Viking Swords

What makes a sword a Viking sword

The Norse did not build their swords in isolation. Most of the blades carried in Scandinavia between roughly 800 and 1050 came out of Frankish workshops along the Rhine, and they were traded, gifted or taken rather than made at home. What marks a sword out as Norse is the proportion of the whole thing rather than the origin of the steel.

The blade is broad. On the pieces here it measures around two inches at the shoulder, stays close to parallel for most of its length and carries a wide shallow fuller that runs almost to the tip. The taper is slight and the point is often rounded rather than acute. That geometry follows from the job. A sword of this shape was made to cut against mail, padded cloth and a limewood shield, not to find a gap in plate, so the makers put the mass where the cut happens and left the point comparatively blunt.

The hilt is the other half of the answer. A Norse hilt is short, generally three to four inches of grip between the guards, sized so the hand fills it completely and cannot slide. Below the grip is a straight lower guard, little more than a bar. Above it sits the pommel, and the pommel is doing real work rather than decoration. It counterweights the blade so the balance point falls a hand's width in front of the guard instead of out towards the tip. Remove the pommel and the same sword becomes an unmanageable length of steel.

Later medieval swords move away from all of this. Blades narrow and taper harder, grips lengthen, guards grow into long quillons. If a sword has a long tapering point and a grip you can get two hands onto, it belongs on the longsword page rather than this one.

Petersen types and what the pommel tells you

Jan Petersen published his survey of Norwegian sword finds in 1919 and sorted the hilts into lettered groups. Archaeologists still work from it, sometimes alongside the later Wheeler and Oakeshott schemes, because the blade of a Norse sword changed slowly across the period while the hilt changed a great deal. Look at the pommel and you have a rough date. Look at the blade alone and you have almost nothing.

None of the pieces here are sold as reproductions of a numbered find, and no listing on this page claims a Petersen letter. What the collection does carry is the family of pommel shapes the typology is built on, so the vocabulary is worth knowing before you choose.

Lobed pommels

The shape most people picture. A cap divided into three or five rounded lobes, usually sitting on a straight upper guard bar so the two read as one unit. Three lobed and five lobed pommels are both common here, in polished steel, blackened steel and brass, and several carry an engraved Valknut, triquetra or Norse beast cut into the centre lobe. This family covers the early and middle part of the period and is the safest choice if you want a sword that reads as unambiguously Norse across a room.

Brazil nut and dome pommels

A solid rounded mass, either the flattened almond shape known as a brazil nut or a plain dome on a stepped collar, peened over the end of the tang. These belong to the late Viking and early Norman era and continue into the arming swords that followed. Several pieces here use solid brass for them, sometimes grooved across the crown, which shifts the balance back noticeably compared with a hollow steel cap of the same size.

Disc and wheel pommels

A flat circular plate, or a thicker wheel with a raised centre, often engraved. This is the form that outlives the period and becomes standard on medieval arming swords, so a disc pommel Viking sword sits at the very end of the timeline. Examples here carry engraved knotwork, a Valknut or a triquetra inside a ring on the face of the disc.

Annular and ring pommels

An open ring rather than a solid mass, sometimes with a contrasting metal lining the opening. The version on this page is blackened steel with a brass lined ring. It is a less common find historically and it is the lightest of the pommel families for its apparent size, since most of the volume is air.

Faceted, trumpet and tea cosy forms

The remainder. Faceted steel caps cut into flat planes, flared trumpet forms, and the rounded tea cosy shape banded with steel. These sit at the edges of the typology and turn up on individual pieces rather than across a whole group. Buy them because you like the look of them, not because they place the sword in a period.

Ulfberht blades and what the name meant

Roughly 170 surviving blades from the Viking age carry some version of the name +VLFBERH+T inlaid in iron letters down the fuller. They span two centuries, which is far too long for one smith, so the name worked as something between a workshop mark and a brand. Blades carrying it tend to be better than average, and a fair number of surviving examples spell it wrong or place the crosses in the wrong spot, which is the earliest recorded case of somebody counterfeiting a maker's mark on a blade.

The interest is metallurgical as much as historical. Several genuine Ulfberht blades test as high carbon crucible steel far cleaner than most European bloomery iron of the period, and the argument over where that steel came from and how it reached the Rhine has been running for decades. There is a longer account of all of it in the guide to the Ulfberht sword and what the inlaid name actually meant.

Two pieces on this page are built as Ulfberht style swords, one in high carbon steel and one in Damascus, both at 36 inches overall with a 30 inch blade and a listed bare weight around 2 lb 12 oz. They are modern interpretations of the look rather than reconstructions of a specific find, and no listing here claims to reproduce a museum piece.

Lengths, weights and steel across the range

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.

Two things are worth reading carefully. Weight figures are given bare in almost every case, so a sword listed at 2 lb 12 oz will feel heavier in the hand once a scabbard and belt rig are hanging off it. And overall length includes the pommel, which on a brass brazil nut piece is a real fraction of the total, so two swords quoted at 36 inches can have blades an inch apart.

Steel, hardness and the edge you actually get

There are two steels presented as a house standard across this site and no others. A handful of older listings state a different grade in their own specification table, and where they do, that table is the accurate answer for that piece.

Plain 1095 is a simple high carbon steel hardened here to 54 to 58 HRC. On a sword that range matters more than it does on a knife. A sword is a long lever, and a blade taken too hard snaps instead of bending. Keeping 1095 in the middle fifties buys toughness through the length of the blade at the cost of a little edge retention, which is the correct trade for a piece this size. It sharpens quickly, takes a fine edge, and it will rust the moment you leave it damp.

Damascus here is 1095 and 15N20 forge welded in alternating layers, drawn out, folded and etched so the nickel bearing 15N20 stays bright while the 1095 darkens. Hardened to 58 to 60 HRC, it holds an edge a little longer and takes more work to bring back. Most of the billet is still 1095, so it rusts exactly like carbon steel and the etched surface needs the same oil.

For a Viking sword the practical rule is short. If the sword will be handled, cut with or drilled, take 1095. If it is going on a wall, being given as a gift, or being bought because the pattern is the point, take Damascus. The price gap reflects the labour in forge welding a billet long enough to make a sword, not a jump in performance.

Read the edge line on the product page as well, because it varies piece to piece across this group. Some listings state an unsharpened display edge with a rounded point. Others state sharpened on both edges, or sharpened and ready to use. A number of listings say nothing at all about the edge, in which case treat it as a display grind and assume you will be finishing it yourself if you want it keen.

A display edge is not a safety feature. It is a blunt bar of hardened steel roughly a yard long and it will break bone. Keep it out of reach of children, do not hand it to somebody who has not held a sword before without saying so first, and do not swing it indoors.

If a sword arrives sharpened, it arrives with a working edge rather than a razor. A very thin edge on a long blade chips against anything solid, so the grind is deliberately sturdy. A few passes with a coarse stone or a file, followed by a finer stone, will take any of these further if you want them there.

Fittings, scabbards, care and where these swords are made

Grips through this group are leather or cord over a shaped timber core, sometimes divided by steel or brass rings, sometimes ribbed or risered under the wrap. Guards and pommels are steel or solid brass, blackened, blued or polished, and the tang is peened over the pommel rather than threaded on a nut. A peened tang is permanent. You cannot dismantle one of these swords for cleaning without ruining it, which is worth knowing before you try.

Many pieces ship with a leather scabbard, and a few come with a belt rig as well. A leather scabbard is a storage risk rather than a storage solution. Vegetable tanned leather holds moisture and the tannins in it are mildly acidic, so a carbon steel blade left sheathed for a season comes out spotted. Store the sword out of the scabbard, oil the blade, hang the scabbard separately, and put the two together when the sword is being carried or shown.

Oil the steel with mineral, camellia or any food safe oil. Wipe fingerprints off the same day, because salt from a hand etches a print into a polished blade within a week in a humid room. Grey patina is stable and does no harm. Orange spotting is not, and comes off with fine abrasive and oil before it pits.

Every sword on this page is made by hand in the Czech Republic. Finished pieces are imported into the United States, inspected by Ransack Viking in Memphis, Tennessee, and shipped from there, with engraving added after arrival. Two swords of the same name will differ a little in grind, colour and the figure of the wood, because two people made them on two different days.

Browse related sword categories

• Arming swords, the single handed medieval sword that followed
• Damascus swords in forge welded 1095 and 15N20
• Short swords, seaxes and gladius shapes under 32 inches
• Longswords and hand and a half swords for two hands
• Broadswords with wide, heavy cutting blades
• The full sword range across every period and shape
• Viking axes, the other half of a Norse fighting kit
• Viking knives and seaxes for the belt

Guides worth reading first

• The Ulfberht sword: the inlaid name, the steel and the fakes
• Best Viking swords for collectors and what separates them
• How to buy your first sword without wasting money
• Display sword or battle ready: what the terms actually mean
• Steel and hardness explained, from 1095 to Damascus
• How to display swords and axes on a wall safely
• Famous Vikings, the people behind the sagas
• Valhalla, what the sources actually say