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>If a sword has snapped in half was it welded back together I'm not aware of any physical period examples of this happening HOWEVER the Gísla saga mentions a b

>If a sword has snapped in half was it welded back together I'm not aware of any physical period examples of this happening HOWEVER the Gísla saga mentions a broken sword being used to fashion a spearhead. Melting the metal back into bar stock would have been a waste of time and resources if you could just forge it into something else. The above example of making a spearhead, as you suggest making a shorter blade is logical, someone could have just reused it to pattern weld (pattern welding existed by the 2nd century in Europe) another implement.

benj111 8y ago
" Then Thorkel brings out the broken bits of "Graysteel," which had fallen to his lot when they parted their heritage, and Thorgrim forged out of it a spear, and that spear was all ready by even and fitted to its haft." http://sagadb.org/gisla_saga_surssonar.en http://sagadb.org/gisla_saga_surssonar.en This reads to me more like just using the metal as raw material? Obviously some 'nuance' will be lost in the translation of ancient sagas though. My intuition is that if everything is hand made to order, theres nearly no down side to fixing/ remaking versus making from scratch. I'm interested to see how far that went.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  Named weapons in myth (Mjolnir, Tyrfing, Fragarach, Moralltach, Claíomh Solais etc) and legend almost always involved magical properties, I would assume that using the material to literally forge something else would destroy these properties and that more likely the intention here is that the tip side of the break was used for a spear point.
  - benj111 8y ago
    Is that an assumption, or something more concrete? I have problems with making assumptions about magical things. Maybe you just need to tap it 7 times to keep the magic in?
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > I would assume that using the material to literally forge something else would destroy these properties Historical views about magic properties frequently involve reuse of materials to transmit properties, so I wouldn't assume that.
    - ryanmercer 8y ago
      >so I wouldn't assume that I assume it based on alleged supernatural items like the Lance of Longinus (the holy lance, spear of destiny etc). While at its creation it would have originally been a Pilum some 6 and a half feet long with the pole having been lost by the 600's when King Khosrau II captured it, since then some have reported it as having power for rulers/military leaders and Hitler even took it and some attribute it to the power of the Nazis during WWII as a fragmented, 'repaired' piece. Now it's back in the Hofburg palace collecting dust. There's countless other artifacts that are purported to have magic power/attributes that are mostly fragments too. If you could manufacture it into something else I imagine it'd have been a hell of a lot easier to just melt it down and make a swagger stick or a belt buckle or something. Mind you we're debating something that is unrpovable but haha, I like to spend some thought on such things anyway.

benj111 8y ago

" Then Thorkel brings out the broken bits of "Graysteel," which had fallen to his lot when they parted their heritage, and Thorgrim forged out of it a spear, and that spear was all ready by even and fitted to its haft." http://sagadb.org/gisla_saga_surssonar.en http://sagadb.org/gisla_saga_surssonar.en This reads to me more like just using the metal as raw material? Obviously some 'nuance' will be lost in the translation of ancient sagas though. My intuition is that if everything is hand made to order, theres nearly no down side to fixing/ remaking versus making from scratch. I'm interested to see how far that went.

ryanmercer 8y ago
Named weapons in myth (Mjolnir, Tyrfing, Fragarach, Moralltach, Claíomh Solais etc) and legend almost always involved magical properties, I would assume that using the material to literally forge something else would destroy these properties and that more likely the intention here is that the tip side of the break was used for a spear point.
- benj111 8y ago
  Is that an assumption, or something more concrete? I have problems with making assumptions about magical things. Maybe you just need to tap it 7 times to keep the magic in?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > I would assume that using the material to literally forge something else would destroy these properties Historical views about magic properties frequently involve reuse of materials to transmit properties, so I wouldn't assume that.
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    >so I wouldn't assume that I assume it based on alleged supernatural items like the Lance of Longinus (the holy lance, spear of destiny etc). While at its creation it would have originally been a Pilum some 6 and a half feet long with the pole having been lost by the 600's when King Khosrau II captured it, since then some have reported it as having power for rulers/military leaders and Hitler even took it and some attribute it to the power of the Nazis during WWII as a fragmented, 'repaired' piece. Now it's back in the Hofburg palace collecting dust. There's countless other artifacts that are purported to have magic power/attributes that are mostly fragments too. If you could manufacture it into something else I imagine it'd have been a hell of a lot easier to just melt it down and make a swagger stick or a belt buckle or something. Mind you we're debating something that is unrpovable but haha, I like to spend some thought on such things anyway.