“Are those your fingers on the ground or are you just unhappy to see me?” Smallsword fight to the death, early 18th century

Duels look so pretty on the screen and in paintings. But sometimes, the dying that was done was not quite as pretty.

Especially when two men engaged who wanted to make sure the other was carried off the field feet first…

Sword in the… Tree?

A sappy story, a sword in a tree.

You may retch or you may reach… but FencingClassics’s dug it up for you anyway.

Even though the “sword” turned out to be less than expected…

A Prophet in his Own Country: Irish Stick Fighting in the news

There are more Oktoberfeste in the United States than in Germany. More Highland Games in Canada than in Scotland. And Irish stick fight fighting?

Apparently, the old blackthorn is being plied vigorously, anywhere but Ireland…

(picture pilfered from irish-stick-fighting.com)

All in a Day’s Work: Götz von Berlichingen

Courtly manners, valiant jousting, noble sword fights?

Sissy stuff!

Götz von Berlichingen’s daily routine looked rather like Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs when compared to Parzival.

Swords in the News: Brown U seeks to retrieve Civil War-era sword

Sure, presentation swords aren’t our thing. Especially Civil War presentation swords.

But this looks like an interesting case that might affect the one or other collector of swords: While many of the Central European swords peddled at arms and armor shows these days qualify as “liberated” after WWII—winner takes all—there are some cases in which provenance seems to matter again…

Words to live by

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

—Winston Churchill

Swords in the News: Sword of surrender returned

We appreciate the dull, knocking sound that a bokken gives off when hitting the opponent’s ulna. But at FencingClassics, you’ll find a paucity of stories dealing with Japanese swords.

As a friendly tip of the mask to popular multi-kulti sentiment, let’s change things up a bit…

Swords in the News: The Sword of Lalgarh

Nobody tell us we’re Euro-centric.

(Okay, we are, so sue us!)

But that doesn’t keep us from scouring the world for interesting stories relating to the Sword. Like this one from India, where an ancient sword is a living symbol of resistance against outside aggression…

Two-handed Sword: Germany, c. 1560

The official Catalog of German-language Illustrated Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, Vol. 38:, lists all known German Fencing and Wrestling Books on just 144 pages.

We’re ridiculously proud that 2 of those pages are dedicated to a fragment closely associated with the American HEMA movement…

“Best Investment?”: New antique sword site

We hope he’s right: “Antique swords are one of the best investments going, as well as one of the most evocative and obsessive hobbies a person will encounter,” says Ed Parker of AntiqueSwords.org.

That certainly would not only explain but justify the pile of scrap metal in the FencingClassics offices…