Thank you John for the correction, I am a week into a family road trip and I
don't have all of my brain cells available to me. He is correct as to the makers
mark forge welded into the blade. There is a decent documentary on Netflix about
it called The Viking Sword. The technique for refining the steel was likely
imported from the Middle East. Those Vikings, amazing woodworkers, sailors,
metal smiths, and willing to appropriate anything not nailed down. Then they
swiped a claw hammer. So they get the nailed down stuff too.

Jeff

> On Oct 6, 2014, at 3:00 PM, John Ruth  wrote:
> 
> Jeff.
>  
> You wrote a TYPO, an embarrassing one that you would want to retract:
>  
> " For my money that was likely the Uthgarth blade of the Viking era."
>  
> No...you mean "Ulfberht blade"
>  
> This is an unfortunate typo, because the Uthgarth blade is a term from one or
more works of fiction, as near as I can determine.
>  
> You might want to issue a correction. Blame it on the spell checker !
>  
> John Ruth