Twinreave Hand Forged Double Ended Viking Sword with Knotwork Pommels | 44 Inch Overall Length | Twin Cord Wrapped Grips and Wooden Display Stand | Norse Fantasy Gift | RK-1820

Twinreave is a hand forged double ended Viking sword, a single fullered double edged blade section carried between two complete hilts. Each end has its own knotwork engraved guard band, its own cord wrapped grip and its own square block pommel cut with interlaced Celtic knotwork, and the two pommel patterns are deliberately different so the piece has a head and a tail rather than reading as a mirror. It stands on a dark wooden display stand.

Being straight about it, no Viking ever carried one of these. There is no double ended sword in the Norse archaeological record and there is no reason to think anyone tried. This is a fantasy and stage design, of the family that appears in film, tabletop art and theatrical work from the middle of the twentieth century onward, and it is best understood on those terms. What it borrows honestly from the Viking age is the hilt language. The square block pommel, the flat guard band and the interlaced ribbon panels are all real Norse metalwork vocabulary, put to a purpose the people who invented them never imagined.

Forged, ground, hilted and finished in the Czech Republic. It ships with the wooden display stand, a protective oil film on the blade and a care card. Free shipping inside the United States and one to two weeks of processing, because two hilts take twice the fitting work of one.

Specifications

Why a twin hilted piece has to balance at its exact centre

A normal sword can afford to be forward heavy because you only ever hold it at one end. A double ended sword cannot. Whichever grip you take, the other half of the piece is out in front of you acting as a lever against your wrist, so any mass that is not evenly distributed will make the sword behave completely differently depending on which way round you pick it up.

That is why the two pommels here are the same mass even though their engraved faces differ, why the blade section is fullered evenly along its whole length rather than tapering, and why the guards are matched. The result is a piece that rotates around its own middle and feels identical in either hand. It is a real constraint and it is the reason double ended designs are much harder to build well than they look.

The steel and the fittings

The blade is 1095 high carbon steel, forged, normalised, hardened and tempered to 54 to 58 HRC. On a piece with two hilts the tang arrangement is the interesting part. There is no tang in the usual sense, because both ends are hilts. The bar runs the whole length as one piece of steel, the grips and fittings are built onto it, and each pommel is peened over the end so the assembly stays in compression from both directions at once.

The guards and pommels are steel, cut, engraved by hand and given an antiqued grey finish so the interlace stays readable rather than dissolving into a bright polish. The grips are wrapped in cord over leather for a dry positive hold.

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 you can have a rune line down the blade fuller, or you can have one or both pommel panels recut to your own design. See the engraving page and say which end you mean.

Handling and display

Held at one grip it behaves like a very forward heavy staff and it wants a wide swing. Held at the centre of the blade section, which is how most people end up holding it, it spins easily around its middle. Either way it takes far more space than a normal sword and it should only be handled in a clear room well away from other people and from furniture.

Be honest about what this is. It is a display and costume piece with a proper heat treat. It is not for sparring, it is not intended for full contact work of any kind, and a sword with two live ends is genuinely more dangerous to its user than to anything else. The wooden stand is where it belongs most of the time.

Care

1095 is not stainless. Wipe both flats of the blade section down after handling and keep a light film of mineral oil or paste wax on them. The antiqued fittings do not need polishing and should not be brought back to bright, because the grey finish is what makes the interlace legible. See the steel care page for the full routine and for what to do about early rust.

The cord grips can be brushed clean with a dry brush. Do not soak them. The wooden stand takes a wipe and an occasional rub of furniture wax, and it should be set on a level surface so the sword sits without rocking.

Made in the Czech Republic

The work behind this piece happens in a Czech Republic workshop that has kept to the old methods. Steel is forged and heat treated by hand, the grind is taken down by eye rather than by machine, and the handle, fittings and sheath are cut and finished one at a time. Because of that, every piece carries small marks of the hand that made it.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import direct, check each piece when it reaches us, and ship from our Memphis, Tennessee warehouse. Engraving is added here in the United States after arrival, so the piece you receive is finished to your order.

A note on handmade variation

This sword is hand made, not machine made or bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. Two knotwork panels are cut by hand for every piece and no two interlaces sit at identical spacing. The cord wrap on each grip is laid on by hand and its pitch varies. The wooden stand is cut from natural timber whose grain, colour and figure change from board to board. The dimensions, the steel and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Is this a real historical Viking sword

No, and we will not pretend otherwise. Double ended swords do not appear in the Norse archaeological record. This is a fantasy design built with authentic Norse hilt decoration, and it is sold as exactly that.

Are both ends sharpened

The blade section is a single continuous double edged blade, so the whole of it carries an edge. There are no separate points because both ends of the piece are hilts rather than tips.

Can it be taken apart into two swords

No. It is one continuous bar of steel with a hilt built on each end. There is no joint in the middle and nothing unscrews.

Is the display stand included

Yes. The dark wooden stand shown in the photograph ships with the sword, because a piece with two hilts will not lean anywhere safely on its own.

How much room does it need to handle

More than you think. Assume a clear circle of at least eight feet in every direction and no ceiling fixtures overhead before you pick it up.

How long until it ships

One to two weeks of processing while both hilts are built and peened, then free shipping inside the United States.

What is in the box

• One Twinreave double ended Viking sword with two knotwork hilts
• Dark wooden display stand
• Protective oil film on the blade section
• Care card for high carbon steel and antiqued fittings
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

See more in fantasy swords, viking swords and sword stands and displays, or read the guides on balance and point of rotation.