40x01 - Secrets of the Viking Sword

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NARRATOR:
The Vikings were some of the
fiercest warriors of all time,

and a select few carried
the ultimate weapon:

a sword nearly a thousand years
ahead of its time,

built by a mysterious craftsman

from a material unknown
to rivals for centuries

The sword was known
as the "Ulfberht"

ALAN WILLIAMS:
The swords were far better
than any other swords made

before or since in Europe

NARRATOR:
The secrets behind
its design, creation and use

have been lost

But now the world's largest
steel company

and a modern-day blacksmith
divine its mysteries

and bring the Ulfberht
back to life

RIC FURRER:
To do it right,

it is the most complicated thing
I know how to make,

and it's that challenge
that drives me

NARRATOR:
A millennium after
its time of glory,

discover "The Secrets
of the Viking Sword"

right now on this NOVA/
National Geographic special

Major funding for NOVA is
provided by the following

Supporting NOVA and promoting
public understanding of science

And by the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting

and by:

NARRATOR:
Master swordsman John Clements

has cut with some of the most
famous swords ever made

from Damascus steel blades

to the legendary samurai sword,
the Katana

Forged by master craftsmen
from the 14th century onward,

the samurai sword is renowned
for its elegantly curved blade

and impressive cutting ability

I think the Katana
is a beautiful weapon,

it's a fine weapon

It slices, it cuts,
it thrusts, it dices,

it makes julienne fries,
it's wonderful

But it has been exaggerated

NARRATOR:
Exaggerated because sharpness
alone is not enough

So you see demonstrations
of a sharp sword like this

cutting material all the time
and you think it's impressive

because, "Ooh,
look what it does!"

But that's really not that
impressive, and here's why

This is a wide medieval b*stard
sword, and this one's blunt

It's got no real edge to it

No edge sharpness

But watch what I'm going
to do with it

A really good sword
is not just about cutting

with a really sharp edge

NARRATOR:
Strength, flexibility,
weight and shape all determine

how well a blade meets the
combat challenges of its time

and whether it's
a superior sword

Many great swords are famous,

but there's one
few have ever heard of

that was perfectly designed
for its day

They were a luxury:
rare and expensive

It was the Rolls Royce
of the swords

NARRATOR:
Produced only
from about 800 to 1,000 A D,

this Viking sword was made
from a pure steel

not seen again in Europe
for nearly a thousand years

This high-tech weapon
of its time

was inscribed with the
mysterious word "Ulfberht"

Carried by only
a few elite warriors,

the Ulfberht represented
the perfect marriage

of form and function in the
chaos that was a Viking battle

NIELS LYNNERUP:
It's not people divide you up
and have a nice duel one-to-one

The fight was very violent

Chaos

People moving around, striking
out whenever possible

Some people were struck
multiple times

and from all kinds of angles

NARRATOR:
The Vikings spread out
from Scandinavia,

colonizing vast expanses
of Europe

from the eighth
through 11th centuries

They are so admired as fighters

that people to this day
re-enact their battles

In Viking times, most men
fought with axes and spears

But those who could afford it
used swords for close combat

The Ulfberht's combination

of strength, lightness and
flexibility was an advantage

WILLIAMS:
The swords were far better
than any other swords made

before or since in Europe

And these must have been
extraordinarily valuable

to their contemporaries
because of their properties

NARRATOR:
Thousands of Viking swords
have been found,

most discovered in rivers
or excavated from Viking burials

across Scandinavia
and Northern Europe

But only 171 have been
identified as Ulfberhts

JON ANDERS RISVAAG:
The swords as they are today,

it's very hard to see
that this was actually

a state-of-the-art weapon

NARRATOR:
Buried for centuries,

only corroded skeletons of
the once glorious blades remain

RISVAAG:
They don't look very much today,
but in their time

the Ulfberht was the weapon
of the upper strata

You would certainly
notice a person

carrying a weapon like this

This would be a very precious,
very beautiful object,

and a deadly one too, obviously

NARRATOR:
The secret of the Ulfberht's
construction

has been lost
for nearly a thousand years

But can a modern-day blacksmith
recapture that technology

and bring this remarkable sword
back to life?

FURRER:
To do it right,

it is the most complicated thing
I know how to make

and it's that challenge
that drives me

I don't need a sword,
but I have to make them

Not because I can't do
anything else,

but because I can't do
anything else.

NARRATOR:
In northern Wisconsin,

Ric Furrer is starting out
on the task of a lifetime

He's one of the few people
on the planet who has the skills

to unravel the mystery
of how the Ulfberht was made

FURRER:
I'm drawing a full-scale
paper model

of the sword blade that I'm
going to try to recreate

This Ulfberht inlaid sword
was popular

about a thousand years ago

and nobody has made a recreation

metallurgically accurate
since then

I hope to figure out
if I can recreate accurately

how these blades
would have been made back then

NARRATOR:
There are mysteries
about everything

related to the making
of the Ulfberht

FURRER:
These were,
to a large extent, secrets

You didn't want to give away

your manufacturing technology
for your weaponry

to anybody else

So we have to look
at the artifact

and then reverse-engineer

Sometimes it's a matter of
removing 1/32 of an inch here

or adding it there or

subtleties that
you don't think matter

that can in fact
make a huge difference

in how the blade performs

The trick is to piece together

from enough archaeological
evidence to figure out

what the proportions
of these blades should be

and then the chemistry

What is the material
that these were made out of?

And that is new information,

why they're metallurgically
different

NARRATOR:
In London, one of the world's
leading experts

on historic steel weaponry,
Alan Williams,

recently made a discovery
about the Ulfberht

that shocked scientists
and sword makers alike

WILLIAMS:
I've been fascinated
by armor and swords

for a very long time

and have always wanted
to find out

what they were made of
and how they were made

Smelted iron was the source
for swords, weapons, armor

for thousands of years

NARRATOR:
From about 800 B C till today,

humans have made weapons
from steel

The process starts with iron,

which is found
in the ground as ore

The crushed ore is heated to
separate the iron from the rock

But on its own, iron is too soft
to yield a strong weapon

The trick is to add carbon, most
commonly from coal or charcoal

This hardens the metal
and turns it into steel

But not all steels
are created equal

First, Williams examines
a sample encased in acrylic

from a typical Viking Age sword

Not only does it have
low carbon,

it has impurities, known as
slag, that weaken it further

WILLIAMS:
Medieval iron is
both soft and brittle

This is a sample of a sword
of modest quality

These long inclusions, perhaps
looking a bit like sausages,

these are inclusions of slag,
the non-metallic part of the ore

which has never been separated
from the iron

The slag makes the iron brittle,

which doesn't actually give you
a terribly good sword

NARRATOR:
Medieval blacksmiths in Europe
didn't make slag-free steel

because their fires
weren't hot enough

to fully liquefy the iron

In modern times,
metals are melted

at temperatures
over 3,000 degrees

This separates out the slag

and allows more carbon
to be mixed in evenly

But in the Viking era,

carbon could only be introduced
incidentally,

mainly through the coal
in the fire,

and the only way to remove
the slag from the metal

was to try to hammer out
the impurities with each strike

Of the thousands
of European swords

from the Middle Ages
that have been found,

all were thought to have been
made from this inferior steel

until Williams analyzed
the Ulfberht

WILLIAMS:
One or two swords I looked at
seemed to be different

They were made of steel

which I'd never seen before
or since in a medieval object

This seems to be a completely
different material

The first thing
that strikes you is that

there are none of these long,
grey slag inclusions

which make the metal brittle

The uniformity is more like
a modern steel

than it is a medieval one

And it has got a carbon content
of about three times as much

as the medieval steel
we looked at a moment ago

I thought it was very odd

I couldn't think
of a reason for it

NARRATOR:
The only swords Williams found

that were made of this clean,
high-carbon steel

were those marked as Ulfberht

The metal,
known as crucible steel,

gave the swords capabilities
far ahead of their time

But it could only be made

by melting iron
at high temperatures,

and no one in Europe would know
how to do this for centuries

WILLIAMS:
The material used
was a novel material

not found anywhere else
in Europe in the Middle Ages

FURRER:
The biggest mystery is where
did they get this raw material?

We have no archaeological
evidence

of any crucible steel production
in Europe until 800 years later

NARRATOR:
So how did these Norsemen,

widely viewed to this day
as barbarians,

get this cutting-edge
technology?

Contrary to their image,

the Vikings were advanced
in many ways

They were highly skilled
navigators and traders,

who are believed to have
extended their reach

as far as North America
and Central Asia

LJUNGQVIST:
During the Viking Age
in Scandinavia,

all free men were by law

forced to possess weapons
and go to w*r

But much Viking warfare
was raiding and plunder

NARRATOR:
Many Vikings were pagans
who worshipped their weapons

and even believed a sword could
help a warrior enter heaven

LJUNGQVIST:
The warriors would come to
a special place called Valhalla,

where they would have feasts and
fighting in a warrior paradise

The only way to get to Valhalla
was to be a warrior

and die in battle
with your sword in your hand

GUNNAR ANDERSSON:
The sagas tell stories about the
swords, how powerful they were

Many of the swords
had personal names,

sometimes that are connected to,
for instance, a bear or a wolf

By giving it a name,

you could also incorporate
the power of your ancestor

or somebody very strong
into the sword

CLEMENTS:
See how your whole
weapon's blocked

and there's that sweet
opening right there?

So you throw that blow,

my point's right between both
your weapon and your shield

NARRATOR:
According to John Clements,
in the arms race of the day,

blades rarely touched
each other directly

Instead, they pounded against
armor and shields

as fighters tried
to go for the k*ll

CLEMENTS:
The reality of Viking combat is

there's not the constant edge-
on-edge, blade-on-blade contact

Yeah, very good

They're using the shields
far more dynamically,

they're getting in close,

they're overwhelming their
opponent with vicious blows

I come in, I hit your shield

If I don't do it right,
you're going to get me

But if you do,
there is that opening,

because you can't raise
your shield

We've got to think
of the sword as a tool

that's being used to do things
such as warding off blows

It has to be robust
and resilient

because fighting is not just
about clash, clash, clash

It's a lot more dynamic

NARRATOR:
The lack of brittle impurities
in the steel

made the Ulfberht
unusually flexible,

and this was a huge advantage

A Viking fighter was doomed

if his sword got stuck
in a shield and broke

It took a special steel
to withstand such stress,

and a sword that could do this

might even have been seen
to possess magical powers

FURRER:
These blades
and these blacksmiths

were held in certain esteem
and also feared a little

because of this elemental
property of what they're working

and what they're producing

To be able to make a weapon from
dirt is a pretty powerful thing

NARRATOR:
Magic and science

have been intertwined
throughout human history,

and the Ulfberht merged
the mysticism of the past

with the precision
of the modern world to come

So this is our steel-to-be

NARRATOR:
Starting with raw iron,

Ric begins the process
of making crucible steel

It's the first of many steps
on the way to a finished sword

A mistake at any point
could lead to failure

This charcoal will be
the carbon source for the steel,

so the charcoal here will get
absorbed into the steel

And we don't need much

NARRATOR:
If all goes well,
carbon from the charcoal

will harden the raw iron
into steel

This is sand,

and this is our bottle glass

They will melt, chemically bond

with the waste material,
the other slags,

and will help float them away
and leave clean metal

so the carbon can be absorbed

NARRATOR:
As part of their
mystical practices,

some medieval smiths might have
used a different carbon source

to strengthen their swords

ANDERSSON:
You can also use bone,

burnt bone, together with coal
in hardening the steel right

And assume now that
you're using burnt bones,

even from your ancestor, or from
a bear or something like that,

and you hammer in the power
of the animal or your ancestor

into the weapon in itself
together with charcoal

and you make a perfect
steel blade...

A very powerful steel blade
probably as well

FURRER:
We are putting the top
onto the crucible

This clay will completely
seal this crucible

from the furnace environment

Mostly it's to keep more
charcoal from getting in

So we want a set amount
of carbon

And if the charcoal were to
enter, we would have too much

And there it is

NARRATOR:
Ric will try to melt the metal
in an oven he's building

It's based on an ancient furnace
made of clay and brick

that was recently uncovered


in Central Asia

FURRER:
We fill this all the way
to the top, to the tippy top,

because we need all the heat,

so we need all the fuel
we can get into the furnace

The theory is that this is
how they did it

a thousand years ago

Charcoal will burn
hot enough to melt steel

The trick is to get it contained
in such a way

that you can deliver
that heat long enough

for the material to melt
inside the crucible

Almost finished

We just have two more bricks

and then we've got it sealed up
and ready for the burn run

If we run this right,

it should get almost
to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit

and we should get a nice full
liquid on our crucible charge

And then we have our starting
material for the Ulfberht

Last brick

NARRATOR:
Closed at the top
and vented from the side,

this oven traps more heat

than other European furnaces
of the time

Ric and his assistant,
Kevin Cashen,

will man the bellows for hours

In medieval times,
an entire village would help

The ingredients need to reach
nearly 3,000 degrees

for the slag to separate
from the liquefied steel

Even the smallest fracture
in the crucible...

The container holding
the steel...

Could derail the entire process

FURRER:
We're hoping that
if we run it right,

we're going to end up
with a crucible steel ingot

But the idea of actually
doing all of these steps

and putting it into one piece
of metal is daunting

because at absolutely
every stage,

you can have a fatal error

NARRATOR:
The Vikings didn't invent
crucible steel

In fact, there's no evidence

that anyone in Europe
knew how to make it

until the Industrial Revolution
in the 18th century

But for more than 500 years
before the Ulfberht,

warriors elsewhere
had been fighting

with crucible steel weapons

Swordsmiths across Central Asia

produced some of the greatest
swords of all time,

known as Damascus steel blades

Curiously, they were made

from material
similar to the Ulfberht

WILLIAMS:
Damascus steel is a separate
class of crucible steel

which is similar
in chemical composition,

but the crucible steel
was cooled very slowly,

so the iron formed
large crystals

And with careful forging,

these large crystals form
a surface pattern on the blade

NARRATOR:
These unusual swords exhibited

many of the same superior
qualities as the Ulfberht

But if the Vikings didn't know
how to make crucible steel,

then where did they get it?

Clues can be found in artifacts

excavated from Viking graves
in Scandinavia

as early as the eighth century

ANDERSSON:
The Buddha was found
on an island

west of modern-day Stockholm

It originates from India,
northeast India

And it tells us, of course,

that trades
with the Far East existed

The ring is the same thing there

It's this written inscription
that says "Allah"

NARRATOR:
Thousands of artifacts
from the East

have been uncovered
from Viking graves

Islamic coins were even commonly
traded in Scandinavia

You could go mostly
by river and lakes

all the way from Lake Mälaren
here in Sweden to northern Iran

NARRATOR:
The route was known as
the Volga trade route

LJUNGQVIST:
The interesting thing is that
most Ulfberht swords are dated

from exactly the same time when
the Volga trade route was open...

That is, from the early 800s
to the mid-1000s

I think it's very likely
that the steel that you find

in the Ulfberht swords
originated from Iran

I would guess that you bought it

from friendly trading
connections in Iran...

Paid with furs
and other Nordic commodities...

And took it back
on your small ships

that you used on the rivers

WILLIAMS:
After the 11th century,
the Volga trade route is closed

and the manufacture of these
Ulfberht swords stops,

which, to me, is strong evidence

that they were made out of
an imported raw material

NARRATOR:
The oven that Ric
has used as a model

was found in Central Asia,

near the end
of the Volga trade route

After five hours,
it's time to see

if he has successfully made
a crucible steel ingot

FURRER:
I think this burned pretty good,

so we should have
an ingot in there

NARRATOR:
Most of the impurities
have separated from the steel

and been absorbed
by the sand and glass

that fall off with the crucible

FURRER:
It seems like we have
a good ingot

Let's see if we can turn it
into a good Ulfberht blade

NARRATOR:
This single piece of steel
will make the entire blade

The absence of lava-like sparks

suggests he's created
slag-free, pure steel

But the artistry comes

in working the hard,
carbon-rich metal

FURRER:
This part, this initial
breakdown, is terrible

You have to be very gentle
with it or you can crack it

NARRATOR:
Crucible steel
is difficult to work

because as it cools,
the iron atoms form

interlocking crystalline
structures called dendrites

that look like frost patterns
on a window

The carbon in crucible steel

makes the areas
around the dendrites rigid

and hard to forge

FURRER:
It's solidified into
this dendritic tree

and it doesn't want to be
anything else

So you're hitting it and it's
kind of all nestled together

What you have to do
is just nudge it,

and slowly it breaks down

And after that, you really
start to enjoy it

NARRATOR:
It will take eight hours
of pounding

just to form the ingot
into a bar

FURRER:
Two more

It's breaking down quite nicely

So now we'll start forming it
out into a longer bar

and draw the sword from there,
but it's looking real good

NARRATOR:
To test how good it really is,

Ric will send a small piece
of the crucible steel he's made

with his ancient recipe

to the largest steel company
in the world

ArcelorMittal produces

nearly 100 million tons
of steel a year

One out of five cars
in the world contains its metal

RICHARD SUSSMAN:
In the modern steel world,

we try to customize
the recipe for steel

for the particular application,

and so there are now hundreds
of variety of steel

which are suitable
for some applications,

but not for others

The Vikings, in their day,

I'm sure wanted hardness
on the surface of the sword

so it could cut through easily

They would want the sword,
however,

not to shatter
or break in combat

If it got stuck in a shield,

they'd want to be able
to extract it

without it breaking
or twisting or bending,

and they'd want it to be able
to keep its edge

NARRATOR:
To choose the best metal
for a particular application,

Sussman's team
tests the capacity

of different types of steel
to withstand stress

Today, they'll pit
Ric's crucible steel

against the typical European
metal of the time

As the Vikings raided their way
across Europe,

this inferior iron is what
an Ulfberht

would most likely have met
in battle

The metal is brittle
and breaks like a dry twig

It would have been
a very inferior sword

because it could have
shattered in action

NARRATOR:
Now the machine will measure
whether Ric's crucible steel

will be able to withstand
more stress

SUSSMAN:
The crucible steel
that we were given

had actually very nice
characteristics for a sword,

which you want to have
good strength

but also not shatter in action,

I think good characteristics
overall

NARRATOR:
An examination
of the microstructure

with a scanning electron
microscope

will reveal whether Ric
has succeeded

in making a slag-free,
pure steel

TECHNICIAN:
As we're moving along here
across the surface,

it's quite interesting
how clean it is

NARRATOR:
The image is nearly free of slag

and other inclusions
that appear as dark circles

SUSSMAN:
The inclusions are very small
and very minute

and very widely distributed

NARRATOR:
invented, Sussman...

Who has spent decades
developing modern steels...

Gives Ric's crucible steel
what for him is high praise

SUSSMAN:
This would be a fairly decent
steel today

Considering the lack

of metallurgical knowledge
in its day

and the tools
that were available

compared to steel making today,
it's not bad

NARRATOR:
After 11 hours of pounding,

Ric has transformed his piece
of crucible steel into a blade

FURRER:
We have the blade profiled,
and now we're going to start

refining the tip
to its final shape

So now it's going to start
looking like a sword;

it's no longer a bar of steel

It's going to start to take on
its final shape

NARRATOR:
Ric's sword will eventually
be more pointed,

like all Ulfberhts

FURRER:
One more

Flat

CLEMENTS:
The swords of the Norse

tended to be swords
that are designed

to get through the mail armor
that they're wearing,

the chain linked armor

And that requires
a different point

and a different cross-sectional
geometry

They changed the way
their swords were shaped

to facilitate thrusting
through that mail

NARRATOR:
To show the advantages
of the pointed swords

that emerged in the Viking era,

first Clements tests an earlier
replica sword from Roman times

against Viking-era chain mail

Designed to slash at opponents
from horseback,

it has a more rounded tip

I don't think a single ring

was deformed, split, popped,
or in any way damaged

So obviously a point
that's more rounded,

hitting the mail is not going
to do as much on puncturing

or on even catching it

as will a narrow, tapered,
harder point

that will get through

So this Viking-era blade has
a slight taper to the point

Sure enough, it popped
about two or three rivets...

There is the puncture,
there is the cut...

And I could feel the blade
getting through the cloth

and getting into that rubber
and that foam underneath

A blade like this,

definitely progress in the arms
race between swords and armor

NARRATOR:
The Ulfberht's shape
was perfectly suited

to meet the martial challenges
of its time

But its true excellence stemmed
from its unusual metal

and from the intangible value
of its name

FURRER:
We're at the point now
where we do the inlay,

or the cutting of the inlay,
for the name "Ulfberht"

We've got the cross

U-L-F-B-E is more or less
centered, R-H-cross-T

NARRATOR:
Like his mysterious predecessor
a thousand years ago,

Ric's taking a chance
by branding the sword

[hammering]

FURRER:
There is some argument that the
cuts actually weaken the blade,

so if I do this wrong

I'll have to start over
from the beginning

RISVAAG:
As one might see here,
that is the "B" in "Ulfberht"

And as you can see there,

it stands out from the rest
of the sword

If you look closely,

you can see that some parts
of the lettering

are actually starting
to come off

because it's been
through a hard time

both in the earth
and through the burial

But this is a very highly
skilled craftsman doing this

It's not very easy to do that

FURRER:
This is one of the many
make-or-break points

in this sword manufacture

because we have to cut
the name just right

and inlay the contrasting
iron letter

into the crucible steel blade

So I'll carve it
with a few chisels

and then we'll inset
the twisted iron inlay

The fact that they went
through the labor

to give it that amount
of extra effort,

that amount of power
by inlaying this name

made them more valuable

Why they put this on, it's
we don't know

We are quite puzzled

But it might be because it was

they were making a statement:

"This is the real deal,
this is something of quality"

But Ulfberht is actually
an enigma;

we don't know who Ulfberht was

LJUNGQVIST:
We have no examples

from the written sources
from the time of the name

It does not appear anywhere

NARRATOR:
So what can this name tell us
about who made these swords?

The fact that Ulfberhts appear
over a 200-year period means

they couldn't have been produced
by a single craftsman

But the name seems to be
Frankish...

From a medieval empire that
included France and Germany...

And the signature holds
an important clue

RISVAAG:
There's actually a small cross
in front of the name,

and ordinary people
would not put a cross

in front of their name

NARRATOR:
During the Middle Ages,
the Roman Catholic Church

dominated the Frankish empire
and more

A frequent enemy
of the pagan Vikings,

the church was a major arms
producer and arms dealer

LJUNGQVIST:
The Greek cross
before a signature

was only used
by bishops and abbots

And so the signature tells us

that it was either a bishop's
name or an abbot's name,

or maybe even the name
of a monastery

NARRATOR:
It's possible that
the swords were manufactured

by the Vikings' rivals
in the Roman Catholic Church

and then somehow smuggled north

LJUNGQVIST:
But we have no way
of really knowing

how the Vikings got possession
of the Ulfberht swords

since it was forbidden to trade
with the Scandinavians

NARRATOR:
If people in the church
did make the swords,

it begs the question how
they got the crucible steel

Many experts agree that it
was brought by the Vikings

from Central Asia
or the Middle East,

so perhaps the Vikings
themselves

were the craftsmen, despite
the foreign inscription

WILLIAMS:
There are lots of reasons
why a Scandinavian

might have used a foreign word
and have used the cross

It might have been magic,

it might have been
copying symbols

from the disappeared
Roman Empire,

it might have been
simply because

somebody thought
they liked the name,

like putting the name "Apple"
on a computer

There are dozens
of possible reasons

why the makers of these swords

could have used
the Frankish name Ulfberht

RISVAAG:
So if you look at this mystery,

this enigma of this person
Ulfberht,

who he was and what kind
of position he had,

it might not ever be solved

I wonder who he was,
or rather who they were,

or what this inscription meant

to the people that
owned the swords

Because we don't know

if Ulfberht is a kenning...
A word of power

Could be an area,

could have been a workshop
because these spanned 150 years

So I wonder about
a lot of things

But if you think too much
about other things

you make mistakes

NARRATOR:
Whoever or whatever
Ulfberht may have been,

the inlaid lettering
helped reassure customers

they were buying
from a master craftsman

That looks all right

Let's set it

Give me one good hit

NARRATOR:
Once the letters are
pounded into place,

they are heat treated

But Ric won't know
if they have set properly

until the end of the process,
when the sword is polished

and the thick layer of iron
oxide that's accumulated

is removed from the surface

FURRER:
I'm putting in all of this work
to make this blade

And if it does work,

you still have hours
and hours of polishing

to verify that all the work
you did up to that point

actually made a good sword,

and that the letters exist

And if it doesn't work,
it really sucks

You just end up with a piece
of recyclable material

NARRATOR:
With the letters
welded in place,

Ric must now make something
called the fuller

The fuller is an indentation
down the center of the blade

It reveals the ingenuity
of Viking Age craftsmen

FURRER:
You've got the start
of the fuller,

and that will get progressively
deeper as we go

We're just going to bring that
all the way up the blade

The fuller allows longer blades,
wider blades,

yet the same weight as thicker,
unfullered pieces of steel

because it acts like an I-beam

An I-beam has structural members
here and a horizontal

So here we have the fuller
acting as the horizontal

and a little bit
thicker material,

and then going down
to a cutting edge

So you have the minimal amount
of material

to give you the maximum amount
of strength

So in this time period,

the blades are getting longer
and longer and longer,

but the weight remains
about the same

A completed sword weighs about
two pounds, a little bit less

About like a baseball bat

Swords weigh about what
a baseball bat weighs

NARRATOR:
The fuller made
longer blades lighter

LYNNERUP:
You're fighting for your life

You need to use every
opportunity you can to strike

Some of these Viking swords
are heavy,

you just don't move like
the Three Musketeers easily

It takes some force
to wield the sword

and having done a full stroke,
you need to swing it back up

NARRATOR:
If a fighter didn't get
his sword up fast enough

to strike an opponent, he might
not get another chance

These victims
of a Viking attack...

Found in a mass grave
in southern Greenland...

All show clear evidence
of blows to the head

LYNNERUP:
In a forensic context,
what we're looking at

is the velocity and the weight
of the swords

If we take this skull here,

we can see a very clear
marked cut edge

This is where the weapon struck
and actually managed

to cut through
quite a lot of the skull

before finally some
of the bone here was crushed

and then the sword was taken out

And this blow would certainly
have been deadly

NARRATOR:
When a warrior was k*lled
in violent combat,

the living often
took precautions

to avoid his wrath
in the afterlife

ANDERSSON:
If you bent the sword,

you also destroy the power
of the sword, right,

and you bury it together

with the person that owned it,
and in that way,

you made sure that
the powers of the weapon

were buried as well
and k*lled as well

NARRATOR:
Hundreds of swords

which were heated and then bent

have been unearthed
from Viking graves

RISVAAG:
If you took a sword
off an enemy,

you would make damn sure

that he didn't come back
in the afterlife

and bother you with the sword,

so it's sort of a ritual k*lling
of the sword, too

NARRATOR:
Ric is heating his sword
for another purpose

He has reached the riskiest part
of the entire process

It's called the quench

FURRER:
The quench is where
it's really born

It's just a piece of metal until
it comes out of the quench

NARRATOR:
The goal of the quench is

to harden the sword by heating,
then rapidly cooling it

We know now that this affects

the atomic structure
of the metal

According to legend, ancient
blacksmiths cooled their swords

with anything from water
to dragon's blood

But Ric will use oil

He'll quench the sword
when the blade glows

a consistent dull orange

FURRER:
Up until the last few minutes,

all the prior work
can be destroyed

This one has so much technology
going into it, so much time

If it breaks in the quench, I'm
going to be absolutely gutted

NARRATOR:
It's uncertain whether the
makers of the original Ulfberhts

quenched their swords

But Ric believes they did,
and thinks it offers final proof

of a blacksmith's mastery
over the metal

FURRER:
I'm in love with the steel...

This very primal interaction
with this raw material

that's largely unforgiving,

and even if you treat it right,

absolutely everything
can go wrong

We're coming up nice

NARRATOR:
The quench will make
the blade hard

but it can also crack the sword

The ping is the audible sound
of the steel cracking

So we hear it as a tink
or a ping,

and that means that
somewhere along that blade,

it has cracked
and we need to start over

I think we're about there

We'll know within
about ten seconds of the quench

if we got a good sword or not

I think we're going to go
for a quench

Like maybe right now

[hissing]

No ping!

Did not crack

A little bit of straightening...
It's a little bent...

But we can handle that

I don't think a crucible steel
with bloomery letter Ulfberht

has been made
since the originals

So it's been 900 to 1,000 years

We have an Ulfberht!

I think we've got a good blade

I want to see the name

I've waited quite a while
to see the name

NARRATOR:
The name will remain hidden

until the sword cools
and Ric can polish it

But after a thousand years,

the mysterious Ulfberht
inscription

has one more secret to reveal

As of today, Alan Williams
has examined 44 Ulfberhts

across five countries

and has made one final discovery

WILLIAMS:
Some swords have
the name "Ulfberht" spelled

"cross-U-L-F-B-E-R-H-cross-T,"

and some have them spelled
"H-T-cross"

Those that were spelled
"H-cross-T"

had the very high carbon steel,

whereas the swords

which had the Ulfberht name
spelled differently

were made of much lower carbon
steel, much inferior steel

These must have been copies

NARRATOR:
Of the 44 Ulfberhts that
Williams has examined,


of crucible steel

RISVAAG:
You can see here the R, the H,
the T and the last cross

WILLIAMS:
They are contemporary fakes,
of course;

they were made at the same time

by people trying to cash in
on the reputation of Ulfberht

They were probably made
by illiterate craftsmen

for illiterate customers

It's the Armani or the Gucci
or whatever, or the Porsche,

so you want to copy the brand

WILLIAMS:
To the unsuspecting buyer,

it appears to be
the genuine Ulfberht,

but there's a much greater
chance of it snapping,

which is, of course, extremely
embarrassing in battle

NARRATOR:
Ric's sword is made
from crucible steel

and bears the inscription
of a genuine Ulfberht, cross-t

But before his sword can truly
be called an Ulfberht,

he must see if the inlaid name
has survived the process

After tempering, or reheating,
the sword a final time

to keep it from becoming too
brittle, he begins to polish

FURRER:
It can take
a few days of rubbing

by all handwork
to get these cleaned up

and looking like people
assume swords look

It was the luster of the metal
that made people lust after it

In a world of mud and trees
and rock,

you have the polished metal,
and that was different

NARRATOR:
He uses increasingly
fine grained stones

to polish the sword, and only
then will he sharpen it

But he still can't be sure
if the inlay has survived

FURRER:
If the inlay survives
all of the grinding,

what will happen is if we add
an etchant to it, an acid,

then that should create
enough of a contrast

between the two materials

to where the name should be
easily readable

We'll see how well I did

The cross

U-L-F-B-E-R-H-cross-T

It looks really good

It was a good inlay

It's gonna be a fine sword

I think it's worthy of the name

Worthy of the name Ulfberht

Here we are talking
about a sword

that was made last
a thousand years ago

I see myself as a caretaker
of this knowledge

I can't make a blade
better than this

It represents my entire
skill set as it sits now,

sitting there in a two-pound
chunk of steel