Hi Battara,

I think you're mostly right, although Gardiner was in Malaysia as a British colonial bureaucrat, not Indonesia, as Indonesia was a dutch colony, and Gardiner was British. Although I'm not Wiccan, I'm pretty sure this isn't a pagan blade. Something about all those crosses on the guard makes me think otherwise. :D

Hi Gonzalo,

I more-or-less agree with you, although I don't think there's anything overtly unchristian about this particular sword.

My critique was of this weapon in particular, not of wavy edges in general. To my eye, this sword has a bunch of problems as a weapon, and most of them stem from the width of the undulations. The problem with the depth of the waves is that they go all the way to the centerline (the line between hilt and tip), and that will make the blade try to behave like a spring in two dimensions when it stabs anything: it will bend across the flat (as all blades do), and it will try to collapse like a spring, because of those undulations. Whether the blade could survive such treatment is hard to tell.

While I'm not an expert martial artist, I believe that truly functional undulations are much shallower.

As for parrying? it's long and slow. If I was going to parry with it, I'd want another blade in my off hand to fight with, and in that case, this complex, expensive blade would be little better than a piece of firewood.

Cutting? The blade is sharp, so it could cut. However, it wouldn't take off someone's head, for instance, although it might cut a throat. It's just not a great design.

There's one other problem with those undulations: how do you sheathe this blade? The sheath would have to be 3-5" inches wide, and you'd have to spend a lot of time keeping the blade clean of rust, as the sheath couldn't possibly be made water-tight.

F

I agree, Faearn. Masons are not really unchristian, but christian, if this is a masonic blade. But on the catolic world, they were prosecuted by the church over some period of time, as they did not accept the authority of the church in many matters, and that was a capital offense. I also agree about your judgement on this particular sword., though I think the wavy blades are not designed to cut. As for to sheat it, I find more difficult the sheating of a sousson pata or a very curved shamshir, but anyway they were used on sheats. Yes, a problematic design, above all. Does not look efficient. I would like to know much more about malayan and indonesian blades, but unfortunately, I have not books or items to study. I like the keris.
Regards

Gonzalo

More great observations! and I wanted to add more I have come up with today also. It seems a great deal of difficulty in dealing with this type of sword blade comes from semantics. In earlier literature the term 'flamberge' was used in describing 'flamboyant' swords in chivalry, and this later became interpolated with flammard, which described the wavy edged blades we have been discussing. Apparantly a sword which is straight bladed, or with median ridge which does not undulate along with the wavy edges, is a 'flame blade' or flammard. In Egerton Castle ("Schools and Masters of Fence", 1885) plate III, #8 shows a German rapier of early 17th century with flammard blade, straight of course, but with wavy edges.
In these blades, the blade itself does not 'undulate', and these would seem to me to be quite functional. As Fearn has noted, these wide undulations on this example would seem likely to severely compromise this blade in either cut or thrust.


Returning once again to my Masonic case, in looking through "The Smallsword in England" (J.D.Aylward, 1945, pp.18,19) he notes that around the 1780's the 'flaming sword' seems to have been a popular trademark among sword cutlers, and there was considerable competition among cutlers to secure the right to this image. The reason I mention this is that this once again reinforces the strong prevalence of such symbolism that greatly coincided with the fluorishing of Masonry in these times. In a number of cases, there is in my opinion, evidence of other quite subtle Masonic symbolism in decorative and elemental devices on swords both military and private.
Once again to the 'pineapple'......Fearn mentioned what type fruit might have been presumed by the Freemasons to be on the Tree of Life :).......I looked in "Herders Dictionary of Symbolism" (1978), and there was the pine cone!
It is noted that the pinecone crowned the Tree of Life in many Christian representations, and represented power and justice (p.191). What better pommel to associate with the 'Flaming Sword' which stood at the Gates of Paradise in guard of the Tree. The illustration shown in the book of the cone of course looked remarkably like our pommel!

These are just more bits of information to add to all the great perspective here, in trying to resolve the mystery of this interesting sword.

All best regards,
Jim

Hi Jose,
It is my understanding that the wavy blade came to Indonesia from India, and I would presume from the nagan image. The original keris blades were straight in what I have read.
From my understanding of the keris, which is admittedly elementary, the waves (luk) in the blade have more to do with the esoterica of these weapons, and powers imbued in them than for combative purposes. I have not seen the Gardner book, which is I think pretty hard to find these days, but sounds pretty fascinating. I think these topics are most interesting from anthropological and folkloric sense, which often are impeded thier misunderstandings.

It seems there has often been a great deal of misunderstanding with many dramatic blade features, and in another instance, I believe the barbs on long arrows in Philippines (?) and some other regions are intended more in protection from evil sense than for more gruesome reasons.

All the best,
Jim

A pine-pommel? I love it! Thanks Jim!

F

Hi, Jim. Now you have introduced a very important morphological distinction, which I had not taken on account. Yes, there is a difference among a straight blade with ondulated edges, and an ondulated blade. I think maybe we (or I) were puting them in the same bag, as they are usually both called flammard in the equivalent word in spanish as far as I understand, which is "flamígera", from "flame". Maybe the rapiers referred by Dueñaz Beraiz were from this latter kind. When I spoke of fighting wepons on this style, I was thinking in this latter style of flammard blade, more discrete. Thank you for pointing to this detail, Jim.
Regards

Gonzalo

You bet Gonzalo! :)
It seems like semantics and transliteration sometimes really create havoc in understanding historical detail, many words change meaning entirely, or fall entirely out of use. These 'flame' blades which were basically straight, maintained the integrity of their intended purpose for cut or thrust, and the serration probably was in degree quite effective. Perhaps the reason they were not more common was due to the added difficulty in fashioning them?

Thank you for the Beraiz reference! The 'Gladius' publications are truly valuable resources, though I have never actually had access to them, and remain quite elusive as far as I know.

I understand well your reference to the keris. It is truly a weapon with fascinating and complex history and actually a profound element of the cultures it represents. There is tremendous knowledge in these forums on these weapons, which I too can only claim elementary knowledge, and honestly hope to learn more on them.

All the very best,
Jim

Hi Jim :) ,
the pine cone does seem very likely......I had 'dismissed' the idea previously (and came up with Raspberry :p :D ) as the leaves of the pine are 'needles' and totally different to those 'portrayed' on the pommel.

Following on from your excellent post I found further 'evidence' that there are other symbolic elements that seem to be displayed on the hilt. Firstly the use of a pine cone type fruit has been associated with the 'tree of life' since Ancient times (Sumerians, Babylonians etc.)

".... The Tree (of life) always has fruit or foliage. The fruit is usually rather large and plump and sometimes looking like a pine cone . The fruit as a pine cone was its most popular depiction even unto the Greeks and Romans....."

Also mentioned is the 'rosette' another symbolic motif, the guard seems to exhibit this...

".....Then we have the rosette. It too is a symbol connected to the Tree of Life. It has eight spoke-like leaves just like the symbol for the sun god Shamash....."

The crosses do not exactly match the more common Maltese styled cross often associated with 'Freemasonry' ... but during the time that the hilt was manufactured ... perhaps it was.

It is also stated that a snake (or dragon, which is considered 'serpentine') resides near the tree of life......perhaps, there is a possibility that the blade symbolises this :shrug:

http://firstlegend.info/3rivers/3rivervalley.html

As to the functionality of the blade ..... it would be nice to be able to handle the sword in question to ascertain its characteristics ....the blade edges are described as sharp ...which does suggest its for use rather than show. As to its strength... the serpentine blade would have less flex than suggested by Fearn, I'm thinking about the comparison between , say a 'flat' sheet of steel and a corregated sheet of the same material. Fearn is right , in that the tip is not in direct alignment with the centre of the hilt. It is also 'rounded'....However there is a possibility that the tip was damaged and the 'end' of the blade reworked.
Functionality does not always equate to 'effectiveness' ....that is why blade designs 'come and go'. As Rapiers were generally civilian defensive weapons, less effective designs may have 'survived' momentarily due to the 'wow' factor. I would imagine that many 'gentlemen' that carried a Rapier ...never actually used them ....perhaps the 'threat' was more than enough to discourage 'trouble' from the 'lower' (poorly armed) classes whilst walking the streets.

This has been a very interesting thread mainly due to the excellent information from Jim, good work :) . Also Fearn, thanks for being a 'sparring partner', when I try to play the Devil's Advocate it trully helps to have a 'counter argument'...which, for me, seems to open new 'avenues of discussion' :cool:


Kind Regards David

Hi David,

Yes, I enjoy a good argument too. Thanks for pointing out the flowers and foliage on the guard. I'd missed that. Those rosettes are eight-petaled, and that's a really unusual number for real flowers (read, it happens very rarely, and these are NOT representatives of a real species). Because of that, I agree that those little rosettes are probably symbols.

Another thing is to remember is that northern Europeans didn't get to see palm trees unless they traveled, so on Palm Sunday, they often used conifer branches in place of palm branches. Because of this, I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't some confusion between pines and palms. Also, we have the Cedar of Lebanon, another Mid-eastern species (the wood was used to build the Ark of the Covenant), and we could be seeing representations of cedar as well as pine. One thing I've noticed is that many mystical and religious types tend not to be up on their botany (ditto with swordsmiths), and so we can't count on plants being identified and portrayed properly in their art. :D :D :D

As for the handling characteristics, I agree that it would be nice to handle it, and until then, we can argue about its characteristics. One thing to remember, though, is that this blade is going to be heavier than a straight blade of the same point-hilt length, because those undulations add some extra mass. If it faced a straight blade of the same length, all other things being equal, it would be a little slower.

One thing that I brought up before, that got ignored, was how odd the guard is. It's symmetrical (compare with Bilbao rapier under discussion). Since this is almost certainly a commissioned piece, I would expect to see a guard that is right-handed or left-handed, to suit the user. Moreover, the wear on the grip (see Katana's previous post) looks right-handed to me, as it's right where a right index finger would rub.

There are a couple of reasons why the guard could be symmetrical. One is that the symmetry is important to its symbolic value. That's possible. Another is that it was built to be used by more than one person, as in an armoury sword (see the post by Paul MacDonald talking about baskethilts). However, I don't think this is an armoury sword.

However, it could have belonged to a lodge or similar institution, as a ritual sword. That could explain the symmetric guard.

On with the debate!

Best,

F

David, thank you very much for the kind words, and for the followup with more great detail......excellent information on the ancient symbolism, as well as the rosettes, which I seem to have missed entirely !:)
Fearn, thank you also for your additions of yet more detail, and well placed comments concerning the botanical errata that seems to be quite notable in representations in weapon motif. Good points on the symmetry here as well, and another thing I overlooked, partly because I was focused on the symbolism of this sword and had leaned away from it being intended for actual combat.
The interaction between you and David has been outstanding, and it is great to see opposing ideas presented with supported perspective and sound reasoning, and completely constructive in evaluating various aspects being considered here. Without the comments and observations all of you guys bring up, the discussion would veer way off course, so its all a team effort!!

It truly is a great debate, and I always look forward to discovering more!

All the best,
Jim

Finally, I have one image of the referenced spanish flammard rapier-like swords. It has a straight blade with curved edges, and it was meant as a combat weapon. Please see this example:

http://www.flg.es/ficha.asp?ID=7262

I just culdn´t find it before, as it was saved on my PC without reference to the form of the blade, and the name-tag on the catalog also does not specify this point.
Regards

Gonzalo

Thank you Gonzalo for keeping after that!! Excellent example of wavy edges, rather than wavy blade...and as you have previously noted, the simple omission describing these in discussion or narration can really lead to difficulties in considering dynamics.
All the best,
Jim