Æthelmearc 500 - Prize Sword

I had the honor of building the prize for the Æthelmearc 500. The Æthelmearc 500 was a series of heavy weapons tournaments run at different events over the course of several months. The winner of each leg of the tournament was the first fighter to reach 50 wins for the day. The overall tournament winner was the first fighter to reach a total of 500 wins.

The winner of the first Æthelmearc 500 was Duke Sir Maynard von dem Steine. The prize requested was a sword sheath and belt that combined His Grace’s current knight sword with the commemorative coins he was awarded during the tournament. The completed sword sheath was given to His Grace Maynard at Harvest Raid 2017 (Shire of Heronter). The belt is a work in progress and will be handed out at a later date.

The original sheath was made with low quality leather that was easily damaged and was showing signs of wear. I needed to replace this but still needed to meet the project deadline. Instead of building an entirely new sheath I used the original sheath as a substructure and rebuilt the swords new sheath around it. Using the old sheath as a substructure did not reduce the quality (cosmetically or structural) of the new sheath.

I started by wrapping higher quality leather around the old sheath. The leather was pebble grain 2-3 ounce cow hide. I was a little worried it might look a bit "modern", but once on the sheath it looked really nice. This was glued and sewn into place. This also added a bit of strength to the sheath as a whole. I also added leather bands (under the new leather) that created mounting points for the future sword belt. This is not the period mounting system, but was a close approximation of it.

Next I attached a selection of the commemorative coins to the sheath. I carefully drilled the coins in a way that preserved the surface details and then sewed them to bands of red leather. I glued the bands/coins into place on the sheath and then sewed them onto the sheath. The idea was to create the image of a “wax seal” around a scroll. I opted for this method over attempting to inlay the coins because of the mix of shapes and dimensions (shape of coins, sheath, the mix of flat and curved surfaces, etc.). I considered bending the coins so I could inlay them, but decided against that. The beautiful coins are the work of Master Pearce Redsmythe.

Lastly I tooled and painted Maynard’s device on a small shield and attached this to the sheath. I considered stitching this in place but was concerned it would look a bit “clunky”, and honestly given the glue I use would be overkill.

I was not very happy with this project at first (as is often the case), but was really happy once it came together. Cosmetically I would do one or two things differently, but structurally I am totally happy with the final project. I think the only part of the project that I was really not happy with was the tip of the sheath. I really wanted to