- Denethor (HoME Vol. 8: The War of the Ring: Part Three: III. Minas Tirith Note 16)
Well, the cat's out of the bag. While I do not have it yet in hand, the commission I have been hyping up in the "What's everyone working on?" is finished and with better photos than I can take so I might as well post them up!
Steve 'Króka' Thurston is a master craftsman in the UK with a specialty in small find reproduction. I had been following his page for some time and back in last November, he opened up his commissions with a statement that he was willing to make fantasy pieces. I had a little extra scratch, had been considering commissioning a Dúnedain knife from someone, and I love his work. The timing was right and Króka was willing, so off we went!
The Blade
"For each of the hobbits he chose a dagger, long, leaf-shaped, and keen, of marvellous workmanship, damasked with serpent-forms in red and gold. They gleamed as he drew them from their black sheaths, wrought of some strange metal, light and strong, and set with many fiery stones. Whether by some virtue in these sheaths or because of the spell that lay on the mound, the blades seemed untouched by time, unrusted, sharp, glittering in the sun. 'Old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit-people,' he said. 'Sharp blades are good to have, if Shire-folk go walking, east, south, or far away into dark and danger.' Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dym in the Land of Angmar."
- "Fog on the Barrow-downs." Fellowship of the Ring
It has been no secret on this forum that my personal vision of Middle-earth is one akin to the Late Antiquity and Early Medieval periods of our own history. So for the blade itself, it was immediately obvious to me that the shape of the blade should reflect that period. Though the sole reference to Arnorian knives of the period states that the blades are leaf-shaped, given the tentative identification of the barrow with the Last Prince of Cardolan, I have chosen to view the Barrow-blades as an elite grave deposit and thus perhaps not typical of the wider cultural material. With the passage of over sixteen hundred years between the death of the Prince and the War of the Ring and all the stylistic changes that come with that, I feel further justified in a non-leaf bladed knife.
So to our real-world I looked. Króka and I discussed various forms both regular and irregular when I remembered a reenactment page I follow. The Lowbury Hill Burial Project recreates artifacts excavated from the Lowbury Hill Early Medieval burial that dates from the 7th century and one of those artifacts is a very cool-looking knife. The knife is a copy of one excavated from Grave 56 in the Dover Buckland Cemetery in Kent, England. It's classified as a "short-narrow" seax and the basic shape is found far and wide in northwestern Europe. Dr. Andrew Welton describes it as filling "a practical niche between everyday knives and weapons of war, being small enough to carve meat or butcher game yet large enough to carry as a sidearm into battle. Seaxes of this type are common finds in burials dating to the late sixth century in England, France, and parts of Germany. These blades were buried with both men (80%) and women (20%)."
Broadly European? Practical? In the right time period? Check, check, check. The blade shape was determined.
For the construction of the blade, I wanted the full early medieval treatment. In the period, high-carbon steel was both expensive and time-consuming to make. Given that high-carbon is the best material hold an edge for a knife, medieval bladesmiths developed a cunning way to conserve the use of it. What they would do is create a strong core made of wrought-iron and then weld on a high-carbon piece just for the edge. Ingenious really. It's a pretty characteristic mark of early medieval blade construction and one that Króka does very well. To me, it's a perfectly reasonable construction method for the perhaps iron-poor Dúnedain.
He gave it a deeper than normal etch to really bring out the beautiful striations within the blade. More on this later.
The Handle
He drew his sword and looked at it, and the intertwining shapes of red and gold; and the flowing characters of Númenor glinted like fire upon the blade.
- "The Black Gate Opens." The Return of the King
To be quite honest, I can take no credit for the design of the handle. I had presented a few different ideas to Króka but he apparently had been wanting to experiment with this style beforehand and I thought it looked awesome so away he went.
The handle is ash, wrapped in goat hide, and 1.5mm bronze wire. Before wrapping in goat hide he spiral bound the wood core with 1.5mm animal gut string, so that while the bronze wire sits proud it sits solidly within the grooves between the gut. Each end of the handle has a bronze plate, with the butt cap having simple etching and being secured by two steel rivets.
I love bronze and there's a few references to "red-metals" in Middle-earth so I thought it appropriate. While I have yet to handle it myself, Króka assures me that the grip is fantastic and will prove to be sure in hand.
Wire-wrapped handles are well attested to in the 9th-12th centuries. Especially in the Baltic States apparently though there are examples from the UK. The particular style here is atypical for wire-wrapped handles so one could call this a Króka Special.
The Sheath
"'See!' cried Aragorn. 'Here we find tokens!' He picked out from the pile of grim weapons two knives, leaf-bladed, damasked in gold and red; and searching further he found also the sheaths, black, set with small red gems."
- "The Departure of Boromir." The Two Towers
The sheath is where it gets fun. There's been some debate over appropriate motifs for a Third Age Dúnedain and how much decoration a rugged and ragged Ranger would put on their gear. Frankly, I do agree with the "less is more" camp but to be honest, I am considering this a heritage piece for Cimrandir and thus perhaps a little bit exempt from the rule.
The sheath shape is based on a 10/11th century Thames find from the Museum of London, ID 11674 sans the cut-out on the spine. It is made of 2.5mm veg tan with a full vellum lining.
For the decoration, we decided on the main motifs to be lozenges and floral patterns as both of those are fairly well-represented in both the Professor's Númenórean art and in real-world art history. In fact, lozenges feature on the Thames sheath. I sent him the link to the Númenórean design motifs thread for inspiration and he doodled some ideas and we batted around different designs until we came up with the final version.
In Króka's far better explanation -
The lozenge design of the original has been enhanced by underlying risers, and filled with a four petaled motif inspired by Tolkien's original artwork. Rather than copying the original sheaths knotwork design I've tooled a floral design from Tolkien's sketches, on the front blade section; using later Medieval stippling techniques for the background. The main handle field is Trewhiddle style ornamentation, taken from a Pentney Hoard broach, with the suspension flap decoration being a direct copy of a motif that Tolkien used to head his letter to the King.The sheaths rear blade field is a simplified version of a C11th find from Dublin, DLS 10 (though on the front of the original), while the handle field is my creation to emulate a Ringerike style badger; with the core shape of the badger mimicking an example found in C12th marginalia. The rear suspension flap contains the Elven Script for the blades name, Badger's Fang, along with early medieval style geometric keys. The boarder at the top and bottom of the handle section is again based on various Tolkien artworks, and was provided by the customer. The sheath also features a raised and moulded spine, again decorated with lozenge designs, featuring 'ring and dot' work inspired by Tolkien's own artwork. While the whole sheath is secured by hide glue, the seam is also reinforced with a split thong stitch. There's a debate to be had around whether the splits should be made on the front, but there's archaeological evidence for it; and left handed sheaths anyone?
You'll note that Elleth's border design is prominent on the handle section. I wanted at least one forum-specific element on the knife as an homage to the place where the idea was born. Thanks for letting me use it, Elleth.
The Name
"As a dead beast Beren lay upon the ground; but Lúthien touching him with her hand aroused him, and he cast aside the wolf-hame. Then he drew forth the knife Angrist; and from the iron claws that held it he cut a Silmaril."
- "Of Beren and Lúthien." The Silmarillion: Quenta Silmarillion
A knife as fine as this deserves a name in my opinion and luckily, though the majority of named weapons in Middle-earth are swords, Tolkien does provide an example of a named knife way back in the First Age.
Anyone who knows me knows I love badgers. American, European, Japanese, you name it. I love the little fuzzy striped critters. Despite that, it was only a passing comment by Eofor when I showed him a photo of the bare blade fresh from an acid dunk that connected the stripes of the wrought-iron and the stripes of a badger. He saw it right off whilst I did not haha. In addition, being a short-narrow seax, it is much smaller than the standard seax of the period but it's still equally deadly. Much like how a badger may be small but still ferocious if disturbed. And finally, my personal archaeology trowel is named Eriarrach [S. "Badger's Claw] for the obvious connection to digging.
So! The name of the blade is Eriargarch! Sindarin for "Badger's Fang" as an appropriate appellation for a more offensive tool and weapon.
And there you have it! I will be sure to take more, lower quality photos once it arrives! Thank you for reading!
More photos here!
https://imgur.com/a/4AztIet
Króka Thurston's Workshop - https://www.facebook.com/krokathurston
