OK. I was so TOTALLY not expecting that. Even though I have seen it used in conjunction with medieval armor.
I see you Yanks have played knifey spooney before.
Well, I must say I like it. If anything, it needs to be a little more macho. Some more studded leather, and maybe a name like Xtermin8tr etched into the blade. I think it’d be great around the kitchen. I wonder if it’s got little fold out magnifying glasses, screwdrivers, and fish gutters?
Wasn’t the original latin “gladius” a sword? I’m asking that because in french a “glaive” is a sword, not a pole arm.
Looking at one of the links provided in this thread, I’ m suddenly wondering why sabers (and others similarily shaped swords) had a curved blade?
I’m late with this, but I’d like to address something in Phase42’s post.
A “cestus” is an iron boxing glove. Those wacky Romans.
I’ll have you know that I can wield a cat pretty effectively.
Is this you?
that thing is missing a Klingon.
The answer depends entirely on the purpose of the sword.
Some calvary swords took advantage of the curved blade because it performed really well on cuts done while charging on horseback, hence the military sabre.
Just a quick question, where does the term “pandybat” come from? It’s a great term I may well use in the future, so I would like to know if it is from SCA or some similar group or something. It is a good as the term “jubbly” or “jub” for a weapon or armour that is in no way historically valid, but is instead designed to look cool or menacing.
That would make the weapon in the OP a jub pandybat, and a person using it presumably a jubbly pandybatter (maybe).
(Note I cannot find an official spelling for jubbly, it doesn’t appear on the web very much in any form like jubly, jublee,jubblee, or jubbly but that is the sound the word has).
heh…
[Austin Powers] Machine-gun jubblies, baby! How’d I miss those?[/Austin Powers]
The OED lists pandy as chiefly Scottish, meaning
It also lists pandybat as a combination form as an object for inflicting a pandy and gives two cites (both from James Joyce). A pandybat, then, would be something for striking someone in a way to hurt but not harm them. I can see a connection between this meaning and DrDeth’s usage.
The OED also has entries for jub and jubbly, but I’m not sure either is related to your usage. A jub is a “short coat or jerkin”, which could have a connection to armor, but I don’t see how it would be considered “cool or menacing”. Jubbly is an Australian colloguialism meany “plump, fleshly”, particularly as applied to a woman, and in the plural jubblies, refers to breasts.
Yes, you’re right. I think somewhere in Literature there is a term “left handed pandybat” for a silly-assed weapon. I know the SCA (my Bro plays with them) does use it as a term.
Glaive originally just meant “blade” and the root comes from gladius. So ‘glaive’ can be any bladed weapon. But when you take a “blade” and put it on the end of a pole, you get a “glaive”.
By itself, no, but that isn’t the point.
The katar was designed to punch through the light mail worn by Mahratta soldiers toward the end of the Mughal period (16th c. onward). It wasn’t a primary weapon; it would be used to complement a more conventional arrangement such as a sword and shield, and would only be drawn for close combat, much like European soldiers would drop swords and draw daggers.
It wouldn’t be as useful as a fighting weapon as a more conventional knife, because the transverse handle limits the wielder to punching/stabbing attacks (or very weak slashes). However, it would be virtually impossible to pierce metal armor with a normal knife.
Later on the katar spawned a sword variant, the pata, with an enclosed handle, which would be wielded in pairs. They were mostly ceremonial and parade weapons; I’ve never read any account of a military force using them in numbers, so I don’t know much about their effectiveness.