QUOTE (Lionhearted @ Dec 4 2012, 05:34 PM)
I can honestly not remember this... Is this from the danish or icelandic sagas? or from the british isles?
One sec, lemme do some digging. It's been a few years since my last big research project on how awesome Vikings were (grad school had me focus on American history more), but I'll see what I've still got lying around.
The
Fóstbræðra saga talks about a few (including when Snorri dies to a cleverly-hidden short axe held behind a shield), the
Sturlu saga mentions an axe used specifically to hook and drag someone and the
Þorskfirðinga saga details someone trying a similar hook maneuver to grab someone's shield, where in the
Eyrbyggja saga the axe is used to hook a wall (and then climb over, ninja-Viking style). The
Valla-Ljóts saga discusses the different axes that Ljótur carried based on his mood, the
Brennu-Njáls saga mentions the haft-wrapping (for protection/weight) some warriors did, while the
Harðar saga has axe combat (where a plucky warrior kills six guys despite being surrounded, until the head flies off his axe and he dies). The
Þórðar saga has someone using the back-end (non-bladed) of his axe to knock a dude out and take him prisoner. The
Króka-Refs saga, Fljótsdæla saga, and
Eyrbyggja saga all have axe combat (against the equally popular spears and swords), but detail the axe being used to parry and block.
So they're there, as part of the cultural memory, being used as weapons, decorated and customized like weapons, being used to break into forts, bashing in heads, knocking dudes out, parrying and fighting, and even using specialized combat maneuvers that you couldn't mimic with a sword or spear. I'm certainly not denying they were popular as tools
also, and -- again -- I'm not saying that the popular image of
nothing but axes is quite right, either...but they certainly had their place, and that place was often on the battlefield.
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Yes this was what I was getting at. There's also finds of weighted maces and warhammers, but by far the broad hiltless sword was the most common weapon. I think "not the most prominent" would be more accurate.
Yeah, absolutely. I just had to be a little nit-picky when you made it sound like the Viking axe in combat was
as mythical and made up as those goofy horned helmets, was all.
There's just too much evidence to the contrary, ranging from archeological finds to mythical battle accounts and more reliable historical accounts that include them as weapons, not just tools. I didn't want to see 'em written off!
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Still small throwing axes would be the most common axe used in combat.
Those wicked little throwing axes (especially linked with the Saxons, as they spread down into England)
were really cool, yeah. But it also makes sense they'd be more common (small/lighter/cheaper to make, easier to carry, and they evolved to become status symbols as much as weapons).