#scabbard

[dbkcustomscabbards]

A recently completed commission for the Albion Sankt Annen.

[thesilicontribesman]

Bronze Scabbard Plate With Curvilinear Design, River Trent, 2nd Century BCE, Museum of Archaeology, Hull, East Yorkshire

[illustratus]

Parsifal as Knight by Heinrich Lefler

[fiery-kitty]

Robe sword with scabbard (early 19th century, 1806-08)

Traditionally identified as the sword of Joseph Bonaparte. It was captured among his baggage after the Battle of Vitoria and presented to the future George IV by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington in August 1813.

Title: Robe sword and scabbard

Overall length: 89.9 cm

Blade length: 73.4 cm

Origin: Naples, Kingdom of Naples (Italy)

Maker: Royal Arms Factory, Torre Annunziata, Naples

Material: steel, iron, brass, ebony, wood

Technique: chiselling, engraving, etching, gilding, inlay, burnishing, counterfeit damascening

Decoration: Stylized foliage, acanthus scrolls, cornucopia ornament, brightly faceted cut-steel beads, the insignia of the Legion of Honour, N within a laurel wreath all crowned.

Inscription: Mre D’armes Rle de Naples; crowned N within a laurel wreath and the insignia of the Legion of Honour (blade), Dirigé par le Capitne d’Artilrie Legrand à la Manufre d’Armes Royale à Naples (scabbard)

[vintage-tigre]

Excalibur and the Invention of the King

I’m amazed that the great historian scholar of mythology Jorge Luis Borges never wrote a known essay or story devoted to Excalibur, the legendary sword of King Arthur. Yet the myth seems almost designed for his imagination. Borges’ mother was from England and so he was deeply educated in the literature and oral traditions of Britannica mythology - repeatedly incorporating enchanted objects, contradictory histories, secret destinies, heroic violence and the uneasy boundary between myth and reality into his stories. Excalibur and the legend of King Arthur belongs naturally among such subjects.

There are, famously, two principal accounts of Excalibur. In one tradition, Arthur proves his royal blood by drawing a sword from a stone. In another, he receives Excalibur from the mysterious Lady of the Lake. The two stories are often treated as separate episodes or later variations. Borges, who delighted in rival versions of the same event, might have regarded their contradiction as the true heart of the legend.

The stone belongs to the fixed world. It suggests permanence, law, ancestry and the unalterable order of history. The lake belongs to uncertainty. Its depths conceal another realm, and its surface offers only reflections. One sword emerges from what cannot move; the other from what never stops moving. Between stone and water stands Arthur, a mortal man given authority by two opposing forms of eternity.

The usual interpretation is that Excalibur confirms Arthur’s legitimate claim to the throne. But perhaps the sword does something more unsettling. Before the miracle, Arthur is merely a boy among other boys. After it, every detail of his earlier life is revised. His obscurity becomes concealment, his ignorance becomes innocence, and his survival becomes evidence of providence. The sword does not uncover a destiny that has always existed. It imposes a pattern upon the past.

Literature often works in the same way. A final sentence can change the meaning of an entire story. A death can transform failure into sacrifice. A revelation can turn coincidence into design. Excalibur performs this literary operation upon Arthur. It edits him into kingship.

This interpretation also changes the relationship between the king and the weapon. Arthur appears to possess Excalibur, but he may instead be possessed by the story the sword creates. Once chosen, he must become the ruler the miracle has promised. He must build Camelot, establish justice and gather the Round Table because the symbol in his hand demands a kingdom worthy of it. His freedom ends at the precise moment his destiny begins.

The legend contains an even stranger object: Excalibur’s scabbard. The sword wins battles, but the scabbard prevents its wearer from bleeding. Arthur prizes the brilliant weapon and loses the quieter source of protection. Borges might have recognised in this detail a parable of human vanity. We admire the object that grants glory and neglect the object that preserves life.

At the end of the Arthurian story, Excalibur is returned to the lake. A hand rises from the water, receives the sword and disappears beneath the surface. Camelot falls, the knights die, and Arthur is carried away toward an uncertain fate. The kingdom proves temporary, but the sword escapes history.

Perhaps this is the final paradox of Excalibur. It creates the king, governs his life and survives his ruin. Arthur is remembered because he carried the sword, yet the sword requires Arthur in order to enter human memory. Each gives reality to the other. The man becomes a myth through the weapon, and the weapon becomes eternal through the man.

For Borges, this mutual invention might have been the deepest meaning of the legend. Excalibur is not merely the sword of the rightful king. It is the story that persuades the king, the kingdom and every later reader that destiny had been waiting all along.

[thatshowthingstarted]

Sword and scabbard (Sinhalese: kasthane), Sri Lanka,

Kandyian period, 18th century,

The sword has an exquisitely detailed scabbard with embossed decoration, chased and chiseled in low relief, and a bejeweled hilt set with rubies in gold mounts. As is typical of Kandyan sword design, the pommel resembles the head of a lion (simha), the signature motif of the Kandyan period and insignia of the ruling household. The lion, elaborately cast and chased, is entwined with the liya-pata vegetal motif, and mythical creatures (yali) breathing flames.

This style of lion-headed dress sword, worn as a signifier of rank, and particularly to mark ceremonial occasions, is a Sri Lankan invention. The sword type, with a long curved blade and animal finial hilt and guard, is of European origin, and may be linked to the presence of succession of European trading companies in Sri Lanka, especially from the 17th century onward. It has its antecedents in the European short hunting sword (hanger or cuttoe) that became popular among gentlemen officers from the mid-17th and throughout the 18th century. The immediate source is likely Dutch, as the Dutch East India Company (VOC) routinely gifted swords and assorted mechanical novelties to the Kandyan court as part of a broader strategy of securing trading concessions. Some examples of these swords, with their Sinhalese decoration, have VOC blades, and it appears that most of the blades used in kasthane are of European origin.

The uniqueness of this Sinhalese sword type lies in the elaboration of decoration, with the bejeweled lion’s head hilt superbly modelled and detailed, with gold-set gemstones in the eyes. The animal terminals on the pommel, cross guards and knuckle guard have a long Indian tradition as well as existing in European weaponry, so the inspiration for the Sri Lankan version is likely a fusion of these disparate influences. The two cross guards (quillons) are in the form of projecting yali, part-lion, part-bird (serapendiya), of which one guard returns to join the hilt as the knuckle guard. Details are reserved in gold, and include vegetal flames that hang pendant from their open jaws. The grip is octagonal with alternating patterns. The scabbard is finely decorated with a diaper pattern register with four rings for attaching to a belt, followed by scrolling vegetal and floral patterned repeats, interrupted at intervals by two gold bands, and culminating in open jaws of a mythical creature (kirtimukuta-yali) emerging from foliage.

These swords appear in depictions of chiefs and noblemen of the Kandyan court, as recorded in late 18th century Dutch paintings of VOC audiences at court and the receptions of Kandyan officials at the VOC headquarters in Colombo. They likely also served as diplomatic gifts from the court to European visitors, and found their way back to Europe where they were widely admired. On occasions they appeared in aristocratic portraiture, as seen being worn by Sir Alexander Popham (d. 1669) in an equestrian portrait dated c. 1650.

Silver, gold, iron, wood, and gemstones

Dimensions: a) Sword (handle and blade): 3 3/4 × 24 in. (9.5 × 61 cm); Blade: 1 × 15 in. (2.5 × 38.1 cm) b) Scabbard: 1 1/2 × 17 1/2 in. (3.8 × 44.5 cm) c) Chape: H. 4 in. (10.2 cm); W. 1 7/8 in. (4.8 cm); D. 1/2 in. (1.3 cm)

Courtesy: The Met

[xanaxfarts]

Hunting Sword with Scabbard, possibly Munich. Circa 1740

[renard-des-marais]

Attack! by One lucky guy