A Guest Entry by Ta’Yant bilora vi
Grrrck (of Floya 4 - There are other Ta’Yant bilora vi Grrrcks, but they aren’t
from Floya 4!)
A common occurrence in the genre
‘high fantasy’ or ‘epic fantasy’ is the use of swords, some of which had or are
said to have had magical powers. Since many of these stories appear to be set
on Old Earth and include other items that also appear in ancient Earth myths
and legends - such as elves, dwarves, dragons, magic and the like, I decided to
search the ancient texts from the Home Planet to determine how much of the
legend of ‘swords’ might be purely imaginary.
First, let me say that it is very
difficult to discern whether a particular text is truly factual. So many texts
either gave no references or referred to texts that are no longer part of what
records we still have, so cannot be verified. Since the chances of finding
additional texts seems impossible, with Earth (and indeed, that entire system)
in their current inhospitable state, I can only present what I found as a
series of supposed truths, with the understanding that it might be completely
contaminated with ‘facts’ that are nothing more than ‘beliefs’ of the time.
One source text came to be a wealth
of knowledge to me, or would have, if the links to its sources had been intact,
or if I had been able to verify anything it said from some other source. Even
the title of this reference text was incomplete, consisting of
“...ikipedia.org/wiki/Spath...”. Ancient historians (meaning those who study
ancient history, who or may or may not be ancient in their own right) believe
this title places it in the ‘wikipedia’ reference source of the 22nd century,
which is either famous for being so large and all-inclusive, or infamous for
having no basis in fact, depending on which historian is speaking. This article
stated that a spatha was a long, straight sword, originally used by the
‘germanic’ people against the ‘romans’, who started with swords that were
shorter. The ‘romans’, however, adopted the longer version so that they could
stab opponents from a longer distance.
So, if this information is correct,
swords were real, and came in different lengths. In my efforts to double-check
everything, I could not find ‘germanic’ or ‘romans’ on any maps within the
available wikipedia texts. I did find a map (circa 2100) that showed an area
called Germany, and somewhat south of that, a city called Rome. If these are
the areas of the peoples referenced, further study of even more texts indicate
that Germany was a source of many huge wars involving the entire planet, and
that the highly religious Rome people were led by a Grand Priest, alternately
referred to as ‘The Pope’ and ‘Ceasar’. I personally have trouble with the
thought of a ‘deeply religious’ people who carried and used weapons, but I am
not versed in all types of religion. Perhaps their religion called on them to
dominate others. In that case, I can not be surprised that they eventually came
to blows with the war-faring germanics.
I ran across 2 ‘news articles’ from
2015 and 2016. As ‘news stories’, they had no links to any reference materials,
but I include them here because I found them so interesting. In 2015, a ‘hiker’(?)
found an ‘ancient viking’ sword on the side of the road in Norway, and a
specialist from a local museum (?) stated the sword was from 750 AD,
approximately 1200 years before it was found. (I can’t make any sense of their
calendar! I thought these dates were in the same calendar era, but 750 plus
1200 equals 1950, not 2015!) The specialist went on to say that if given a new
handle, the sword could be used ‘today’ (meaning 2015).
In 2016, a local
‘couple’ found an ‘amazingly preserved’ sword in a ‘field’ near their home in
Denmark. This sword, a museum representative stated, was 3,000 years old.
Apparently, swords were in use for more than 3000 years, since one of these was
that old, and the other only needed some minor repairs before it could be used
again! And yes, Norway and Denmark were both on that map, Norway north of
Denmark, with a strip of water between them. But research indicated that Norway
was colonized by Denmark, so why would they be at war with each other?
My head is spinning, just trying to
keep all these ‘facts’ straight and get them presented in a logical sequence.
And I’ve just barely begun telling you all that I found in those old replicas!
My time for this entry is up, but as soon as I can pick up two thoughts and put
them together, I’ll see about writing another entry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatha
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3284415/1-200-year-old-Viking-sword-lying-road-Norway-s-good-condition-used-today.html
archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2016/09/3000-year-old-sword-found-in-denmark.html#fykqDcC4bOGEvIbd.97
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