Mystical Weapons

[Winterfylleth]

I was reading just yesterday about Damascus steel made by the muslims, it was far superior to anything in europe and though europeans tried to copy it they were unable to do so.

An often repeated myth, again crediting Muslims with an Indian discovery. Muslims had little to do with it other than as middlemen. The "secret" was the wootz steel, which was produced in India hundreds of years BC. It was made with specific ores and techniques that resulted in steel that had the appearance of watered silk. It has been speculated that the difficulty in acquiring this type of steel led Western swordsmiths to invent pattern welding.

Compare the original Damascus steel:



with a modern pattern welded sword blade:





Incidentally, we were making pattern welded blades a thousand years before the Japanese.

[Winterfylleth]

But, just in case you REALLY need a magical katana:

because you never know when you may need a magic blade

Yes, you really can buy anything on ebay!

[OutlawsnUnderdogs]

Europeans came into contact with Damscus steel during crusades. The Arabs were using Damascus steel swords. The Damscus steel was made using metal mined and refined and imported from India called "Woot". The Woot steel was unusual in the fact that it had a very high carbon content and was kilned at an unusually high temperature of around 2,300 degrees. The process of low temp manufacture around 1700 degrees and hardening was done by Arabs in the process of making their swords.

Quote: New York times

For eight centuries the Arab sword makers succeeded in concealing their techniques from competitors-and from posterity.
End Quote.

The Europeans attempted to copy the steel by using welded steel swords, but the European swords did not fare well against the Damascus steel. The Europeans assumed that it was welded steel which it was not.

Here is a link to a New York Times article on Damascus steel
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/29/sc...pagewanted=all

Here is too hopeing that all of my future enemies are ignorant and think I am to stupid to be a threat, leading them to underestimate me.......

My point was not in arguing the great minds of the Arabs, it was more in the fact that they created these great weapons without understanding how. In point of fact everyone accepted that these weapons were enhanced with magical properties. In fact it was several chance things coming together without a true understanding that led to the greatness of these weapons. The idea that this could have happened further back in history with mythical weapons does not seem all that far fetched.

[Van Wellenkamp]

It makes me think of the Spear of Destiny. The spear that supposedly pierced the side of Christ. The Nazis thought it to have power, and all those who possessed it before. Even though there were several of them and all probably fake, they must have instilled confidence in those who believed in their power.

[OutlawsnUnderdogs]

I have been doing study and thinking on how to improve metal over a lot of years, the mention of nano scale tubes got me to thinking about bacteria.

I was curious what metal oxides and minerals you can find in different bacteria, in doing some searching along those lines I found a relatively recent pattent on exactly that process. They are useing it in metal manufacture and composite coating manufacture now.

Just interesting to consider that you could grow bacteria in a liquid medium and add to your metal to get nano structures of many different metals and mineral chemestry.

Knowing the right materials to mix and the right conditions etc as passed down by myth or trade could have allowed some exremely high tech additives to ancient metals. Again I would say that it is possible that there could be some basis of truth in some of the mythical weapons. Again it would not be due to magic, but instead to scientific principle just science that may not have been understood by a manufacturer, which then is labled magic.

I even ran across an article about magnetic bacteria that creates strings of crystalized magnetite within it. I found it all fascinating anyway, hopefully maybe someone else will.

[Anleifr]

I think it has a great deal to do with one's personal belief in magik in general. If there is a predilection towards the willing suspension of disbelief in various aspects of one's world-view, then that would be an important aspect to anyone who used weapons (as did most of our ancestors). The development of tools for the hunt and war were certainly some of the earliest technologies, and accordingly everything possible was done to ensure their effectiveness in combat.

Just as tools were in a sense sacred (partially because of their scarcity and difficulty in manufacture), so would weapons have been. The oral and written literature of almost every people has stories of magikal or sacred weapons that were enhanced above the ordinary. The strength that empowered the weapons was the same as that which did so for the people who wielded them; their faith in their gods and spirits to show them favor. Part of the mystery of the smith was his (or her) ability to impart magikal power to the creations of his art, thus giving to the recipient a unique edge. This kind of edge was what all warriors sought, and still do.

Archaeology has produced a wealth of evidence for the strong and persistent belief in the magik of 'lucky' weapons. The practice of a descendant of a great warrior to go into the tomb of his predecessor and retrieve a sword or spear had everything to do with the ancestor's personal luck and favor with the gods. If the descendant were 'lucky', then he would be able to enter the forbidding darkness, defeat whatever 'guardian' there were over the treasure, and retrieve the ancestral weapon, and thereby the 'luck' that attended it in the form of power. Many examples of weapons from Europe, the Mediterranean, and elsewhere show evidence of unique and personal decorative elements in their structure, almost all of which had some significance in the invoking of power. This is a powerful and positive thing when one is faced with the realities of combat and the hunt. It's a dangerous game, and one needs all the advantages one can get.

If one is a follower of Germanic heathenism (I do, but I wish there was a better term), then it can be assumed that one has a belief in the power of the runes. That said, cutting or engraving certain runes in a particular pattern would imbue the weapon with the power symbolized by the runes, and strengthened by the pattern. Faith and belief are powerful things, and in a tight situation nerves quickened by a strong faith in divine favor can be the edge. If the gods are real to one, then so is their power. If it is considered within their power to impart magikal energy to objects, then sure a mystical sword is more than possible; it is.

I personally believe that weapons, tools, and objects can be imbued with magik or divine power. Having seen a lot (including combat) and traveled far (3 continents), I know there's a lot of things that contemporary science has a hard time explaining away. I had an 8mm Mauser for years that I was convinced had power, and had a sun-wheel cut into the right side of the stock. I've had revolvers that were living things in my hand, and fit so well that I could barely tell a difference between the object and my hand holding it. Since I have fenced and sword-fought for years, a lot of swords have passed through my hands, but there have been one or two that I have had and kept. A rapier that has been in my family for over one hundred years (it was brought over by my fore-father in 1745 from Scotland to Carolina) is still in my possession, as it has in every first-born son in my father's family. It has a name, and certain 'qualities' that otherwise Christian and rational men grudgingly acknowledge with downcast eyes and under their breath. But one and all, we believe it. That's how it exists.

I'd be interested in what some of the others of you think on this.

[OutlawsnUnderdogs]

The power of belief is a scientifically proven fact...

You can many times give a person a placebo to cure them from an ailment while giving everyone else an actual drug to cure their same ailment. The person with the placebo will quite often heal the same believing they are being cured by a drug.

The mind is a very powerfull thing, if you can make it beleive. It is interesting to note that most all the miracles in the bible performed by Jesus were based upon "faith" ie belief. The words "by your faith you are healed" is a common line.

Faith or belief does not mean that the laws of physics or reality have changed but that your personal perception of it has. I think this is a very powerfull mechanism in the human mind. Not only can it be a positive thing but can also be used in a negative way in the form of a curse, if they have faith and belief in the curse.

I am still quite convinced though, that there were and still may be weapons that have also a scientific reason for their greatness.

There are a million tiny little things from impurities to nano structures to harmonics and shape that have a profound effect upon the function of an object, even with our advanced knowleage we still are unable to work most of that out because of the complexity of all of those things combined. We are also aware of the fact that there are still forms of energy and scientific principles in existence that we have little to no understanding of as yet.

Personally I do not believe in the existence of anything being defined as magic, I believe that magic is simply a term used when one does not understand the science in action. To me the use of "magic" is the use of something you "do not scientifically understand".

[Winterfylleth]

The Europeans attempted to copy the steel by using welded steel swords, but the European swords did not fare well against the Damascus steel. The Europeans assumed that it was welded steel which it was not.

Here is a link to a New York Times article on Damascus steel
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/29/sc...pagewanted=all

My point was not in arguing the great minds of the Arabs, it was more in the fact that they created these great weapons without understanding how. In point of fact everyone accepted that these weapons were enhanced with magical properties. In fact it was several chance things coming together without a true understanding that led to the greatness of these weapons. The idea that this could have happened further back in history with mythical weapons does not seem all that far fetched.

First off, the NY Times article is again repeating the myth that Western swords were inferior to Arab/Japanese weapons.

They discovered that swords of this metal could split a feather in midair

bollocks!

The finest blades ever made, he added, were the Samurai swords of Japan, whose blades may contain a million layers of steel.

More bollocks!

The layers resulted from hammering out a bar to double its original length, then folding it over as many as 32 times.
The multiple layers used by the Japanese and by makers of the Malay dagger or kris are sometimes referred to as ' 'welded Damascus steel.''

or in other words, Arab Damascus steel was the greatest steel in the world, except for Japanese pattern welded steel, which happens to be the same as the pattern welded steel Europeans were using 1,000 years before.

The swordmaking myths, however, are reasonable, and were probably first told back in the bronze age.

[Shadow]

Technology can look identical to magic unless it is understood.

There is a little evidence and a story or two about psychotronic weapons being developed or in use in Nazi Germany. These do have a magical quality to them.

[Catterick]

Littleton and Malcor have written extensively of the sword cult across Eurasia, British Isles to Japan, and down into Nigeria.

It presumably began with a Caucasic people and diffused with the technology and "wandering words". Probably the Aryans helped to spread the whole complex across the steppes.

http://www.heroicage.org/issues/15/malcor.php