Puukko and seax

[David]

Originally Posted by Rich

Not sure where to post this. I was wondering if there is any direct relationship between Finnish puukko and ancient seax? Any thoughts or comments welcome. Stylistically there is no similarity that I can find.
Rich

Curious question Rich. As you point out, stylistically there are very few similarities other then they are both edged tools.
Also in question is what you exactly mean when you say "seax". I believe the word literally just means "knife", from a root word that means "to cut" and blades that have been called seax come in a great variety of shapes and sizes. There are short seax, long seax, broad seax, curved seax, "broken-back" seax. They really all seem like completely different knives and swords that all fall under the single name. Most of them, however, do not seem to be nearly as small as the puukko, which is generally more the size of a parring knife. The Sami knife, which seems much more related to the puukko than the seax does, would be closer to the size of many medium sized seax, but i still don't see any developmental relationship there.