Sword Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
A sword (from Old English sweord; akin to Old High German swerd) is a bladed weapon, consisting in its most fundamental design of a blade and a handle. The blade is normally of metal and often ground to at least one sharp edge and usually has a pointed tip for thrusting. The handle, called the hilt, can be made of many materials, but the material most common is wood covered by leather, fish skin or metal wiring. The basic intent and physics of swordsmanship is fairly constant, but the methods of using those physics vary widely from culture to culture. Most of the variations can be understood in terms of the differences in blade designs around the world.
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2 Types of swords 3 Parts of the Western sword 4 External links |
History
This kind of weapon has been in use from the Bronze Age when the construction of long metal blades was possible for the first time. Early swords were made of solid bronze or copper. Not until iron could be forged did the sword truly become an effective weapon. Eventually smiths learned that with a proper amount of charcoal (specifically the carbon in it) in the iron, an improved alloy called steel could be produced.
Several different methods of swordmaking existed in ancient times. One of the most famous is pattern welding. Over time different methods were developed all over the world.
In Pre-Columbian South America and Mesoamerica several cultures made use of types of swords without developing metallurgy; for example swords with obsidian "teeth" mounted along the "edges" of a wooden "blade".
During the 17th Century and 18th Century, a smallsword was an essential fashion accessory in European countries, and carried by most wealthy men.
Having seen use for about five millennia, swords began to lose their pre-eiminance in the late 18th century because of increasing availability and reliability of firearms. With the invention of repeating firearms following the Napoleonic wars in the early 19th Century they became obscelescent as military weapons.
Swords were still used, although increasingly limited to officerss and ceremonial uniforms, although most armies retained heavy cavalry until well after World War I. For example, the British Army formally adopted a completely new design of cavalry sword in 1908, almost the last change in British Army weapons before the outbreak of the war. The last units of British heavy cavalry were converted to armoured vehicles as late as 1938.
Cavalry charges still occurred as late as World War II during which Japanese and Pacific Islanders also occasionally used swords but by then they were usually completely outmatched by an enemy armed with machine guns, barbed wire and armoured vehicless.
Types of swords
There are several hundred types of swords. Here is a list of some of the most famous:
Several modern sports and martial arts have components based upon older principles of swordfighting. Among these are fencing, kendo, kenjutsu, escrima, aikido and some variants of kung fu.
Many swords in mythology, literature and history are named by their wielders or by the person who makes them.
- Excalibur - King Arthur
- Kusanagi (Grasscutter) - The Japanese equivalent to Excalibur
- Sword of Damocles
- Zhulfiqar - The legendary two-tipped sword of Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib
- Tizona - El Cid
- Szczerbiec - The Polish kings
- Hrunting - Unferth, associate of Beowulf
- Gram (in the Volsung Saga) or Balmung (sometimes in later traditions) - Sigurd
- Tyrfing - a cursed sword from the Elder Edda
- Durandal - the sword belongs to Roland, a hero of the medieval French epic "The Song of Roland"
- Joyeuse - the sword of Charlemagne (Charles the Great), medieval king of Franks
- Grus- the historical sword of Boleslaw Krzywousty (Boleslaus the Wrymouthed), medieval prince of Poland
- Narsil (later Andúril) - The sword of Elendil, and later Aragorn in J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy.
- Stormbringer - The black sword used by Elric
- Green Destiny Sword - The sword used by Li Mu Bai in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
While a rigid classification is not feasible, the latter is usually referred to as a kind of chopping sword. The scramasax, usually lacking a cross-piece or any kind of guard, is more properly considered a war knife.
For a more comprehensive listing of swords types, see list of swords
The blade is the cutting part of a sword. In single-edged swords, the non-cutting edge is known as the back.
The blade may also have grooves or fullers, also known as "blood grooves." The purpose of these fullers is not to act as gutters for blood (as was once thought), but to lighten the blade while allowing it to retain its strength, in the same manner as an "I" beam in construction.
The hilt is the handle of a sword, and consists of the guard, the grip, and the pommel. It may also have a tassel or sword knot.
The scabbard is the case that the sword is kept in when not in use.
The ricasso or shoulder is a short section of blade immediately forward of the guard. Most swords have no ricasso. The ricasso is not sharpened, which sometimes allows a finger to be wrapped around the blade for better control. On some large weapons, such as the German longsword, the ricasso was covered with leather and might be gripped in one hand to make the weapon more easily wielded in close quarters combat. The maker's mark is normally to be found on the ricasso. On Japanese blades it is found on the tang under the handle.
The tang is the part of the blade extending from the top of the blade through the hilt and the grip. In a rat-tail tang the sword is held together by a nut screwed onto the tang above the pommel (in 20th-century and later construction), or the tang is peened over a nut on the end of the pommel (in traditional construction). It is one of the weakest types of tang. A "full" tang is the strongest type. In a full-tang sword, the tang is the same width as the sword blade. As the blade doesn't narrow where it joins the handle, it maintains all its strength.
The CoP (Center of Percussion), also known as the Sweet spot, is the part of the blade that can deliver the strongest blow with the least vibration. Most swords will have two of these points along the blade. The secondary one nearest to the hilt is a particularly poor point to have struck by another sword, if the user should make the mistake of believing popular mythology and using a sword edge to parry. Being struck at this point will allow the maximum force to be transmitted and is how a sword may suffer catastrophic failure.
From the 18th Century onwards swords which were intended to be used for cutting, i.e. with an edge, have been curved with the radius of curvature equal to the distance from the swordman's body at which it was to be used. This allowed the blade to have a sawing effect rather than simply delivering a heavy blow. European swords had a radius of curvature of around a metre as they were intended to be used at arm's length. Middle Eastern swords had a smaller radius as they were intended to be used with the arm bent. A significant defect that many European swords in the 19th Century had was the use of metal scabbards which tended to make them blunt, and consequently gave Eastern swords a fearsome reputation amongst European troops.
Swords intended for stabbing were normally straight, as it made accurate handling easier. European light cavalry (and infantry officers, who were usually on horseback) invariably had curved swords for slashing rather than straight ones for stabbing because if a thrust from a moving horse missed then it was hard to make a horse go backwards to repeat the thrust. This was particularly important when they were involved in skirmishes, which was the normal form that their fighting took. Heavy cavalry, which tended to charge en masse and not skirmish, usually had straight swords for thrusting.Parts of the Western sword