Nightcage Hand Forged 1095 Steel Basket Hilt Broadsword | 37 Inch Overall | Blackened Cage Guard and Brass Rosette Rivets with Etched Raven and Black Scabbard | Norse Gift | RK-2114

The Nightcage is a basket hilt broadsword finished almost entirely in black. The cage is built from slim blackened bars framing a flat plate, and it is that plate which carries the piece of decoration everything else defers to, a Norse raven cut into the steel with its wing folded and its beak turned back over its shoulder. Round brass rosettes sit at each rivet head, seven of them across the plate and the frame, and they are the only warm colour anywhere on the sword. The blade is bright polished 1095 with a shallow central fuller.

Odin keeps two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, thought and memory. Every morning he sends them out over the world and every evening they return to his shoulders and tell him what they saw, and the Poetic Edda has him admit that he fears more for Muninn than for Huginn, which is a remarkably human thing for a god to worry about. This sword is made by hand in the Czech Republic, imported and checked by Ransack Viking, and shipped from our Memphis, Tennessee warehouse with the black scabbard shown.

A cage around the hand changes how a sword carries, and how to buy a first sword covers what to weigh up. The raven is Odin’s bird before it is anything else, and the two ravens sets out the sources. For a Scottish blade with more mass behind it, look at the claymores.

Specifications

How a basket hilt is actually assembled

A basket looks like one object and it is not. It is a set of separately forged bars and plates, each drawn out, bent to shape over a form and then filed to fit its neighbours, and it is joined by riveting rather than welding. That is not a shortcut. Riveting allows a small amount of movement between the parts, which means a blow landing on one bar flexes the assembly slightly instead of cracking a rigid weld, and a rivet can be drilled out and replaced when a bar eventually needs repair.

The rosettes on this hilt are the visible heads of those rivets, dressed in brass so they read as decoration rather than hardware. Look at the underside of a period Scottish basket in a museum and you will see exactly the same thing, sometimes with the rivet heads left plain and sometimes chased into flowers or stars. The tang of the blade runs up through the middle of the whole structure and is peened over the pommel, which is what actually holds the sword together. Everything else hangs off that one connection.

Blackened steel, brass and the polished blade

The basket and pommel carry a black oxide finish. Chemically this is a conversion of the surface of the steel into magnetite, the same stable black iron oxide that forms in a controlled way on gun parts and cast pans, and it is worth understanding what that means in practice. It cannot chip or peel, because it is not a layer sitting on top. It is also thin, so it will wear pale at the points where a hand or a scabbard rubs, and it offers only mild corrosion protection on its own. It wants an occasional oiling like any other steel.

The blade is 1095 high carbon at 54 to 58 HRC and left bright, which is a deliberate contrast against the black hilt. Brass at the rivet heads and at the ferrule below the pommel is left polished and will darken to honey with handling, at which point it stops competing with the black and starts complementing it. Many owners let it go and never polish it again.

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, so runes ordered for the guard plate take the place of the raven. Engraving cut into a blackened surface exposes bright steel underneath, so a rune line on this hilt reads with more contrast than on any polished piece in the range. Engraving is done here in the United States after the piece arrives. See the engraving page.

Handling and balance

The cage puts a solid mass of steel behind your hand, so despite a thirty inch blade the sword balances within about two inches of the guard and the point stays quick. A basket also fixes your grip in one orientation, so edge alignment is set by your wrist rather than by rolling the sword in your fingers, and that takes a little getting used to if you are coming from an open hilted sword.

Check that your hand fits before ordering if you wear a large glove, since the internal width of a basket cannot be adjusted afterward. This is a hand forged sword with a real edge, made for display, collecting and controlled cutting on soft targets. It is not sold as a full contact sparring sword and should not be crossed with another steel blade.

Care

Wipe the bright blade after every handling session and keep a thin film of mineral or camellia oil on it, because 1095 is not stainless. Give the blackened basket a light oiled wipe now and then as well, working a soft brush into the corners between the bars where a cloth will not reach, and never clean it with an abrasive pad, which will take the black straight back to grey steel. Leave the brass alone unless you want it bright. Store the sword unsheathed for long periods. Rust removal and polishing steps are set out in our steel care notes.

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

The Nightcage is made by hand in the Czech Republic. A riveted basket takes far longer to build than a cast one, because every bar is bent, fitted and drilled individually before the assembly goes together and the whole thing is blackened as a unit. Nothing here is drop shipped from an importer catalogue by a seller who has never seen it. Ransack Viking buys these outright, brings them into the United States, unpacks and inspects each sword, and holds stock in our Memphis, Tennessee warehouse. Allow one to two weeks of processing before your order ships. United States shipping is free, and the lifetime warranty against defects in forging, grind, heat treat and fittings has no end date and needs no receipt.

A note on handmade variation

Hand made is not machine made or bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. Every bar in the basket is bent by eye, so the spacing and the curve of the cage vary slightly from sword to sword. Blackening takes with different depth across a hand built assembly and often looks richer in the recesses than on the high points. The etched raven sits a fraction differently, and the brass rosettes polish to slightly different tones. The dimensions, the steel, the heat treat and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Is the black finish paint

No. It is a black oxide conversion of the steel surface, so there is nothing sitting on top to chip or flake. It will thin at rub points over years of handling.

What are the brass discs on the guard

They are the dressed heads of the rivets that hold the basket together, finished as rosettes. They are structural as well as decorative.

Is the blade sharp

It arrives with a cutting edge. Ask in your order notes if you want it blunted for display or reenactment and we will roll it before shipping.

Will my hand fit in the basket

It suits an average adult hand comfortably. Message us before ordering if you wear a large glove and we will measure the internal width of the piece we are about to send.

Does engraving show up on a blackened guard

Very well. Cutting through the black exposes bright steel underneath, so the line stands out far more sharply than an engraving on polished metal.

How long is the wait

One to two weeks of processing, then free shipping inside the United States. Returns are accepted within seven days of delivery.

What is in the box

• Nightcage basket hilt broadsword in polished 1095 high carbon steel
• Blackened bar basket with an etched Norse raven on the guard plate
• Brass rosette rivet heads and a ball pommel with brass ferrule
• Black scabbard
• Lifetime warranty against defects in forging, grind, heat treat and fittings
• Hand made in the Czech Republic, shipped from our Memphis, Tennessee warehouse

Explore the range

See the rest of the swords, the wider Norse arms and the engraved and personalized pieces. Background reading is in the guides.