Axe & Scythe

An axe designed specifically for combat

The battle axe is an axe designed specifically for war. Unlike the everyday axe for splitting wood or felling trees, its head is light and its edge broad and thin, so that it bites deep even as it is swung fast. With a blade of about 15 to 30 cm and a total length of about 60 to 120 cm, it is handled in one hand or two. Each age and region had its own form: the long two-handed Dane axe of the Vikings, the throwing francisca of the Franks, and the mounted sagaris of the Scythians are the chief examples. The hooking technique, in which the lower horn of the blade, the beard, catches the top of an enemy's shield and pulls it down to nullify his defense, is characteristic, and being simpler and cheaper to make than a sword, it was widely issued.

The Viking two-handed battle axe

The Dane axe is the great two-handed battle axe of the Viking Age (9th–11th centuries): a broad, crescent-curved blade on a long haft of about 120–170 cm. The cutting edge can reach some 30 cm across, yet the head is thin and weighs only 1–2 kg, making it lighter and faster than it looks and giving it a deep, sword-like cut. Swung in great two-handed arcs, it could split a shield or hew the leg of a warhorse, and it was the badge of the bravest elite among Viking warriors. At the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the huscarls (royal guard) of King Harold of England met the Norman cavalry with this axe — a scene preserved in the Bayeux Tapestry.