Variations of famous Viking-era swordsmiths' names

vilhelmsson · 28th October 2019, 05:23 PM

In "The Vlfberht sword blade reevaluated," from 2008, noted sword scholar Anne Stalsberg says that the high count on documented Ingelrii's is 37 by Geibig. Of those 37, she accepts 32.

For reference, Stalsberg examined 166 Ulfberht's in her study. But she says that there is really no good way to estimate how many there are for a couple of reasons. First, there are a lot in private hands. Second, given the way inlays can deteriorate or be obscured over time, determining which swords are Ulfberhts through close analysis, delicate cleaning, and CT scan is a monumental task because of the volume of swords. There are over 2,500 swords in Norway alone that still have to be examined.

There are a lot of nice sword finds in Finland, and there is some evidence that Finnish smiths had advanced techniques that weren't practiced in western Scandinavia. But the weight of the scholarship at this time is that Ingelrii is linguistically Frankish, and most likely the name of a person because of the finds of inlays with "me fecit" (made me) following "Ingelrii."

28th October 2019, 05:23 PM	#5
vilhelmsson Member Join Date: Feb 2019 Location: Bay Area Posts: 57	In "The Vlfberht sword blade reevaluated," from 2008, noted sword scholar Anne Stalsberg says that the high count on documented Ingelrii's is 37 by Geibig. Of those 37, she accepts 32. For reference, Stalsberg examined 166 Ulfberht's in her study. But she says that there is really no good way to estimate how many there are for a couple of reasons. First, there are a lot in private hands. Second, given the way inlays can deteriorate or be obscured over time, determining which swords are Ulfberhts through close analysis, delicate cleaning, and CT scan is a monumental task because of the volume of swords. There are over 2,500 swords in Norway alone that still have to be examined. There are a lot of nice sword finds in Finland, and there is some evidence that Finnish smiths had advanced techniques that weren't practiced in western Scandinavia. But the weight of the scholarship at this time is that Ingelrii is linguistically Frankish, and most likely the name of a person because of the finds of inlays with "me fecit" (made me) following "Ingelrii."