Philip,
Thank you so much for the nicely detailed response to my post, and it is truly rewarding to revisit some of this early history of the sword, something we don't often get to discuss as we examine much more recent weapons.
Very well noted on the character of these markings, in particular that of the famed 'running wolf' of Passau, which seems to have evolved around latter 13th century but of course dates are always debated.
As you note, the marking was taken up by Solingen smiths as they were advancing their production and usurping the business of Passau, among other centers, and applying spurious adaptions of their marks.
The almost whimsical interpretation of these chiseled 'wolf' marks is noted by Ewart Oakeshott in his most venerable "Archaeology of Weapons" (NY 1960 pp222-23), where he comments, "...a mark easily mistaken for the wolf of Passau is a unicorn since both wolf and unicorn only very summarily sketched with a few inlaid strokes, it needs the eye of faith to distinguish an animal at all".
It does seem that the design or stylization was dynamically varied depending on the skill or other as they were applied in various shops by various workers.
There was a most interesting parallel in Toledo, where the famed maker Julian del Rey, c.1470 became the official maker to Ferdinand II of Aragon. As the mark of quality on his blades, he adopted the small dog (perrillo), which was soon taken to represent a fox. Thus any sword with a good blade in many circles was referred to as a 'fox'.
"..thou diest on point of fox"
Shakespeare, Henry V; Act IV; scene 4
I cannot help but wonder if possibly the known use of the 'running wolf' in Germany may have had a degree of influence in his choice of symbol.
I have often wondered if the famed sword 'Lobera' might have obliquely referred to a Solingen blade in its given 'name', referring to wolves.
Also, I am wondering if the 'perrillo' or 'fox' mark applied by Julian del Rey is seen 'Arab' swords as stated by Richard Cohen ("By the Sword", 2002, p.114). Actually I have not seen this mark on examples, and wonder if indeed this became widely used on Arab or other Islamic swords as suggested by Cohen.
Thank you for the informative notes on the Caucasian use of the wolf mark used there on the Chechen blades (said to be termed there 'ters maymal') as noted by Ms. Astvatsaturyan in her outstanding book. It does seem ironic of course that the Muslim artisans faced difficulties copying the already somewhat debased markings and inscriptions from the European examples, which indeed were often already misspelled as spurious copies of others.
The tracking and comparisons of these markings etc really does present fascinating investigative opportunities.
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