Hand-Forged Spartan Sword, D-Guard Hilt

No, and it is worth setting out properly rather than leaving it at no. A Spartan hoplite carried one of two swords, both short. The xiphos was a straight double-edged blade with a leaf shape, widest toward the point, generally somewhere between thirty and forty-five centimetres long, with a simple cross and a cap pommel. The kopis was the alternative: forward-curved, single-edged, built to cut. Sparta had a reputation even among other Greeks for carrying the shorter of the short, and an anecdote preserved in Plutarch's collection of Spartan sayings has a Spartan asked why their swords were so short answering that it was because they fought close to the enemy. Neither weapon resembles this one. The flared blade is a modern designer's silhouette and the enclosed knuckle guard is a European fitting that does not appear until the sixteenth century, some two thousand years after the period. We build both historical types and the xiphos is offered as a custom order above.

Because the sword was not the main weapon and was never meant to be. A hoplite fought with a spear, roughly two to two and a half metres of it, in a formation where the man beside you was close enough to touch. The sword came out when the spear broke or when the lines collapsed into a press, and in that press a long blade has nowhere to go: you cannot draw it back to cut, you cannot swing without hitting your own file, and a short stabbing weapon used underhand or overhand at body distance is simply more useful. That is a formation problem rather than a metallurgical one — Greek smiths could make longer blades and did, for cavalry and for other peoples. The length follows the tactics. It is also why the Roman gladius that succeeded it is short for the same reasons, and why sword length across the ancient Mediterranean tracks how armies fought rather than how well anyone could forge.

It encloses the hand, and it is the most protection a single fitting can provide. A cross stops a blade at the guard but leaves the fingers and the back of the hand exposed to anything that comes over or around it; a bar running from the cross back to the pommel closes that entirely, which is why the fitting appears in Europe from the sixteenth century onward and why it survives on military sabres into the twentieth. The costs are real and worth knowing. You cannot shift your grip, choke up on the blade or change hands without taking the hand out of the guard. It adds weight at the hilt, which moves the balance rearward on a sword whose whole design puts mass forward. And it makes the sword handed, because the bar has to sit on the outside of your hand. That last point is why we ask which hand you will hold it in before forging.

Whichever you tell us. A knuckle guard is not symmetrical: the bar must sit on the outside of the hand, away from your body, so the sword is built one way round and cannot simply be turned over. The piece shown is built to one side, and we will forge it to the other at no extra cost and with no extra lead time. Say so in the order comments, and if it is a gift and you are not certain, tell us that too and we will suggest the more common arrangement rather than guessing silently. If you want a sword that works either way, order the plain cross or the S-guard instead, both of which are symmetrical and available above. This is the same question our parrying dagger raises about its side ring, and the answer is the same: it costs nothing to get right and it cannot be corrected afterwards.

Because it reads. A blade that narrows through the middle and then flares dramatically into a broad angular belly makes an outline you can recognise at a glance, from a distance, in silhouette, at speed — which is exactly what a design has to do on a screen or across a room. Historical swords are generally subtler in outline, because they were solving handling problems rather than recognition problems, and a real xiphos in silhouette looks like a leaf on a stick. There is nothing dishonest in the modern approach; it is design doing its job. It also happens to produce a sword that cuts well, because moving mass forward toward the point is a genuine principle rather than a cosmetic one, arrived at independently by the kukri, the falcata and the yatagan among others. So this is a piece where the drama and the function happen to agree. We would simply rather call it a modern design that works than an ancient one that never existed.

Yes, gladly, and it is the sword we would point a historically minded buyer toward. A xiphos is short, straight and double-edged, with a leaf-shaped blade at its widest around two-thirds of the way toward the point and drawing to a sharp tip, a simple straight cross, and a cap pommel. Blades commonly run thirty to forty-five centimetres, which is around twelve to eighteen inches, so the whole sword is shorter than the blade on this one. It hung from a baldric under the left arm and was drawn across the body. Almost nobody forges it properly, partly because it is not a dramatic outline and partly because getting a leaf blade to taper correctly in both plan and section is more difficult than it looks. Send us a museum reference or let our smiths work from the general form, and it is a custom order rather than a listed product.

It moves the centre of mass forward, which makes the sword cut harder than its length and weight suggest. A blade that is narrow through the middle and broad toward the tip carries more steel at the far end of the swing, so more mass arrives at the moment of impact. The cost is handling: a forward-heavy sword is slower to change direction and more tiring in the wrist, which is why swords built this way tend to be shorter than balanced ones. Our kopis page goes into that trade properly, since the whole forward-curved family is built around it. What is worth saying here is that the flare on this blade is more abrupt and more angular than a historical forward-weighted sword would use, because it is drawn for the eye first. It works. It is just not how a smith solving only a handling problem would have shaped it.

5160 high-carbon spring steel, brought to temperature in the forge, quenched in oil and tempered back so the edge is hard while the body of the blade stays springy. It is the standard through our workshop and a good match for a single-edged cutting sword: tough enough to take a hard cut without chipping, and flexible enough through the spine to absorb it. It is not stainless, deliberately, because the stainless grades that genuinely resist rust give up the toughness a cutting blade depends on. The D-guard and fittings are forged steel, polished, and fitted rather than welded to the blade.

The tang runs the full length of the hilt with the pommel cap fitted over the end, which is through-tang construction. That is the correct build here, because a D-guard, a ferrule, a wrapped grip and a pommel all have to be assembled onto a narrow tang and clamped between the guard and the cap. Done properly it is strong, and on a sword with an enclosed guard the D-guard itself adds a second load path between the blade and the pommel, which is one of the unremarked advantages of the fitting. If you would prefer a visible full-width tang, that means a different hilt design without the enclosed guard, and we would build the sword around it from the start.

Sharp and ready, with the edge put on a stone by hand at the forge. If you would prefer it shipped blunt — for display, for costume or convention use, for a gift, or because of the rules where you live — say so in the order comments and we will send it unsharpened at no extra cost and rebate the point as well. On a piece bought largely for its appearance that is a common and sensible request, and it costs nothing.

Across the body, with the scabbard hanging along the back or the hip depending on how you set the buckle, and the hilt sitting where the off hand can steady it. A 30 inch sword on a belt swings and fouls your legs; a baldric spreads the weight across the shoulder and keeps the scabbard against the body. The rig here is riveted leather with a buckle so the drop can be adjusted, which matters more than it sounds, because two inches of drop is the difference between a clean draw and catching the point in the scabbard throat. If you want a belt frog or a back rig instead, tell us and we will make it up. For display, the baldric is also the most useful thing to hang the piece by.

In our own workshop in Tokha-3 on the northern edge of Kathmandu, Nepal, by around ten smiths, most from families that have forged blades for generations. Everest Forge has operated since 2010, and we forge, grind, heat treat, fit the hilts and cut the leather in the same building. This piece is a custom hilt build rather than a stock pattern, which is worth saying because it is also an offer: the D-guard, the quillon and the ferrule were forged and fitted for this sword, and the same smiths will do that to your drawing rather than ours.