Odin Allfather Hand Forged Damascus Viking Bearded Axe | 18 Inch | Ash Wood Handle with Leather Blade Cover and Gift Box | Norse God Collector Gift | RK-635

The Odin Allfather is a Damascus Viking bearded axe you can put to work the day it arrives. Forge welded 1095 and 15N20 in the head, a fitted ash wood haft, 18 inches overall, a 5 inch cutting edge and 1.23 kilograms in the hand. A leather blade cover and a gift box come with it. Who was actually worshipped in the North, and how, is set out in the Norse gods.

If you are going to name an axe after the Allfather then the runes on it matter more than the steel, and Havamal explains why. Odin describes hanging nine nights on the windswept tree, wounded with a spear, given to himself, with no bread and no horn of mead, peering down into the deep until he seized the runes screaming and fell back from there. That is the founding story of Norse writing. The runes were not invented in this telling, they were taken, at a price, by a god who traded an eye at Mimir well for wisdom and then hung himself on Yggdrasil for the alphabet. Every rune converter on this site descends from that idea, and it is worth knowing before you have a name cut into a piece of steel. Odin does not carry an axe in any source, incidentally. He carries the spear Gungnir. This is a house name, not a claim.

Every Odin Allfather is welded, forged, heat treated, hung and finished in a Czech Republic workshop. Shipping inside the United States is free, processing takes one to two weeks, and returns are accepted within seven days.

Specifications

Where a bearded axe sits in the Norse record

Axes are the most common arms found in Viking Age graves by a wide margin, far more common than swords, for the obvious reason that a sword was a specialist object made by a specialist smith for someone with money, while an axe was a tool almost every household already owned. In 1919 the Norwegian archaeologist Jan Petersen published a typology that sorted Norwegian axe finds into lettered types running from A to M, and it is still the framework most people use.

The early types are small and narrow, close to a woodworking axe with a cheek reinforced for combat. Through the ninth and tenth centuries the heads get wider and thinner, the beard develops, and by the very late Viking Age you reach the Type M, the enormous two handed Dane axe with a bit that can exceed twelve inches and a haft over a metre long. The Bayeux Tapestry is full of them.

A bearded head at 5 inches sits in the practical middle of that story. It is the shape that never stopped being useful, which is exactly why bearded axes survive continuously in Scandinavian carpentry long after the raiding stopped. The beard is a downward extension of the bit, and it does three things at once. It adds cutting edge without shifting the centre of mass forward. It creates a hollow behind the edge that your hand can fit into for close carving. And its lower corner hooks a shield rim or a spear shaft, which is the manoeuvre that turns up repeatedly in the sagas.

Why Damascus and not stainless

The head is real pattern welded steel. Sheets of 1095 high carbon and 15N20 nickel alloy are stacked into a billet, brought to welding heat in the forge and hammered into a single solid bar, then cut, folded and drawn out again to multiply the layer count. The finished head is etched, and because the two steels react differently to the acid the internal layering becomes visible on the surface. It is structural. Grinding the bevel exposes new pattern rather than removing it.

Heat treated, this billet reaches 58 to 60 HRC, which is harder than the stainless in a typical hardware store axe and noticeably better at holding an edge through a session of camp wood. The reason we do not use stainless here is not snobbery. Chromium carbides in stainless make the thin section of an axe bit more likely to chip on a knot, stainless is harder to file back in the field, and it does not forge weld easily. The cost of carbon steel is corrosion, and the fix for corrosion is a dry cloth and a rag with oil on it. See Damascus versus stainless for the full picture.

Ash, and why it is the traditional haft

Ash has been the European timber of choice for tool handles for as long as there have been tool handles, and there is a mechanical reason for it. The fibres in a good ash stave run long and straight, and that structure gives the wood a rare combination of stiffness and elasticity. It flexes very slightly under impact and springs back, which absorbs shock that would otherwise arrive in your wrist. It is also comparatively light for its strength, so an ash haft does not add dead weight behind the head.

Ash carries some mythological weight too. In Voluspa the first man is Askr, whose name simply means ash, shaped from driftwood on a shore by three gods. Practically, ash is a light blond timber with visible open grain, and each haft here is worked from a different stave so the figure and tone shift between axes. Feed it a thin coat of oil once or twice a year, particularly through a heated winter, and check the wedge at the eye while you are doing it. A dried out haft shrinks, and a shrunk haft is how axe heads come loose. Method in wooden handle care.

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 or the handle. 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 whether it goes on the blade or the handle. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. On this axe the cheek above the beard suits a short line and the pale ash haft holds a long inscription clearly. Details on the engraving page.

Care and sharpening

Three jobs and no more. Dry and oil the head, oil the haft, check the wedge. Miss the last one through a dry winter and you will feel the head move. Do not store the axe long term with the damp leather cover strapped to the bit, and avoid abrasive pads on the etched surface because they dull the contrast in the pattern. Full routine in steel care.

Sharpen with a file first. A file removes a rolled or dented edge in seconds where a stone would take a long time, and following the existing bevel matters more than the grit you use. Once the shape is back, refine on a coarse stone and finish on a fine one at a consistent angle, exactly as described in sharpening with a whetstone. Never use a powered grinder on an axe bit.

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 Memphis, Tennessee. 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

The Odin Allfather is hand forged. It is not machine made and it is not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. The layered pattern is decided by how that billet moved under the hammer, the etch takes differently on every head, and the ash has its own grain, colour and figure. Pattern, tone and exact profile vary from one axe to the next because each is worked by hand from natural materials. The dimensions, the steel, the hardness and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Did Odin actually use an axe?

No. Odin carries the spear Gungnir in every Norse source we have, and Thor carries the hammer. Odin Allfather is the house name for this axe rather than a statement about the mythology.

Is it ready to cut when it arrives?

Yes. The bit is sharpened by hand before it is packed and will take kindling and camp wood on day one. It carries a working axe edge rather than a razor edge.

How much of the head is Damascus?

All of it. The whole head is forged from the layered billet, so the pattern runs through the steel from the eye to the edge and cannot be worn or polished away.

Can I put a rune line on the ash haft rather than the steel?

Yes, and pale ash actually shows a cut rune line more clearly than dark steel does. Tell us at checkout which you prefer.

What do I do if the head feels loose after a year?

That is the haft drying and shrinking, usually after a winter in a heated room. Oil the wood, and if the movement persists get in touch and we will talk you through re wedging it.

How long is delivery?

Processing is one to two weeks because each axe is forged to order, then US shipping is free. Tell us if you are working to a birthday or a wedding date.

What is in the box

• One Odin Allfather Damascus Viking bearded axe with ash wood haft
• Leather blade cover
• Gift box
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

Related collections: Viking Axes, Viking Hammers, Viking Helmet and Viking Shields. The runes, the steel and the care routines are covered in the guides.