The Rus replica and finding a story

 So, here it is, the almost finished knife with the carving completed.

I am now searching for the story and the name. It all started with me realizing that the blade also resembles the find of the famed "Amunta" knife. I thought, well, might it be that the knife inscribed with Amunta a mik (which is read today as "Amunta owns me") belonged to a skóggángr man? Skóggángr was a sentence of banning people from the community, often without weapons. I´ll do an article on this soon. Suffice to say, while there are reasons people were banned from the community in the Viking and Vendel age, nowadays it might as well be a honourable deed banning oneself from a society of lunatics. In that line the story and myth of this knife will happen.

When I rode home from the smithy last Sunday, when I had completed the handle, I presumeably did the silliest thing in my whole life: Riding over the lane by the river with a rucksack full of steel in the middle of a lightning tempest. I was sure I´d die there, and I asked the fates to make me understand. It was then lightning struck nearby, behind my back, and the St. Elmo´s fire went right through me. While it is not an experience I can recommend:-), it was a goosebumps experience, with the violent purple light running through my limbs and onto the lane  ravaged by the driving rainstorm in the dark... and the tempest pushed me with a backwind that literally smote me forward with some 35 km/h without me even pedalling. If you ask the Gods in a lightning storm, chance is, they will answer... it will always be a part of this knife´s story now... in this case it is a bit more complicated. It is not just a mere name, but I really want to find out about its true myth... it´s a bit of quoting a story that is already there but written in a language you cannot read... yet.

So watch this place...

Next step will be making a utility sheath and then one for bling;-D. 

She´s altogether too fond of blades...;-)

The magic troll mailed me the other day to show off pics of her new blades. The one above is one I am really fond of: It´s Hildiswin (pig-of-war) by Petr Florianek (www.gullinbursti.cz), Czech sword- and bladesmith whom I admire quite a lot. The blade is wrought iron / high carbon steel three-layer laminate, which is very cleanly accomplished. There´s a boar inlay in silver wire, the handle is carved antler and oak burr, and the carving of a boar on the butt is antler, too, as is the mounting on the sheath. Petr sold it for 160,00€, and it drove me mad!!!! The knife handles very well, light and nimble, albeit abit too light for my liking, but then it is a neck knife, and nothing wrong with that. Also check out this guy´s facebook pages, lots of pics to drool over: www.facebook.com/pages/gullinbursti. Or any such like. I am still not on facebook, for I am not overly fond of their corporate policy.

The other is a more decent photo of my own work I posted recently.

Viking shopping goodies;-)-the family hoard*ggg*

 In Adventon Histotainment park, Erich, the magic troll and myself got on the loose again and bought a lot of stuff. I got myself a nice ram headed eating knife and a tankard. Erich got imself some birchbark from Yana Lefler, and some fittings and handles for his damascus blades (see below). He´s got the knifemaking bug bad, you see...*ggg*.

 The magic troll got herself this beautiful  needle case.

Oh, the loot.... now we just need a dragon to guard all this;-).