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Old 08-25-2005, 02:34 PM
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J.Arthur Loose J.Arthur Loose is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamRidlon
I have one, but I am unfortunately lacking a vital piece of information -- the name of the blade. If I remember right it does exist, it is in a museum, it still has an exceptional edge. So maybe the story will jar the name of the maker or the blade itself out of someone's memory.

The bladesmith forged out the sword to near completion. The smith then ground the blade down to filings, fed them to his starved geese, collected all of their droppings over the next week, smelted, and reforged the sword, ground it back down to files... and so on. The process was repeated either two or three times.

Ahh, the sword is named Mimung, and forged by Velent as described in Thidhrekssaga. Velent is none other than Weyland or Volund. There are multiple versions of the story and in one, Volund recycles the iron through the geese thirteen times before forging a sword out of it. In Thidhrekssaga Velent reforges the sword three times, each time filing it down and feeding through the geese before resmelting & reforging.

In 1936, the Laboratory for Carbon and Iron Research, GmbH, Combined Steelworks AG in D?sseldorf, Germany experimented with Volund's technique and discovered that it results in nitrided steel. The legendary figure of Volund would hail from 1st-4th C. CE based on when the legends become popular. I have never heard of a sword claimed to be the legendary Mimung, and would think that I would have...

I am currently looking for donor geese.


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Last edited by J.Arthur Loose; 08-25-2005 at 02:41 PM.
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