Brazil-nut Pommel ( Pb*)|
|Domed Pommel (Pb*)|
Unlike the obvious riveting of the early period sword-hilts, it is not always obvious what is holding the hilt together. As finds have proved, sometimes hilts came apart. If this happened during combat, the effects can only be imagined. Even a loose, rattling hilt would have been a huge disadvantage. As the entire upper hilt structure; pommel-bar and knob were made of iron, most methods of attachment relied on sweating the bar of the pommel on to the tang and then attaching the pommel-knob by (a) peening the end of the tang over the knob or (b) riveting the pommel and pommel-guard together, or occasionally (c) riveting a semicircular strip of soft iron to the pommel-bar through a hole in each side. This then served as a support for the hollow pommel-knob (see illustration). The first method (a) was most common with Petersen’s Type ‘L’ swords.
The ugly peened-over end of the tang was occasionally covered by a silver cap. Method (b) is seen in the ‘Westminster Sword’. Method (c) would seem to have been common in ‘Viking’ swords. None of these techniques seem to have been perfect, for there are plenty of swords found from the 8th to 10th cent, with no pommel cap, just the curved upper guard still on the blade, the pommel cap having fallen off.
|Late Anglo-Saxon and Viking Sword-hilt construction methods|
The brazil-nut and tea-cosy shaped true pommels were fixed directly to the tang. One presumes this was done by heating the pommel, hammering it gently onto the cold tang then allowing the pommel to cool and shrink onto the tang, hopefully fixing it firmly in place.
|Skerne Sword (c10th). Deposited in River Hull|
Although some Viking swords have been recovered from inhumations, by this time the English were no longer being buried with weapons. Most late Anglo-Saxon swords have, in fact, been recovered from rivers. This is true all over Europe; large numbers of swords and other expensive weapons have been found preserved in anoxic river silt. This has been good for us, a thousand or so years later but it poses a question because far too many have been found to have been due to accidental loss. All this points to a persisting sacrificial custom. Deposition of swords in sacred rivers and lakes has been a West European practice from as early as the Bronze Age. Although grave deposition seems to come to an end around 700 CE with the advent of overt Christianity, the ritual deposition of weapons seems to continue in the form of river offerings, perhaps indicating that the new religion had still not taken a firm hold on the warrior-soul.
(Many images kindly provided by Paul Binns Swords)