Quote:
Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey
The scythe as a weapon is something that has puzzled me for a long time, principally because 60 or so years back I had a weekend job clearing neglected building blocks that had become overgrown with grass, and I used a scythe to do the work, I could not understand how a scythe blade could possibly be mounted on a pole, the way the pictures I had available back then showed it as a weapon, the tang & mounting hook on the only scythes I knew where not straight, but were bent at a couple of angles.
Then there was the memory of what I had been taught in high school, that the English scythe had absolutely nothing at all to do with the Scythians known to the Romans, apparently the word "Scythian" & "Scythia" as they were Anglicised , had come from an old Persian word meaning shepherd(?), and that old Persian word had gone through several transliterations and corruptions before it came into Old English in a form that can no longer be spelt with English letters, thus another corruption took place & we finished with with "scythe", & that was a tool.
Is it possible that the tool we now know as a scythe is in fact not related at all to the sword-like weapon that resembles a scythe in form? Thus two objects, a tool, & a weapon that do have similarities, but are of totally different origin.
Can anybody clarify this matter for me?
Thank you.
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Greetings AG Maisey,...The word "scythe" derives from Old English siðe. In Middle English and later, it was usually spelt sithe or sythe. However, in the 15th century some writers began to use the sc- spelling as they thought (wrongly) the word was related to the Latin scindere (meaning "to cut")
That must mean that the word Scythe the cutting tool has nothing to do with Scythia the country as it is a spelling mistake. The name Scythia ...the country does appear to mean
country of the nomads...actually brilliant horsemen...which I suppose is the same as sheep or goat herders..or shepherds.....thus SCYTHIA was the name that stuck...
I have tried to show how the tool became modified as a weapon..and although there is even a Fektbok illustrating duelling Scythes unmodified it is clear that the Polish were leading the field in using the weapon as a sort of spear/ pole weapon...but that it also appears on other countries armouries and seen in many English battles.
I have seen Artwork of a Jacobite battle where Scythes were used and in that incident an English officer had been killed by being struck by a Scythe so modified... But I cannot find the artwork!!... so annoying when that happens... As it happens the swordmakers of Shotley Bridge made agricultural tools and one of those was Scythes...
Regards,Peter Hudson.