Brazenhead - Brazen Head

Bastard boy of Winterfell // the 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch

Book of Years question - does a taipan look like a katzbalger and a makher like a messer ?

Short question, long answer - with pictures!

Just for fun, I’ve sourced almost all the images in this post from Kult of Athena to demonstrate how much visual research can be found on a single website. How accurate that visual research might be will need more work from the researcher. All of these are A-OK.

*****

The Book of Years series were originally very (excessively?) samurai-influenced, and while ebook revisions done by an older and wiser author have changed a lot of that, some aspects remain.

A wakizashi looks like a smaller version of a katana, so I imagined a taipan as being a smaller version of a taiken, which was itself inspired by the “Munich longsword” which I saw years ago in a book by Ewart Oakeshott and have admired ever since.

However I've just done a word search of all the novel files, and I’m surprised to discover that most weapons, including the taipan, aren’t described in detail. This is about as far as I ever went:

"There was a broad-bladed taipan shortsword in his hand..."

(Horse Lord)

”Broad-bladed” leaves an opening for “narrow-bladed”, just as “straight” can leave an opening for “curved”, but this is a bit like my own occasional writing advice: “If detail isn’t vital, vague will do just fine.”

However @dduane looked at it and said, “a bit less vague wouldn’t hurt once in a while.”

Not in this scene, though. That taipan’s in the principal villain’s hand, so focus is more on what he’s going to do with it - something villainous, brutal and nasty - than with how it looks.

It’s not like a katzbalger; they’re longer than I imagine a taipan to be:

A qama or kindjal from the Caucasus is more the thing.  Zaporozhian Cossack to Alban Horse Lord isn’t that much of a stretch, and may have had an influence on the “Prince Ivan” series. :->

This one’s notably long and broad...

...while others are shorter, or slimmer, or curved, or all three.

The makher was created another way; there the name came first.

"Aldric took note of a diagonal belt across the man’s chest supporting a makher, the leaf-bladed shortsword favoured by the Drusalan military..."

(Dragon Lord)

I pinched that word from an Ancient Greek weapon called a makhaira which - depending on what you read and where you read it - looked like a kopis...

...or didn’t look like a kopis.

I just liked the sound of the word itself, and applied it to a weapon resembling  the early (Mainz-pattern) Roman gladius.

That Messer notion might come from this description:

The Drusalan’s weapon was little more than a big knife, a broad, slightly curved blade ending in a clipped point, and it looked like the bastard child of a falchion and a butcher’s cleaver.

(Demon Lord)

That was indeed inspired by combining a big Bowie knife...

...and a Messer like this repro.

But it was never called a makher in the text, even though it’s opposed by one.

The eltmakher from “War Lord” and later IS curved, and since it's usually referred to as a "war-knife", the Kriegsmesser source is pretty obvious. This sword-hilted interpretation is even better, since it doesn’t have the distinctive Messer riveted-scales grip.

According to internal history, way back in time taikenin were also curved, with one full edge and a false edge near the point. 

"(Isileth's) hilt and guards would have changed many times as style dictated, but the blade itself, one of the first to be straight and fully double-edged, had a lineage few clans could match."

(Horse Lord)

The old-style taiken I was imagining turned out to exist in real life; it was a Swiss sabre, like this repro by JT Pälikkö of Finland.

Or, even better, like this one.

“Alban swords have been straight for hundreds of years. But someone who might have, ah, personal reasons for recalling an earlier time might have a sword in the style of that time. A time when Alba was a free country. A time ‘when blades were curved and honour was straight.’ That’s what your people like to say, isn’t it?” “Not my people. Not in my hearing.” Aldric glanced at the sword. “And that’s not very curved.” (Shadow Lord)

wake me up inside...

Songs of Power – RivkaZ 2017

You guys, the wizard duel between Finrod and Thû is one of my favorite scenes in the whole legendarium, I love it so, so much. :’) 

This picture was a WIP in my art folder for a year and while I always meant to finish it, I didn’t plan on spending as much time on it as I did. It’s still super rough, and I may revisit it again sometime in the future when I’m inspired, but for now I’ve gotta move on. XD 

A fabulously gilt Bollock Dagger,

OaL: 17.7 in/45 cm

Burgundy, modern France, late 15th century, housed at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon.