharpens on any stone, holds a good edge and will take a light patina over the years if you let it.

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 the Knotlobe the etched band along the blade is the natural place, and a short rune line reads particularly well there because the blade is wide at that point. The leather of the scabbard can also be tooled. See the engraving page for what fits.

Handling and balance

The balance point is about two and a half inches ahead of the guard, which makes this a very lively sword in the hand. It is fast to bring up, fast to change line, and it does not tire the wrist the way a full length blade does. If you have only handled longer swords the first impression is usually surprise at how quick it is.

It is a sharp, hand forged blade sold for collecting, display, reenactment kit dressing and controlled solo cutting. It is not sold for sparring and it must not be used in contact work against another person or blade. Reenactment combat requires blunt rebated steel made for that purpose.

Care

Wipe the blade down after handling and keep a light oil film on it. Mineral oil, camellia oil or a dedicated blade oil all work. A satin finish hides small marks better than a mirror does, but bare 1095 still spots if it is left damp, and salt from skin is the usual culprit rather than rain.

Do not store the sword in the scabbard for months at a time. Leather holds moisture and the tanning residues will mark bright steel. Give the scabbard a wipe and a light feed with a neutral leather balm twice a year and keep it away from radiators. Our steel care page has the full routine and it applies to plain high carbon steel as much as to pattern welded.

If it is going on a wall, hanging swords and axes safely covers mounts, fixings and what not to do.

Made in the Czech Republic

This is a handmade piece from the Czech Republic, made in a workshop that still forges, grinds and finishes by hand instead of stamping parts out. The smiths there have kept the older way of working, and the wood, horn and leather are shaped and fitted by hand as well. Two pieces of the same design will never be identical, and that is part of what you are buying.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We handle the import ourselves, look over every piece when it lands and ship from our warehouse in Chicago, Illinois. Engraving is done in the United States after the piece arrives, so your design goes on before we send it out.

A note on handmade variation

This short sword is hand made rather than machine made or bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. The lobes on the pommel are shaped by hand and no two sit at quite the same spacing, the etched band varies slightly in tone, and the leather on the grip and the scabbard has its own grain and its own depth of black. The dimensions, the steel, the heat treat and the build are the same every time. The character is not, and that is what you get from a forge rather than a factory.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from a seax?

A seax is a single edged knife with the edge and the spine converging, usually with no guard and no pommel to speak of. This is a double edged sword in miniature, with a proper guard, a lobed pommel and a symmetrical blade. Different tool, different ancestry.

Is the triquetra fitting solid metal?

The throat is a formed steel collar finished bright, with the knot worked into its face. It is a structural part of the scabbard mouth, not a glued on badge.

Is it sharp out of the box?

Yes, it ships with a working edge. Ask in the order notes if you want it left blunt, which is common for reenactment kit and for display pieces in a house with children.

Will it fit a standard sword belt?

The scabbard has a plain body without integral loops, so it takes a frog or a lashed suspension rather than sliding onto a belt directly. Most Viking style baldrics and frogs will carry it.

Can I get my own runes on the blade?

Yes. The etched band is the space your runes would take over, since your chosen engraving replaces the existing design rather than sitting next to it. Use the converter above the add to cart button.

How quickly does it ship?

One to two weeks of processing, then free shipping inside the United States with tracking.

What is in the box

• One Knotlobe Viking short sword in 1095 high carbon steel
• One fitted black leather scabbard with a triquetra throat and pointed chape
• A protective film of oil on the blade for transit
• Care notes 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

More of the same family: short swords, Viking swords, Viking seaxes and scabbards and sheaths. Background reading lives in the guides.

Worth a look beside this

Next along the rack is the Chainfell short sword, forged from 1095. For a straight comparison, see the Trinelobe short sword, 28 inches overall. Worth putting side by side with this is the Trinecrown short sword, 31 inches overall.

If you are putting a set together, the Bindoath Viking sword sits alongside it. Or start from a blank sheet on the custom Viking sword page.