[Ansteorra] Round Shields

[C. L. Ward]

>My theory is that the reinforced edge of a
>round shield was meant to deflect a sword shot.

Ulf, I think your understanding of the Viking round shield is way off.  The
edges are not just *not* reinforced, they're thinner than the rest of the
shield.  I think that the idea was to allow your opponent to chop into the
shield edge, whereupon you'd viciously wrench the handle and try to either
bend the weapon or jerk it out of the foeman's grasp altogether.  We run
into occasional mentions in holmgang descriptions of people having second,
backup swords, and of fighters having to straighten their sword blades
during a fight.

There's an outstanding article available on Viking shields:

Beatson, Peter. "The 'Viking Shield' from Archaeology."  NVG Miklagard.
2000.  http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/shield/shield.html

The relevant points he makes about shields are these:

Shields were typically 80-90 cm in diameter. The board was flat, and made of
a single layer of planks butted together. The planks were usually only 6-10
mm thick, and were bevelled even thinner at the outer edge. There is no
archaeological evidence for laminated (ie. cross-ply) construction though
contemporary poetry and slightly later legislation suggests it.  Continuous
gutter-shaped metal edge bindings like those known from Vendel, Välsgarde,
and Thorsbjerg were obsolete by the Viking Age. In the vast majority of
finds there is no evidence of edge reinforcement, which must therefore have
been absent, or of a perishable nature. On the Gokstad shields, small holes
are bored about 2 cm in from the edge, at intervals of c.3.5 cm , presumably
to fasten a rim, all other traces of which have perished. It can be
speculated that the edge was bound with a leather strip fastened with
stitches or thongs, or possibly very fine iron nails.

::GUNNORA::