Thinking Sideways: Ulfberht

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Thinking Sideways. I don't you never know stories of things
we simply don't know the answer too. Hey, everybody, welcome
to another episode of Thinking Sideways the podcast. I'm Steve

(00:25):
as always, joined by my co host and Devon, and
this week we've we've got what I would say is
a pretty cool story for you. Well, of course it's
your mystery. Well you're you're right, that's why I think
it's cool. And it's unsolved pretty much, and we're gonna
solve it. No, So today's stories about Vikings. Vikings, What

(00:49):
do you guys know about Vikings? They were big on
rape and pillage and stuff like that. They're really smart,
um worshiped a lot of weird pagan gods. Um do
actually wear those horned Viking helmets? Spot on, good call.
But that's about all I know. Okay, Wellyland, for a
while they did, and theoretically they came to the America's

(01:14):
but they were chased away by the natives. Yeah. I
think they probably just looked around and decided this isn't
for us. Yeah, yeah, I in my research, I came
across and I cannot, unfortunately at the moment, think of
the name that that was assigned to the to the
Continental States, but it was it's something along the lines

(01:34):
of the same name. Their similar name they had for
for Greenland in those areas. They were were terribly creative
with their names evident probably West Greenland or something. We
will not go there. That's not a Norwegian accent. I'm
so sorry. That's okay. Uh. The story we're going to
talk about today is a Viking sword, specifically a sword

(01:57):
known as the Ufbert. Okay, okay, So the swords that
we're talking about, it's not a single sword, it's a
style of sword, and they were extremely notable. Uh. They
were essentially the best swords made in Europe when they

(02:20):
were made. Uh. And and here's what we know about swords.
The uf Bert swords were produced between approximately eight hundred
to one thousand c e uh. And they had Ufbard
inlaid on the blade just above the cross guard of
the sword. And so that was a factory where they
were made, the u Bard factory. Here's here's how the

(02:43):
inlay went is it was a cross V L F
B E r H cross T. And for anybody that
this might be a little confusing, the V is pronounced
with a sound. I believe it. That's from Latin if
if I'm not incorrect, where the V and the you

(03:06):
initially were interchangeable sounds yeah, well, and it's hard to
carve curves, so there's that. So it is uh, is
that an actual Norse word or is that No, it's not.
And we're going to get into some of that as well.
But this, these swords had that inlaid, and the inlay
was done in a different metal than the actual blade

(03:30):
was made. From what it was is I've seen accounts
where it was either the metal that made the letters
was laid on the blade or that the metal was
chiseled out and another piece of metal was put in
and then forge welded into place, which the term forge
weld means you you set the metal on there and

(03:52):
then you put it into a hot, hot forge and
it melts in and then you can file it or
sand it down, sand it down to the wrong word,
but you file it down so that everything is the same.
But that inlay, because it's a different metal, it stands
out and you can read it. Joe was kind of
pointing out, we don't know exactly what wolf means. There

(04:12):
is some research that suggests that it's a combination of
words in Norse Earth you r f means wolf and
bear means light, bright or shining, and that is a
word that's from Old High German or Old Saxon language.

(04:35):
So it seems that wolf Bert maybe a combination of words,
but we don't know exactly what it means. Wasn't there
also some speculation that it was the name of of
like a abbey or something that was in England at
the time. Well, there is speculation that wolf Bart is
the name of the guy who made the swords, or

(04:56):
maybe the family that made the swords, but we don't know, okay.
And then there were there were many of these swords made, correct,
thousands of them, No, not thousands. As of today, a
hundred and seventy one swords have been found with the
inscription will be and they don't all have the exact
same inscription, and we'll we'll kind of delve into that

(05:18):
a little bit. But only a hundred and seventy one
of them and found, and none of them were in
anywhere in your good condition. They're all pretty corroded and
pretty broke down, which makes them a little harder to
figure out exactly what's going on. Maybe this is just
like the earliest instance to the serial number, except they
hadn't quite gotten the serial never concept down, so maybe
maybe we'll go into it. But what's notable about these swords?

(05:42):
The wolf beards were stronger and more flexible than any
other swords that existed at the time in Europe. It
bent as in flex not bent, and stayed bent, which
was unlike most swords because a lot of swords at
that time were own to either seriously bending, so that

(06:04):
there's accounts where in battle a guy would have to
step on his sword to straighten it because it had
it took a serious bend, or worse, would shatter, which
is not exactly something you want to have. And I
guess we should um, I mean, you know, I don't
know if you know the answer to this or not.
But how long was it just like, oh, and then

(06:26):
they didn't find this kind of metal for another hundred
years or was it? Was there a great expansive time
between when this metal was found and there there is
a lot of detail around it, and we're going to
get in bed because it's it's one of the things
that really separates these swords from anything else that was
in use by the Vikings or anybody else in Europe.

(06:49):
But anyway that the flexibility of the sword is probably
one of the big things is is that it could
flex and wouldn't break or bend, And for the Viking
style of combat, that's really important. We've all seen the
movies where it's two guys and they're sparring and they're swinging,

(07:09):
and they're hitting swords back and forth, and they're they're
going one on one, exchanging that blow and blocking. It's
not how the Vikings fought at all. Vikings fought with
a sword or an ax or spear, but we're just
gonna focus on the swords and the wooden shield. And
what you did is everybody was just pressed in close,
and you are hacking away at the other guy and

(07:32):
he's using his shield to block your sword, and at
the same time he's hacking away at you and you're
using your shield to block him. What's a wooden shield
and it's got a metal rim around it, but eventually
the rim is gonna give out, So now you're hacking
into a chunk of wood, which is where the swords
are gonna get stuck because you've just gone into let's
say a half inch the thick piece of wood, it's

(07:54):
not gonna be easy to pull out. And that's where
swords were notorious for bending or breaking, whereas the wolf bear,
because it had an internal flexibility, you could pry on
it and wiggle it out and held a good edge
at the same time, but it would pull free and
just not have this horrible, you know, side angle stuck
to it. Now you're you're trying to use a j
to fight somebody. Yeah, which, and that's what made these

(08:20):
things so valuable to the vikings that owned them is
that you knew that your sword wasn't going to give
out on you. You knew that this thing was gonna
stay straight, it wasn't gonna break, and it was going
to hold a relatively good sharp edge for the majority
of the battle while you were using it. Absolutely, and
then you can go like trap up the enemy and
then go do some rapid and pillaging his lands and

(08:40):
then you know, yeah, something like that back in the boat,
back in the boat and the way. Yeah. One of
the things to mention about the oof Bird, or a
couple of things about their design. The sword itself was
about three ft long. They were about two inches wide,
at the base. They weighed about three pounds a little
under three pounds, and they were one of the first
swords where the center point of the sword was near

(09:03):
the hilt rather than out towards the tip, which made
them easier to use and faster to turn. If you
think about the center of gravity. Yes, thank you, that's
that's the word that I meant to use. Um. They
also had a different taper on the tip, which meant
that they came to a kind of a point quickly.
And because of their flexibility in the way they were shaped,

(09:25):
a lot of guys wore chain armor at the time,
and you know, if you hit him with a relatively
rounded tips sword, you're not going to go through. But
he's had that sharp edge. And because they held the
edge and they could flex, you could actually punch into
chain armor and you weren't likely to snag because the
metal wasn't gonna catch. So again makes them super deadly

(09:47):
and super efficient. And what they're meant for, which is
stebbing step step stab right. I mean you think about
other swords of that time, it's the kind of the
Roman Empire sword right had more of a rounded tip
because it was made for chopping at people with the
edge instead of point. So you know, it's an interesting

(10:08):
kind of adaptation, I guess, yeah. And and it gives
you more than one way to attack. You can stab
or you can swing. So it's it's again, it's it's
versatility and thrust. Exactly. The technology and this is the
term that I'm going to use, the technology of these swords,
uh was something that had not been seen ever before

(10:30):
in Europe and would not actually be seen again for
about a thousand years, and that would be at the
time of the Industrial Revolution. Are we talking the metal,
We're talking about the quality of the metal. That's exactly.
There's there's a couple of couple of things here that
the mysteries are, Um, you know, who made these swords,

(10:53):
why were they or where were they made? And then
why did they stop being made? Because it's a very
small time frame that they were made, by the way, Yeah,
about two hundred years eight hundred to one thousand CE
essentially about Yeah, And there's accounts that say they were
in you know, the early eight hundreds. Some have said

(11:16):
I've seen accounts where it said the first one that
was dated was eight hundred fifty. Uh So it just
it goes back and forth. So I'm just kind of
rounding it out into that range. But to start with,
let's talk about the Vikings themselves and what they did
and who they were. In the ninth century, the Vikings themselves,
their culture, their empire had established very extensive trading routes. Now,

(11:43):
the Vikings originated in Scandinavia, which today would be Denmark, Norway,
and Sweden. Uh, and they had spread out across the
western coast of Europe and to large parts of eastern Europe.
They were trading with were potentially rating as far south
as modern day France, and they were going as far

(12:07):
east as the Black and the Caspian Seas. Uh. And
to give geographic reference today, that's the area of Iran Turkey. Uh.
What's your Kazakhstan, thank you? Uh, there's And the ovens
that they were going that far and trading that far
is in Viking graves. They have found coins and jewelry

(12:31):
from that those regions, So they know they took these things,
whether they got him as payment in trade or they
pillaged it in pilford it, whichever it may be. So
they uh, in terms of getting to the Black Sea,
for example, they reached it exclusively, exclusively by sea, because
that's another stereotype about the Vikings, which is that they

(12:51):
were always like showing up in their in their ships,
you know, and then they didn't get there on water.
But the research shows that they probably got there via
the river Volga, and the Volga runs kind of through
that it runs kind of on the border of what
is modern day Russia and then down into those countries,
so it's it's a very big river. So they were

(13:14):
able to just go inland and sail down that and
then from there spread outwards in all the surrounding areas.
So they really they made some serious territory. They covered
some serious ground. So for a people that were considered
barbarians and pirates, they were pretty effective traders. They were
really good at what they did, or they were great

(13:37):
at stealing things. They were well that's barbarians and pirates,
but they were they were also they were the they
were the best seamen of their time. They were innovative
and their boat designs which let them get around faster
and more efficiently. So there was a lot of things
like that that really helped them spread their empire. When

(13:58):
they decided that they wanted to go outward, and there's
not a lot of resources in Scandinavia to start with,
so they have to go out. They have to if
they're going to build a big network or big empire,
you've got to go somewhere else to get wood, food
for all these things. So it makes sense why they
did it. So we've established how far they've got. So

(14:19):
let's get back to the swords, all right. The wolf
Bert swords have all been found to bear the similar inlay,
like I described a little bit earlier, Like I said,
there's some different inlays, which basically the differences in inlays
equate to the quality of the steel that the sword
was made from. Before get into that little is it

(14:41):
kind of like a model number then or a model name.
You know that there there is some some speculation it's
it's not a model name, but it may have been
something to do with who made it, and we might
as well just get into this. So the steel that
the swords are made, I'll get into the science part
and the metallurgy of it, but the steel of the

(15:03):
oof Barts was superior, like I said, something that we're
not going to see again for a thousand years. So
it's like you've got your product and you've got your
knockoff knockoff. And here's the thing. If you remember I
said that oofbart is when it's a true oof bart,
it's gonna be the cross V L F B E

(15:26):
r H cross T. There's a lot of variations from there.
Sometimes it is the cross in the beginning and the
cross at the end. Sometimes the cross arm of the
cross actually crosses the tea as well. But all of
those ones that are variants have been found to be fakes.

(15:47):
In other words, they don't have the quality of steel,
which means some guy said, hey, well these things are
really really let's make some knockoffs, and the steel is
nowhere near as good. And for the poor guy who
buys this, because they're likely illiterate, so they don't they
can't read it properly. And he's never gonna come back

(16:10):
and say you sold me a bad sword, you sold
me a fake, because the sword is going to fail
and he's in battle, he's gonna get killed, and well,
another happy customer, Yeah exactly, it's like that. Yeah, he's
not going to come back and complain. So so tell
us a little bit about this metal, because I think
that this seems to be one of the big and

(16:32):
this is this is the key point to me. This
is the most intriguing thing about these swords. So let's
get into the metallergy of it. To make steel, what
you have to do is you have to heat iron
ore and mix in carbon. And that carbon can be
in the form of burnt wood or bone, anything that

(16:52):
is burnt and charred, basic an organic chard. Correct. The
amount of carbon as well as is the actual temperature
that you heat them up to and put them together at,
will affect what the final product is when metals heat
it in a forge, which is the primary way that
you could make steel at the time, and buy a forge,

(17:13):
I mean at open fire that you're throwing heat of
fuel and material on and if you've ever seen you know,
you see the old movies of guys back in the
day and he's got a chunk of metal stuck in
there and it's glowing red hot, and then he pulls
it out. That's how they did this. We actually have
two different forges in my garage right now. My brother, Yeah,

(17:33):
could buy a couple of them. I mean, whichever one
I need to make some stuff I don't trust you,
you can trust me, I'll give it back, all right.
So so when you do this, the problem is is
that the metal doesn't actually get hot enough to truly

(17:58):
truly melt. You can heat it up, you can hammer it,
you can work that carbon in there, but it's not
a true mix. In other words, it's not true steel.
There's gonna be impurities and slag and stuff like that.
To to actually do that, you would have to take
it to a point of being molten metal or molten

(18:20):
steel and iron ore melts at a at a temperature
of plus degrees celsius or degrees plus fahrenheit. So that's
really really hot. Yeah did you check that by I did? Yeah, really, yeah,
it's amazingly high. So, like I said, instead, the metal
is gonna be stuck into an open fire and it's

(18:42):
gonna get hammered down until it gets into the desired form.
And I would presume the consistency that you want the
metal to feel like I would, I would guess that
as you're hammering it, you can tell what it changes
from from one state to another, and that gets you
where you want it to be. But it sounds like
a lot of work. It is it's a ton of work.

(19:03):
And one of the things that they would you can
do to metal when you work it is you can
quench it, which is if and we've all seen this
probably on TV where a guy sticks the hot piece
of metal into water and you hear that, or they
stick in oil sometimes, which is the same thing, and
that actually hardens the metal. It's tempering it. It's tempering it,

(19:24):
which is kind of a It can be an issue
because if you do that too fast or too often,
it's hard. It makes it super hard, but it makes
super brittle. Yeah, I think like the ideal you want
to do it once or maybe twice, but like more
times than that, as far as I understand it, pretty
much will ruin us. That's what that was. I was thought,

(19:47):
just once and that's it. And I think that happens
basically at the very end. And yeah, and and also
the process can be reversed. That's why you know you're
not supposed to stick your blade into a fire anything
like that, because you can you can destroy the temper
of the blade at that. Yeah, yep, that's absolutely correct.
So the amount of slag or impurities is the proper term.
But slag is what everybody refers to it. That's in

(20:09):
the metal or in the blade will also affect how
strong it is. And we've all seen slag, whether you
realize it or not. If you've ever watched somebody working
metal and they're hitting it with a hammer and it's
glowing red and you see all the sparks fly off,
that's the slag impurity breaking away from the material. So

(20:32):
that's what all those sparks are. And what you're left
with is then the pure hardened steel material from the surface. Yeah,
but that's only at the surface, yep, but that's again
that's not pure true steel like we understand steel today.
And at the time in Europe, the primary ore that

(20:53):
was available was known as bog iron. Bog iron is
super super soft and it's full of impurities. Uh, it's
it's kind of I think the term that we use
these days would be pot metal, if you've ever heard
that phrase, where it's something that's very soft and pliable,
and it's it's just not good for for high stress situations.

(21:15):
I was never really heated properly. It's probably wasn't tempered
very well. That and and so yeah, that stuff has
a low carbon count and therefore or low. It's a
low amount of carbon in it and high impurity, so
therefore it's not going to be good metal. Okay, Well,
then let's turn around and let's look at the steel
that's in the oof bard. Uh. That steel is made

(21:39):
from extremely pure steel, and that's steel that's referred to
as crucible steel. Crucible steel contains almost no slack. It's
about one to two percent carbon, depending on which which
one you find. They vary in a range of one
to two. That steel is aid by heating iron ore

(22:03):
and carbon inside of what's called a crucible, which the
easy way to think of it as just some kind
of container. The container that the ore is put into
they call a crucible. It's like a fully sealed fully
sealed uh, if it's done properly. Yet, it's absolutely sealed
and nothing can get into it. And then what happens is,

(22:24):
rather than sticking it in a forge, you stick it
in an oven, something that you can get extremely hot
and maintain a consistent temperature, and then everything truly becomes
molten metal, at which point the carbon is absorbed relatively
evenly and the slag impurities are drawn away. They'll be

(22:46):
if I understand it correctly. The metallergy is that it's
attracted to the crucible. I don't, and I might be
wrong in my description of how that works, but I
do know the impurities are pulled out or heavier too,
or you know, they're they're all on the surface, right,
so when you start pounding, they all fliff away, flip away.

(23:10):
When referring to steel, those those ovens they have, they
get them typically to about thirteen or four hundred degrees
celsius or degrees fahrenheit. You remember I said that it
was fifteen hundred celsius hundred fahrenheit for the iron. When

(23:30):
you add carbon, it lowers the melting point. So that's
why that carbon helps to to get them hot. And
then what happens is the crucible itself. They'll slowly let
everything cool off and then they'll shatter the crucible. They'll
get it off there and that all the impurities that

(23:51):
are with it they break away, and what you're left
with is an ingot of pure steel. And then from
there you can't and you can go ahead and work
it into whatever you want it to be interesting, and
one of the things that one of the links that
we're gonna put out I know that everybody will want
to see is there is a documentary done on this

(24:14):
by Nova and one of the really really awesome things
in that documentary is there's a guy who Re who
made a Oofbert sword using this technique, and then they
went ahead and they tested the steel that he made.
And the way that you'll do a steel test is
you put it into two machine operated pliers for lack

(24:36):
of a better term, and they pull. When they pull apart,
the medal is going to start to break at some
point where there shatters or cracks. And that Roofbert steel
was on par with relatively high grade steel that we
would use today. It's good quality steel. So this this
stuff is top notch for its day, which is why
these swords were so sought after. That that that documentary

(25:00):
is well long, really worth it. Yeah, and I really
enjoyed it. Fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating and they do a
good job of explaining things. I like it. I think
that they missed the mark on a few things, which
is why I think that this is a good companion piece.
And but I referenced it because that point where I

(25:21):
saw them doing that tests on that steel, it just
blew my mind. And when they put it under the
microscope as well, you can just see kind of the
like slide comparison. Yeah, the impurities in it absolutely Okay,
So the over source obviously are using this high grade steel,
and it couldn't have come from local sources because that
that bog iron just it wouldn't cut it wouldn't cut it.

(25:44):
It would be impossible for somebody locally to heat that
bog iron enough to get all the impurities out of
it some testing. So the heating of the bog iron
would have had to have been a lot higher, it
would have taken a lot longer. I mean, I think
that to do this, you've how to keep these crucibles
in steel for I think it's about eight to twelve hours,

(26:06):
maybe longer. Well, but not only that, but you actually
have to form those ingets. I think, you know, the
ideas that you put them in a totally sealed, self
contained container. And I think the kind of idea that
we're getting at is that that wasn't widely known fact
in this time as far as I understand it, in
the area, you know, in the area particularly, but just

(26:28):
in western general. I think crucible steel was a thing
people didn't really know how to really how to do
very well much much later, and it would have been
much more difficult to do with the ball g iro.
You would have ended up with less pure steel because
most of it would have been let's say a significant
portion of it would have been impurities that you would

(26:48):
have lost. So then you're you're out. Yeah, so okay, alkay.
So in other words, they got their steel somewhere else. Well, yeah,
and they have done tests on the steel these swords
are made from, and it's been linked to minds that
are We're in what's now modern day Afghanistan and Iran,

(27:09):
and I've also seen research that points to it coming
from India, which is again all long ways away. So
this just speaks volumes to how far the Vikings were
able to get and to trade with. So yeah, I
mean it's presumable based on this that they were they
were trading with these other people's for these ingots of

(27:30):
steel to to go ahead and make their swords. But
then we get to the question of where were they
taking the ingots or what were they doing with them
once they had them. It's a theory that these they
were buying the ingots and the ingots were already in
the rough shape of a blade or no, no, as
an ingot. You know, an ingot is just a block, Okay,

(27:51):
it's like a brick. It's a brick of pure steel.
And the ideas that they were buying the ingots, not
that they were buying just like the iron and taking
them back and sa bulling them and everything like that themselves. Yeah,
and that's that's where a lot of the research points
I give. I give the Vikings more credit than I
think a lot of people do. Again, but everybody says
they're barbarians and are pirates. Yeah, they're They're not stupid people.

(28:18):
They obviously were very clever to have gotten as far
as they did and done the things they did. Um
and and it plays in this will play into a
theory that comes along later on. But I personally, I
don't see why it's not possible that somebody, some Viking,
saw how this stuff was being made and said that's happening.

(28:40):
Maybe I could do that because I'm a blacksmith, so
I think that's possible, But the research doesn't point to that.
But it's a theory that I personally kind of think
could be a potential but there's nothing been to support it,
and we and we think that this wasn't something they
came up with on their own. And so the swords

(29:01):
of the time in like Damascus, for instance, in that
the Middle Eastern area, Damascus steel. Yeah, so they were
the same of the same caliber at the same time. Yes,
And and thank you for bringing up Damascus steel. Damascus
steel is another form of a cruci of crucibal steel.
It's also crucible steel, which was made in the Middle East.

(29:22):
And if anybody ever gets a chance, I don't know
if you've you guys have seen Damascus steel. It's beautiful,
absolutely beautiful. They are fantastic pattern work in it. Uh So,
anybody who hasn't go take a look at that stuff.
It's just's rat Yeah, it's beautiful and very expensive. Yes,

(29:42):
and unfortunately, I'm like a lot of modern steels, it
rusts really easily. So you gotta keep it really loved. Yeah, yeah,
you gotta keep that stuff clean. Okay. So anyway, so
we're gonna move on to our theories here. How did
this sword come about and where did it come about?
That's exactly right. Uh So they're the first theory that

(30:05):
is there is that one guy made him. One guy
figured out how to make this sword. What and this
doesn't say where he got the material from. We're we're
gonna go ahead with the train of thought that he
got it from one of the their nearest neighbors and
then was making the swords. Okay, well that makes sense.
I mean they all have pretty much that they all

(30:26):
have the same inscription. All the true Lert swords have
the same inscription. So he could have been making those
swords and it wasn't uncommon for people to brand their swords.
There are a lot of swords out there that have
letters in them at the beginning that if translated, says

(30:47):
made me, which translates made by and then they don't
have the guy's name. Well, okay, yeah, I guess one
of the things with the l A that gets me
is the crosses, because you know, this is a time
in the world where there's this rise of kind of
the Christianity happening spreading, and I know the Vikings were
really really resistant to that. So the fact that somebody

(31:09):
would incorporate the kind of christian ask cross and that's
very strange. You're right into this really Viking, this unique
store that you only find with the vikings, you know,
and it kind of feels like the them like kind
of almost appropriating it, almost like saying like, oh, yeah,
you guys believe this thing. Well, cool, we're gonna put

(31:29):
your symbol on our sword and then kill you. But
I think that's a big mystery for me, is that's
why they would incorporate that cross, which wasn't a symbol
that it was not it was not. You know, the
cross could have different meanings, so it doesn't doesn't necessarily
it could have just been a plus sign. You're right, Yeah,
it could have been, but I don't know what it was,

(31:52):
and we will. We're going to dive into that shortly
as to the use of that and what that could
actually mean. But just to finish up on this, the
one guy made it. That's bus The swords were made
for about two hundred years, so one dude would have
been really busy, and that his family sold him forever.
Well like thor was how old when he write? Well,

(32:13):
if if the guy didn't what, No, nobody's like following
my demic. No, No, I'm not going to run with
the demigod theory. I like it, but I'm not going
to run with. It is also theorized that maybe it
was a family or a shop that continued to make
the swords, but again we don't know who they are.
I like that idea, I like it's quite quite possible. Yeah,

(32:37):
And then the reason it could have been kind of
a trade secret. You know, they didn't share the technology
anybody because livelihood, and then something happened, you know, like
like the factory burned down or just to last him
die it off, and it took the secret with him.
And I can I can run with that theory. But
that not the demigod theory though. But the problem is

(33:00):
that doesn't say who made them, as in, where were
these people at where they get the technology from? And
that will then lead us down to our next theory.
It's been theorized that people in the area where the
steel was made were actually also then making the swords.

(33:22):
So this means that they would have come out of
that Iran or Kazakhstan area or maybe even India, and
they were making those swords and then selling them to
the Vikings. And some researchers will say, and we say
this is true because along the River Volga they have

(33:44):
found swords in the water. Okay, Firstly, to me, that
doesn't work because if this sort is so highly prized
and sought after, and I'm a successful Viking trader, I'm
probably gonna have been able to buy one for myself,
and I'm going to continue to do my trading routes,
and it's possible then over the course of two hundred years,

(34:05):
somebody's gonna lose a couple of swords on that route,
rather than saying there was a ship full of these
swords and then it sank. Yeah, well, I guess the
other thing for me is that the shape of the
swords in the Middle East were so different, and they
were also well suited to the kind of combat that
they were doing. But that for them to say we're

(34:25):
gonna make these swords own, We're going to totally deviate
and innovate in this totally new way. We're not going
to do the curve sword. We're going to do something
completely different that nobody's ever seen before, specifically for the Vikings.
That seems like a little bit of a stretch. It
is a stretch, you know. Well, it's it's quite possible
that people can come up with a new innovation and

(34:47):
something different from the traditional something that works a little
bit better. Absolutely, but then why wouldn't they be utilizing
it in their own swords, right? You would see that
more in the Middle Eastern swords to be curved. Yeah,
and they didn't have a fuller, which the fuller is
if you look down the length of a blade, there
is a bevel in the center of them, and all

(35:09):
of the old bird swords had that fuller in them.
That was something that was never used in that area.
So yeah, I can't. I can't put myself behind that one,
because well, if they had been made, say they say
in India or Afghanistan, you would find copies up there,
at least a few. And that's the other issue. You
don't find them there. So I can't. I can't lend

(35:31):
myself to that one. Yeah, but let's move on, Devin.
You'll this is what you brought up earlier, which is,
you know, referring to the cross. Maybe it's significance. And
historians point out that the word roofbert is a Frankish
word and they presume that the swords must have been

(35:52):
made in that region because of the inlay. And for
everybody that's modern day Germany that's in that region that
it would have been done, and it does stand a
reason that they could have been made there. A lot
of weapons and armor were made there at the time.
They were a major arms manufacturing place. They they just

(36:15):
kidded everybody out and they profited quite handsomely that that
that tradition was carried on for many centuries. Actually yeah uh.
And there's also the fact that the cross in front
of the name is a Greek equal armed cross, so
it's not what you see the Christian cross, which is

(36:35):
a short cross arm and then a long vertical. It's
equal lengths on on all sides. And that that was
something that was used by Roman the Roman Catholics specifically,
it was used by abbots and bishops or sometimes monasteries
in their signature, so they would sign that equal line

(37:00):
cross or equal arm cross and then their name. So
it's plausible that that means that it was made by
an arms manufacturer run by the church. And then tea, right,
because the way that it goes is there goes across
and then wolf and then across and then a tea right,

(37:20):
so oh, sorry for the end. And then there's a
cross and then there's a tea. There's two guys. Okay,
So let's just presume that it's Frankish, all right, And
if we know that the cross is something that's used
by the clergy, and like I said, the church was

(37:44):
manufacturing monasteries in places like that, lots of arms because
that's how they could support themselves. There's a couple of
problems with that to me. The first one is, again,
your body considered the Vikings to be pirates and barbarians,

(38:05):
And why would you sell arms to somebody who's likely
to turn around shortly and read you Well, I guess
if I could use a modern interpretation, why do we
sell arms to Afghanistan? Actually we don't sell our Yeah,
why do we give them all? I mean for two years?

(38:26):
I mean I could see like one or two instances,
but why would it happen for two hundred years? They
be doing it for fifty I think. I mean, you know,
I'm not saying that it's a good example, but I
am saying that there is historical president of people saying, oh,
you know, or like maybe they thought they were going

(38:47):
to someone else. Maybe I thought they were going to
the Roman Empire, the like Roman legions that were there,
And why wouldn't they use that quality of steel in
any of their other arms, and it would have been fought.
You would have found other other that quality. And here's
the other problem. There were laws in place that were

(39:09):
enacted by the Carolinian dynasty that forbid the sale of
weapons to foreigners. Okay, so it's plausible to me, and
and I say this lightly, but it's plausible that the
Vikings had purchased the ingots and then had shipped into
someone in that region. But if the sale of those

(39:31):
harms to them is illegal, that's a huge risk to
take for two hundred years. And again, why wouldn't you
use that stealing some other stuff? Okay, alright, Okay, here's
the other thing that I want to point out about
the possibility of it being made in the Frankish region

(39:52):
is let's look at the number of swords that have
been found. Okay, So there's a total of a hundred
and seventy one and I don't have the exact numbers
of what was found where, but there is a very
small percentage of them that have been found in what
was the Frankish Realm and Christian England, very small number

(40:14):
of them, and all of those were found in rivers
and lakes. The vast majority of the swords, however, have
been found in the Scandinavian region, in bodies of water
or in Viking graves. So again to me, that says,
if they were made in the Frankish realm, wouldn't you

(40:35):
have found more of them there? So I'm formulating a
question in the head. We're sure these swords were used,
absolutely used, there were There were There were hymns is
a ballads or songs about them, and they were written
about And they weren't They weren't gifts to a warrior
going off to Valhalla for instance. Uh, well, you know,

(40:59):
they weren't. It could be buried with his sword, and
swords would be used for you know, generations. And it
also was not an uncommon practice in that culture to
dig up your ancestor to take his sword to then
continue on the glory of that sword. And they also

(41:20):
weren't they weren't get big on giving awards, right like,
this wasn't like the purple heart of the Viking culture. Correct,
You had to buy the sword, all right, It wasn't
a freebee probably wasn't cheap given the technology at the time. No, No,
it wasn't. But yeah, so it just seems weird to
me that so few have been found in those areas.

(41:42):
And yet people say, because that was the arms area
and the cross, it must mean that that's where it
was made. Uh. Now this I really like this theory.
And I completely came up with this theory on my own,
which is why you like it, which is why I
like it, which is what if it was some awesome viking?
In other words, I think we talked about this before.

(42:05):
Is that what if there's some Viking who goes to
these where the crystal steel is being made and sees
how they're making it, and then says, you know, I
could just buy these ingots and then make my own
sword because I know how awesome the steel is. And
then he comes home and it's one guy, well, one

(42:25):
family of Vikings that is making them all locally. That's
that's kind of a theory that I like. Now, So
in other ways, to shape this into a blade, that
you have to get the ingot and bring it back
and melt it back down and and and you don't,
you don't truly melt it. You stick it in the
fire so it's malleable. And then you can power into
a shape. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so that's you know,

(42:48):
that's a plausible theory because yeah, the whole idea is like,
you know, this is really common throughout history, even on
our own time. As you get you get smart people
who come up with a good idea and they make
it work for a while, and then of course and
it dies out for one reason or another. Um. So yeah,
and I think it's I think I really really like

(43:09):
this just because again, as I said before, people just
seem to discredit the Vikings for because of their practices,
but they were very ingenious. So I really I I
kind of think it's plausible some some guy or some families, like,
you know, we make swords all the time, but I
know that this stuff is awesome steel, and I know

(43:32):
that I can make some fantastic swords. And while I'm
at it, let me go ahead and random. I mean,
to me, it seems plausible that a guy could figure
that out and make them. Isn't this the same theory
as it was just one guy that we just proved,
Like I'm not I'm not saying one guy, but one
guy goes and realizes the potential of the material that

(43:52):
he's seem because he's seeing crucible steel and their swords
and he's thinking, well, let me bring these back, and
then some you know, he sets a shop. So that's
that's where I'm saying. He sees the technology used somewhere
else and then says, well, if I can import that stuff,
we can make these, and I would have bared ink launches.

(44:13):
I would. I would venture to say too that it
was probably more than one guy, probably probably a lot
of guys, because if they found a hundred seventy one sores,
that means it probably far far more than that were
actually made. And so they were probably for a couple
hundred years, all kinds of people turning these things out.
So it had to be a shop. Basically, it could

(44:34):
have been a whole. It could have been a number
of shops. Yet and there's another theory which again this
one to me, it's kind of plausible, but I couldn't
find any research on it. And I just want to
say this that the lack of research and evidence doesn't

(44:56):
disprove something. In other words, just because nothing says it isn't,
that doesn't mean it isn't. It's possible. We just don't know.
You right. So the other thing about the Vikings is
that they weren't above taking slaves. So they may very
well have bought a slave in the Near East and

(45:17):
then brought him home and he said, hey, well I'm
I'm a smith and by the way, you know where
I came from. They make this awesome material and if
you get it for me, I can then go ahead
and make swords for you and then the shop goes
from there. Or it was one of those people from
the abbey who like had to flee or was captured

(45:39):
or whatever, right, and the same kind of idea was
enslaved and was like, oh, hey, instead of killing me,
how I tell you about this awesome process that I
have and a bunch of people and yeah, yeah, I
like that here, Yeah yeah, it makes sense. It's it's
kind of humanizes it. You think, well, what would people do, well,

(46:00):
I want to live something that's valuable to you. Absolutely
they did. You know the Roman Empire, you hear about
it happening all the time with slaves. There were slaves
that were worth a lot of money because they could
read or write or teach or something, and they were
kept alive and they had a much better life. They
were essentially citizens, and they were not to have families,

(46:22):
as opposed to being kind of mistreated slave. I think
that was the thing that happened a lot in the
olden days. You know, if you were in slave for
one reason or another, you could say, hey, I'm good
at this thing. So you're saying, it's like like there's
like kids should today should pay attention to school so
there'll be more valuable to slaves later. Hey kids, you know,

(46:42):
pay attention to school, stay in school. Yes, those are
the theories as to who could have made. Now, quick
question the material itself. That is that particularly grade of
steel found in sores from Afghanistan or around it's it's equivalent. Yes,

(47:05):
and again, like I said, the research says shows that
that iron ore came from that region, so it supports
that that's must be where it was made or where
it was mine. Whether they brought the ore back and
then melted it in a crucible themselves, or would be
simpler just to buy the inget save yourself a bunch

(47:25):
of labors. That would be a lot of work. Yeah, yeah,
I don't see anybody saying, oh this is great, I'm
just gonna fill a bunch of rocks, and you know,
I don't until it sinks. But that's the theories there
for who could have made the swords themselves? And it's

(47:46):
we don't know. I mean, there's no direct link to
anybody specifically, and again the inscriptions don't seem to point
to anybody either, So it makes it kind of tough.
But it does then eat us onto the other question
that I had, which is, and everybody's asked, which is

(48:07):
why they stopped making them? Why suddenly in Europe are
we not seeing these swords being made after the tenth century.
What's going on here? Well, there's a couple of things
that probably impacted it. One is historical evidence shows that

(48:27):
the residents of modern day Russia that were on the
Volga essentially shut down all trade through there. They kind
of locked down on the river. You can't get through
that area. Makes it hard to get your material. Uh.
The other thing that could have brought the Old Bart's
production to a halt is the essential fall of the

(48:51):
Viking Empire. H If you look at the history the
late tenth centuries, the Vikings were taking up eating, they
were going on a lot of campaigns, and they were
they were for hire, so they hire out to anybody's campaign.
So now a lot of your guys are hiring out
and oh, whoops, he got killed, So you're losing more

(49:14):
and more. Plus at that time Christianity was being adopted.
So now the Viking culture and a lot of their
practices are being considered pagan. So people are being chased
down and persecuted. So it could be that the people

(49:35):
that knew how to make the swords died in a battle,
they were executed or exterminated by the church potentially, Uh
you know, I mean, there's there's a whole slew of
things that could have happened to him, because that culture
in that area was going through some pretty rapid changes,
and more and more of the rulers were adopting these

(49:58):
different religions and bringing in and suddenly the our culture
is just getting water down and falling apart. So that's
less of a market for the swords because they're not
so warlike anymore. Well, it's it's more it's they're changing
in the way. They weren't less warlike, I would say,
but it was that suddenly all their practices are being stopped.

(50:20):
In other words, in Christianity, you don't bury somebody with
trinkets and gifts and things for them to go to
vout how to to the afterlife with, whereas in Viking
culture you gave them these things in their grave to
take with them. So that's a traditional break. So there's

(50:40):
a lot of breaks in tradition. And it may have
been that the group that made them all of their
children broke away from them and said we don't believe
in you. Your pagans were Christian now and left the
practice behind, and it was lost that way. I don't know.
I mean, that's that's another question, is why they suddenly disappear. Well, um,

(51:01):
I would you know, I like the supply line drawing
up the theory because the thing about it is and
and it might not have been just the Russians blocking it,
but it might have been the actual source of the ingots.
They might have died off too, wiped out by an earthquake.
I mean, who knows. I mean, I don't know how
many minds were producing the ore, how many how many
foundries were producing the ingots. Might have just been one

(51:24):
and what do we know, like Afghanistan and around for
mega earthquakes, So you know, I mean they could have
because I think if they continue to produce his stuff,
then you would have seen more swords made from this
kind of steel crop up elsewhere in Europe that wouldn't
didn't crop up anywhere during that years. Yeah, that's the
intriguing thing. It seems like the Vikings must have made

(51:47):
that a major state secret, I think, and I mean seriously,
I mean, we have these super cool swords. You can't
tell anybody, Yeah, you can't tell anybody where we got
all the materials, and I think it was kind of
a close shop and it was one group that knew
how to make them. But it's just so weird that
they could like that if if they were getting their
ingots from somewhere, that the persons applying them with the

(52:09):
ingots wouldn't be like, oh hey, there are other Vikings
here right now, all those guys aren't there, and I've
got some ingots, so like, let's see if they want some.
You know that that's just a weird, a weird little
thing about this, I guess. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you
would think you would think that that kind of steel
was shown up elsewhere in Europe, because I'm sure other
Europeans were trading in that area. Too, So it's kind

(52:30):
of it's kind of unexplicable. Maybe the Vikings were the
only ones who were clever enough to figure out the
value of those steel ingots. Yeah, that's very possible. And
I don't know how much people from the Western Europe
area we're trading with them, because there's a lot of
infighting for Europe itself during this time, and the Church

(52:50):
is trying to do what it's doing. So why would
we Why would we pay attention to these heathens when
we've got to save our own people? You know that mentality,
But it's it's hard to say. But I do know
that the practice of making damask Is steel eventually died
off as well. It was it was hundreds of years later,

(53:13):
but Damascus steel was something that stopped being made as well,
and it could be the same thing. I don't know
why Damascus steel fell off. I don't know that anybody
really does and die. You know, you know, other other
technologies come along that mean the sword isn't as as useful. Well,
I think you know, part it's part both right in

(53:35):
in a lot of these situations, it's okay, so, yeah,
we're in decline, We're no longer the supreme fighters of
the world. Is it more important that I have a
bunch of different swords and shields and all that stuff,
or I have one really good sword, you know? Is
it more important that I feed my family than I
have this one really good sword, you know? So the

(53:56):
demand may have just kind of tapered off as well. Yeah,
no longer the supreme force and yeah, and it may
have been that. Yeah, you're right, arms may not have
been as important. I mean, in the Viking culture important
you you didn't sleep with your sword, but your sword
was next to your bed and you always had it.
I remember I picked up a book on Viking swords

(54:20):
when I was doing the research on this, which was fascinating,
and one of the things that they quoted, and I'm
gonna misquote this or I'm gonna mangle to quote, but
it talked about basically the brother at my side or
over my arm. And when you look into that, you
realize what they're saying is my sword you are. The

(54:41):
sword is always with you. So if you culture changes
and everybody doesn't need to pack arms because we're peace
loving people and we're not going to just attack at
the drop of a dime or be attacked at the
drop of dime. Yeah, maybe that the need for it's gone.
I don't think the need for it disappeared though, because
even if you decided to become less war like yourselves
at the doesn't mean to try next county overs has

(55:02):
done the same thing. So the influence of the church,
if the church is really I mean, the church really
got its roots going and that really distructed the culture.
So now we're not going to pillage for everything or
a bunch of the things we need. We're going to
go ahead and produce more of what we can produce here,

(55:22):
and then we're gonna sell it in a peaceful manner.
I mean, I don't know this is all conjectured, but
I mean it's just it's really strange that two hundred
years this fantastic steel is being used in the area
and then it disappears. Yeah, it's being used nowhere else
in Europe, nowhere else in Europe, which which is one
of the things that that's one of the reasons I
think that the supply of the young it's a self

(55:43):
tried up because because and not just suit blockage from
the Russians, because otherwise you inevitably would have seen some
of those sources turning up not those sources, but similar quality.
And that was the other thing that was weird to me,
is I just I couldn't understand why nobody else's swords
were being made by these ingots. If you by somebody, Yeah,
I think that they found that they found themself a

(56:04):
little foundry somewhere in Iran or somewhere like that, and
they just kept a close secret and then I until
they want until they foundry one under and they couldn't
get to them anymore. And who knows, but but that's
that's where the la lies. Unfortunately, they're they're mostly broken
down and rotten husks of swords. They're they're still beautiful.
The inlay work is amazing in them. And you see

(56:27):
these and their skeletons of their former self. What you
can just tell just looking at them and knowing the
science behind them that they were killing. They were just
fantastic of what they were meant to do, which was
just killing. Well. And if you watch that documentary, you
know there's this epic he tempers it in oil, yes, right,

(56:50):
and it's just like this burning beautiful sword and blows
it out and you can see it's just gorgeous and
you get this really great image of what it would
have been like in the height of the old sports sword. Yes,
actually I really want one. Yeah, there are places online
that you can buy replicas. I want to buy thing.

(57:11):
I want to be a really one of the sense
I don't want to buy a replica that's going to
break if I actually have to use it. I want
to buy a real sword. I have a feeling you
could spend a lot of money, yabably a lot of money.
Well maybe not nowadays you can. You can get pure
steel or high grade steel and just do what you
want with it. But if you want made the traditional way,
that's where the money comes. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna

(57:33):
check out Cold Steel's website though, because they might even
make a replica of this thing. And Cold Steel doesn't
make cigar store replicas, they make real stuff, real So
I'm gonna check that out, all right for Cold Steel? Yeah,
Cold Steel, why don't she sponsor us? Yeah, Well, if
you are on the internet, and you have are on
the internet and you have gotten tired of looking for

(57:55):
this sword on Cold Steel, and you want to see
the links that we've got the information that we've got
on this you can go to our website. That website,
as always, is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. While you're there,
of course, you can listen to the episode and you
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(58:17):
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(58:39):
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(59:02):
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(59:22):
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It's good time we have email. We do. It's I
would say, maybe the best email we've ever got. Those
fake emails I keep sending in. Yeah, better than the
fake emails you keep sending in, because we know they're

(59:44):
you know from your email. That's what I've been doing.
You gotta make the fake email addresses. I guess. So
this one is from Mandy, and I'm sure she is
so excited that we're reading her. I can't even Mandy says,
hey there. I really can't overstate to what extent your

(01:00:06):
podcast is my favorite. I have always been passionately interested
in exploring unexplained phenomena, and your podcast beautifully balances skepticism
with playful curiosity. I appreciate how all your theories are discussed,
the absurd ones alongside with the more reasonable ones. With
most paranormal podcasts, you're either exposed to the ghost face
type or those eric and skeptics that scoff at anything

(01:00:29):
that might not be enlightened as as as enlightened as
they are. Your show is really fun and I always
feel like I'm learning something. So and then she goes
on to suggest a couple of shows, which, yeah, they're
great episode. They're like a little out of what we
usually do. But we're always looking for those suggestions because
you know, as you can clearly see, we kind of

(01:00:50):
get that tunnel vision of this is what an unsolved
mystery is. And yeah, so that's pretty much what she
had to say, so we're pretty excited. Yeah, some email
was like amazing than it was great. Um, well we
might take you up on that. Ps. Yes, yeah, we

(01:01:10):
gotta look into some stuff, figures stuff out. We don't
need an intern though, so yeah, many, Yeah, thanks for
the nice email. Absolutely, thanks for the compliments. Okay, we
will definitely consider what you want. Of your suggestions. Is
actually something that I had been considering, and I won't
say what it was, but I'll poke around and I'll
ask my sources. You know, got many sources. Alright, good deal, Yeah,

(01:01:34):
FBI c A yeah, stop it, you get slipped into again.
All right, Well, let's get back to things. Yeah, alright, well,
boys and girls, I think that's the end of this one,
and we're going to set close it off because I
I don't know. I mean, I personally, I like the
idea that a local Viking group was making these swords

(01:01:55):
and that would explain why they were all made there,
but I don't know. Yeah, it's hard to say, but
I think that's the most plausible theory. And then yeah,
so there you go. I'm pretty sure it was Aliens
names aliens awesome. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for listening,
and we will talk to you again soon. Bye. Aliens.