HEMA Longswords

The Liechtenauer tradition, and what a longsword trainer is for

The German longsword tradition runs back to Johannes Liechtenauer, whose teaching survives as a compressed mnemonic verse preserved in manuscripts from around 1400 onward. The verse is deliberately obscure. What makes it usable is the body of glosses written by later masters, who took each line and explained the play behind it, and those glosses are what most clubs work from.

The system rests on a small set of ideas rather than a long list of moves. There are four principal guards, vom Tag over the shoulder, Ochs with the point levelled at the face, Pflug low in front of the body and Alber with the point down. There are five named strikes that break them. Above all there is the question of who holds the initiative, the Vor and the Nach, and the moment called Indes where one turns into the other inside a single bind.

All of that happens with two blades in contact. Winding, pressing and feeling whether the other fencer is strong or weak at the bind is the core of the art, and none of it can be learned from a sword that does not behave like a sword. That is what a blunt longsword is for. It carries the mass and geometry of a sharp so the bind tells the truth, while the unground edge and turned tip make it safe enough to work at speed. The Italian material of Fiore dei Liberi asks much the same of the tool.

Blunt against feder, and the tournament reality

A feder takes steel out of the blade and puts it back into the hilt, so a thin blade still handles like a sword, and adds a widened schilt above the cross to shield the hands. A blunt longsword does none of that. It is a sword shape with the edge left unground, so the blade stays wide and the mass sits where a sharp's mass would sit.

That difference has a hard consequence and it should be said plainly. Many longsword tournaments ban blunt longswords outright and accept only purpose built feders. If you are buying for competition, buy a feder. Nothing here is sold as tournament legal, because legality belongs to a named ruleset.

What a blunt is excellent at is everything else. Drill, pair work, slow sparring under control, reenactment and stage work, and preparation for cutting with a sharp. It also makes sense of the manuals, because the plays were written about this object rather than a training substitute. Most fencers who stay in the sport keep a feder in the kit bag for sparring and a blunt at home for the rest.

One safety note gets skipped too often. A blunt is not safe to be hit with at full speed simply because it is unsharpened. Steel moving fast breaks fingers whatever the edge is doing, so treat a blunt as a controlled speed tool unless your club says otherwise.

Fullers and taper

The fuller is the groove running down the flat of the blade, and it is not a blood channel, whatever the internet says. It is a stiffening device. Removing material along the centre line while leaving the edges intact gives a section that resists bending for less mass, in the same way an I beam does. On a sword that means a blade that can be made broad without becoming heavy.

Where the fuller stops tells you what the sword is meant to do. One running to the middle of the blade, as on the Vernholt and the Draugmoor, keeps mass forward for the cut. One carried to two thirds, as on the Myrkvald, lightens the blade further out and quickens the point. Twin low fullers through the strong, as on the Nattvarn, stiffen the part that takes the bind. A blade with no fuller at all, like the flat diamond section Drakvend, is thicker through the centre and sits at the stiff end of the flex range, which is exactly where it is listed.

Profile taper is the other half. A blade that narrows steadily from cross to point moves the balance back towards the hand and quickens the thrust. One that stays broad and narrows late keeps mass in the cut. Neither is better, and both are on this page.

Hand and a half against two hands

Grip length is the quietest specification on a longsword listing and the one people notice after a month. A hand and a half grip takes both hands with the rear hand crowding the pommel. A full two hand grip gives room to slide the rear hand behind the pommel, which lengthens the lever and changes how the sword pivots.

The swords here cover both. The Vardholt, Vernholt and Valkspire are hand and a half. The Drakvend, Draugmoor and Nattvarn take two hands with room to move, and the Myrkvald sits between them. A longer grip favours big cuts and strong leverage in the bind, a shorter one a quicker point.

Pommel form matters here too, because the pommel is where the rear hand often ends up. A wheel is flat and comfortable to grip round, a faceted globe or barrel gives more to hold, and a fishtail like the one on the Valkspire flares across the end and locks the hand. Read the grip line and the pommel line together.

The nylon waster option

One piece here is not steel at all. The Tevrand is a moulded high density nylon waster with a steel cross bolted through the blade and a steel ball pommel, about 47 inches overall with a 36 inch blade, at a fraction of the price of the steel swords.

A nylon waster is a genuine training tool rather than a toy. It bends under a bind and returns straight, it will not rust, it needs no maintenance beyond a wipe and a check of the bolts, and most clubs allow it for drill and controlled sparring with the right gloves and mask. Before you know whether the sport will stick, it is the honest recommendation.

What it will not do is teach the bind. Nylon does not bite, the feel of strong and weak at the cross is muted, and there is no edge alignment feedback worth the name, so a cut that would have wobbled with steel feels fine. Use it for footwork, measure and the shape of the plays, then move to steel. The synthetic against steel guide goes through the trade in more detail.

Steel, hardness and flex

Seven of these eight swords are 51CrV4 spring steel hardened to 49 to 52 HRC, softer than the 1095 at 54 to 58 HRC used on the sharps elsewhere in this shop. A blade hard enough to hold a fine cutting edge is brittle enough to crack when two of them meet at full speed. Spring steel bends a long way and comes back straight instead.

Flex on this page runs across three of the four market tiers. Most are medium, the band around 25 to 29 lb of load where daily club training happens. The Nattvarn is listed as medium to strong, the band clubs use for hard drill. The Drakvend is the one strong tier blade, stiff through the forte with a little give at the tip. None of these figures has been measured on a rig here, which is why every listing names a tier rather than publishing a number.

Edge lands run from about 2 mm to about 3 mm of flat across this group and every listing states its own. Tips split between rolled and flared heads of about 15 mm across and points simply blunted and rounded off. A rounded point is not a spatulated tournament tip, and the listings say which is which.

Lengths, blade types and flex across this category

Every figure in the table below is taken from the specification panel of a product on this page. Nothing is estimated. Sizes vary piece to piece because each blade is forged and ground by hand, so read a stated length as nominal rather than exact.

Care

Spring steel rusts exactly as high carbon does. Wipe the blade down after every session, because sweat comes through a glove and hand oil marks steel overnight. Keep a light film of mineral oil on the flats and in the fuller, store the sword flat or hanging rather than standing on its point, and never leave one in a kit bag with a damp jacket.

Check the hilt before a session rather than after. A peened pommel loosens slowly and the first sign is a faint rattle at the cross. Blunt tips spread over months of thrusting into a mask, and a spread lip is sharper than a fresh tip, so dress it back with a file and measure again. A bend in spring steel is normal and comes out over a knee with steady pressure rather than a hammer. The nylon waster needs none of this: wipe it and check the two bolts through the cross. The care guide covers rust, oil and storage.

Where these are made

Every sword in this category is made by hand in the Czech Republic and imported by Ransack Viking. Each is checked for hilt tightness, pommel seating and blade straightness at the North Babylon, New York warehouse and ships from there. Shipping inside the United States is free and returns run for seven days.

The lifetime warranty covers defects in the forging, the grind, the heat treat and the fittings, with no end date and no receipt needed. It does not cover a blade bent in normal sparring, because bending is what spring steel is meant to do. Engraving is carried out in the United States after the sword arrives, so send the exact spelling with the order, and an engraved piece cannot be returned.

Browse related sword categories

• The full HEMA sword range across every family
• Feders with schilts, rolled tips and medium flex blades
• Single handed arming sword trainers for sword and buckler
• Messers and kriegsmessers with riveted scale grips
• Bolognese sideswords with finger rings and knuckle bows
• Sharp longswords for cutting and for display
• Two handed greatswords and zweihanders at full length

Guides worth reading first

• What HEMA is and how a club actually trains
• What a feder is and why it is not a blunt longsword
• Blunt against sharp training swords, and which you need
• HEMA tournament gear rules and what gets checked
• HEMA sword flex explained, tier by tier
• Synthetic against steel trainers for a first year fencer
• How to choose your first HEMA sword without wasting money
• How to display swords and axes on a wall safely