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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