Sindin (the spark sprayer)

2007

This sword took me five months to make; it represents the most ambitious project that I have taken on to date. The construction of this sword represents the culmination of the first ten years of my journey as a professional swordsmith. I sold my first sword in 1997. This sword also represents a three year intensive study into Germanic mythology and religion. My initial intention with this blade was to make a sword that represented Freya the Norse Goddess, but I found that as I designed the piece, it became more an exploration of the mystery that the study of an illusive muse instills in the seeker. In the myth of Freya she follows her lost lover Odr shedding tears of gold; the root of this name is the same as that of Odhin which means breath or ecstasy, so the central image of this piece is the face of the one eyed traveller and arch deity Odhin. The archetype of the god who will give up one eye to know the unknowable is a powerful one and it somehow embodies the journey of the smith/scholar for me. One eye searches for the unseen while the other scrutinizes the delicate world of matter, flow, and line.

The scabbard and hilt of the sword are carved with dragon motifs. These represent the substance of force, the writhing changeling substance of dreams that separates us from the unknown, or represents it. This is what lurked at the boundary of the land for the ancient traveller, the forest or the sea was a place where the world of the prosaic, the rooting pig, the clucking hen, met the world of the unknown, the mythical, and there was no way of knowing what was real and what was other. The strange traveller encountered in the unknown wood could very well be a god or a giant in disguise. This is the world that the myth springs from. It is a worldview full of wonder, and it is what I am trying to capture or reawaken through my work.

blade - five bar composite pattern welded blade of 1075/admiral "L6"

hilt - silicon bronze and moose antler

scabbard - birdseye sugar maple with silicon bronze fittings

blade stats -

5mm thick at fort and 4mm 20cm from tip
fuller is 3.5mm thick at fort and 3mm at tip
77.5cm in length
width at fort is 4.8cm
width at 60cm length is 4.2cm and 3.3cm at 5cm from tip
the fuller is 1.9cm wide at fort and tapers to 1.4cm at 60cm and6mm at 5cm from tip. the fuller ends 4cm from tip.
pob is 14.5cm from hilt
pop is around 55cm from hilt
overall length is about 95cm and the hilt is a little over18cm
weight is 1462.5g or 3.2 pounds hefty but very wieldable.