Swords

My main reason for wanting straight swords for the elves is visual, though certainly part of that is influenced by European history.

Jenny Dolfen's depiction of the scene of Fëanor drawing his sword on Fingolfin looks like this:

wp_drawing-of-the-sword_col.jpg


The idea of looking down the straight edge of a blade is pretty cool, I think.
 
Well, here is my argument for using early techniques:

Fëanor makes the first sword crafted by "mortal" (ok, not really, but you know what I mean) hands. He has no prior innovation to build on, and no reason to innovate to a more efficient weapon like a double-bladed sword. The reason for switching to the double-bladed design is to reduce fatigue during battle, and to create a options for the user. Fëanor has never been in a life-and-death fight in his life, and thus has no reason to innovate beyond that. The use of the "sickle" sword has the added benefit of changing a peaceful, even life-giving tool, into a weapon with no other use than attacking "humans".

I do see the value of using a more northern European aesthetic, but remember, the sword did not develop there. By the time the sword reached the Celts and Germans, it was already straight, though the Greeks, Romans and proto-Spanish continued use of the curved blade for quite a while:

AH-4111H.png


Now, perhaps the kopis (or falcata if you are Roman) is a fair compromise here, and the blade there is on the inside of the curve as it is on a sickle, so ....
 
Fëanor does not make the first sword. The Noldor are all making swords (thanks, Melkor) and Fëanor makes a secret forge and makes his own swords using tempered steel.

We are going to have an interesting issue with parallels to gun control in the US if we aren't careful with how these scenes are done. Fëanor is one of the few doing 'open carry' and he brandishes his weapon first.

I don't want to ignore the history of the development of blades...but again, tempered steel. We're not starting with bronze here. Fëanor may be new to this, but it's not going to be an issue of starting at the beginning.

That being said, we can develop further in Middle Earth - we don't have to get to the right point here and now. People have pointed out that none of the swords used by Fëanor and his sons are named. This is in a story by TOLKIEN, and they don't have names. Everyone's sword has a name, so...why don't the Noldor have as many named swords as you'd expect? It's possible that the swords used here/now are all discarded for later models after they actually start fighting battles.

If that's the case, I might be able to be talked into something other than a straight blade with two edges. But....I am strongly attached to the idea, and am not sure what I think of having them do something else here.


Also, I do like the idea of Fëanor learning how to make blades for farming equipment in Mahtan's forge. We can even have Mahtan instructing him about the quality of the steel and how to get a good cutting edge on it....and, yeah, later regretting bitterly.
 
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In the Merovingian Iron-Age and Viking-Age we had single-edged swords in Scandinavia, and they were quite common:
enegget%2Bsverd.jpg



These are also not "crooked" as Tolkien calls curved swords. Basically they are knives on steroids, much easier to make, than double-edged swords.
 
Ok, having re-read the text, I make this suggestion:

As Marie says, the Noldor do begin to make swords, axes, and spears well before the threatening of Fingolfin. Now the spear is obviously something the elves must be familiar with, as is the axe. The fact that Tolkien specifically says they forged spears and shields does have an impact on their military tactics, but we'll get into that later.

What if we still give the "first sword" to Fëanor have him beat it out of a sickle, and have our elves starting out with those blades. He goes to work in secret on improving the sword until we get something closer akin to the Xiphos. He trains his "boys" in hoplite-style combat, and thus the Feanorians become the first heavy infantry of the Noldor. Of course, that disintegrates when they actually enter battle, due to A) their rage and B) their clear one-to-one superiority to their enemy. They become disorganized during the rout of Morgoth's forces, until the Balrogs are able to rally the troops (possibly with the addition of tougher trolls and what not).
 
One thing to consider re: swords is that they, too, have evolved over the years. The first swords were really nothing more than metal clubs with points on them. You see them in LOTR when the Uruk-Hai go after the Fellowship. And maybe that's the kind of sword that we see before Feanor comes up with the innovation that makes swords even deadlier, the edged blade.
So you go from this: uruk_hai_sword_by_azn_ninja-d3pawex.jpg

to this: f2ba_glamdring_the_sword_of_gandalf.jpeg

And maybe that's the innovation that Feanor came up with.
 
That is more or less what I was suggesting above. Though I don't think we want to go straight to a sword that cannot be reproduced by humans like Glamdring just yet.
 
Yeah... that was the first sword that came up when I did a google search... I was thinking more like what would be a typical third age Gondorian sword. Not too fancy, but functional and more lethal than the previous swords.
 
“But perhaps you could call her perilous because she's so strong in herself. You , you could dash yourself to pieces on her, like a ship on a rock, or drown yourself, like a Hobbit in a river, but neither rock nor river would be to blame.” JRR Tolkien
 
It would be an interesting sign of the accelerating Fall of the Noldor to show how quickly their swordcraft evolves. While the Vanyar are composing more and more elaborate poems and the Teleri are making more and more beautiful ships, the Noldor are becoming experts in warcraft.

Maybe we even see Aule becoming more and more impressed with their craftsmanship, but more and more appalled at the direction that it is heading.
 
Ok, so it was tougher to find a sickle being forged than I thought, but I wanted to show both that and a khopesh sode-by-side. The processes are very similar. In fact, a khopesh is what you get if you stop forging a sickle after you get the curve, don't flatten the inside edge, and sharpen the outside rather than the inside.

My suggestion is still that Fëanor comes across the khopesh design by accident (which is probably what happened IRL) and that is what the Noldor adopt. He then develops tempered steel on his own, adopting the more efficient xiphos, which is what he threatens Fingolfin with.




 
Full disclosure, of course, Bronze Age swords were made of, well, bronze, which isn't worked in quite the same way, but I do believe we are skipping bronze with Fëanor, no?
 
Those of you with more knowledge of the martial arts than I: besides aesthetics, is there any difference in the functionality of the different shapes of swords? Stabbing vs. piercing is part of what I'm asking, but there's more. Is the curved design because of improvements or limitations in the forging process, or because it's meant to be drawn quicker? Are some swords intentionally designed to be more difficult to use skillfully, because of status/class issues?

While we probably could dismiss all of this, since it's not something the audience would likely know/care about, every method of warfare is also a political or philosophical statement (see, the Greek phalanx, which the Greeks constantly said only worked with free men fighting for their polis, not with slaves fighting for a king). It's something I would like to consider, if only for the illusion of depth Tolkien is so revered for.
 
Those of you with more knowledge of the martial arts than I: besides aesthetics, is there any difference in the functionality of the different shapes of swords? Stabbing vs. piercing is part of what I'm asking, but there's more. Is the curved design because of improvements or limitations in the forging process, or because it's meant to be drawn quicker? Are some swords intentionally designed to be more difficult to use skillfully, because of status/class issues?

While we probably could dismiss all of this, since it's not something the audience would likely know/care about, every method of warfare is also a political or philosophical statement (see, the Greek phalanx, which the Greeks constantly said only worked with free men fighting for their polis, not with slaves fighting for a king). It's something I would like to consider, if only for the illusion of depth Tolkien is so revered for.


Yes, there are certainly different functions for different sword forms leading to different fighting styles. In time, specialized forms are designed for different kinds of soldiers.

For example, piercing weapons typically create more trauma than slashing weapons, so you might specialize a sword for piercing, such as a rapier. However, the rapier has limited cutting power due to the cross section being too wide, a requirement of a long, thin blade. Therefore cavalry would not be able to use it. You don't want to do much stabbing on a charging horse, because you are likely to either break your blade or lose it.

Cavalrymen (when they were last around) used sabers with curved blades, like the one picture above. Curved blades do a better job of slicing, because you put the force behind a smaller piece of metal, and you have a higher likelihood of striking your target "perpendicularly", thus imparting more force.

Now, to go further back, yes, curved blades are easier to make. It is easier to hammer out the bevel (angled cutting edge), because you don't have to even it out on the other side, risking the integrity of the blade.

Straight blades give you more options. They are better for piercing because the point is more in line with the hilt. They can also do a good job of cutting, as long as the blade is wide enough to bear a thinner cross-section.

The xiphos, for example, is a short sword, designed for use at close quarters, paired with a shield. The leaf-shaped blade adds weight to cuts, allowing you to get more cutting power out of a shorter blade. It also has a narrow taper, giving it a good thrusting point. It is a fantastically versatile blade, but the design comes from the bronze age, when you needed more meat on a cutting blade for it to hold up in battle. An effective sword of bronze also can't be too long. Thus without a shield, a xiphos wielder is quite vulnerable.

Leaf-shaped blades don't make a lot of sense in longer blades. You don't need the additional weight, and it just makes the blade cumbersome. The balance point moves too far away from the hilt.
 
My martial arts experience is limited to kendo, so I don't know anything about (European) fencing.

With a katana (and I would imagine with a broadsword as well, though I wouldn't know), you point the tip at your enemy's throat, and control of the center is essential. This assumes your opponent is armed with a blade as well.

I have no idea how to fight with a short blade or with a curved blade. I have to imagine the curved blade would be used for a slicing motion rather than a stabbing motion, but I don't pretend to know the details.
 
Interesting. Most katanas are curved, though the kendo practice swords are not. I've often wondered how you simulate the fact that only one side of the blade can be used for cuts.

You can thrust with a katana, of course, but it's not really what it's made for.
 
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