VIKING GODFRED SWORD (SH1010) BY CAS HANWEI
Named for the feared 8th century Viking raider, our Godfred Sword (SH1010) is built around a beautifully patterned folded steel blade to replicate the pre-9th century originals. The interwoven leather grip, complemented by a Damascus guard and pommel, is matched by the leather-covered wood scabbard with bronze detailing and integral belt hooks. Superbly balanced, due to the deeply fullered distal tapered blade profile, the Godfred is a true tribute to the legendary Norse smiths.

RAIDING ONE'S WAY TO THE TOP
The aspect of Norse society that most captures the modern popular imagination is the Viking raids. The historical records of Europe (written for the most part by the educated clergy who often were the victims of these raids) called the raiders "a most vile people". But the raiders themselves certainly didn't hold that opinion. To them, the raids were a normal and desirable consequence of the pressures on a growing society and of the religious beliefs of the time. Raiding increased a man's stature in Viking society. A successful raider returned home with wealth and fame, the two most important qualities needed to climb the social ladder.

Traditionally the earliest date given for a Viking raid is 787 when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a group of men from Norway sailed to Portland, in Dorset. There, they were mistaken for merchants by a royal official, and they murdered him when he tried to get them to accompany him to the king's manor to pay a trading tax on their goods. The next recorded attack, dated June 8, 793, was on the monastery at Lindisfarne on the east coast of England. For the next 200 years, European history is filled with tales of Vikings and their plundering.

Monasteries were frequent targets of Norse raiders not because the raiders were particularly anti-Christian, but rather because that's where the money was. Wealth tended to concentrate in the monasteries during this period. The raiders recognized that fact and took advantage of it.