Random question (sword length)

[Ra_Va]

Ok so my friend is playing the Green Ronin Ice and Fire game, and wishes to play a character that found 'Lion's Tooth' which is a longsword designed to be wielded by a 12 year old.

If we say Joffrey Baratheon, the owner of the sword, is 'tall for his age' as described in the books, how would the sword compare on a full grown man?

[Ninja_Prawn]

So, I don't know about swords and I've always been short for my age, but my experience with cricket bats is that the people who were 'tall for their age' at 12 used bats that were about the same size as the one I use as an adult.

So, I'd be assuming Lion's Tooth would be about the size an unusually short adult would feel comfortable with?

[Crow]

I'm reasonably sure it would be a full sized blade. Swords were expensive. Like really expensive. A custom piece, especially a masterpiece, would be built as something that kid could use into adulthood and beyond.

A scaled down sword for children would be a cerimonial piece.

If nothing else, I would expect it to have a thinner blade profile to cut down weight, and maybe a slightly larger pommel to help with balance. Something like Albion's Cluny. Though it is more of a thruster.

https://www.albion-swords.com/swords/johnsson/sword-museum-cluny.htm

[Florian]

Oh, that annoying thing. IIRC, it´s basically an impossible weapon. Martin didn't describe it as a training and exercise thing, but the real thing, just in miniature - which doesn't really work out because you need the weight and mass behind it. That would mean it´s not Longsword but a Broadsword, same mass, shorter blade, something I don't see a 12 yo being able to handle. My guess would rather be an early Arming Sword, size of one of the early roman Short Sword, but rather build for cutting.

[Cespenar]

Okay, is this a RPG longsword, or a real longsword?

If the former (one handed), consider making something similar to Arya's rapier.

If the latter (two handed), make it like an arming sword with a longer, two handed handle.

Or, alternatively, just make it identical to a normal adult sword, and fluff it as only being a small bit lighter/thinner.

[Spiryt]

I'm reasonably sure it would be a full sized blade. Swords were expensive. Like really expensive. A custom piece, especially a masterpiece, would be built as something that kid could use into adulthood and beyond.


Swords were very expensive in some places and times.

Relatively common and inexpensive in others.

In later (13th - 14th century) Medieval Western Europe, decent swords weren't in any way very expensive.

Well prospering folk could have many swords, training swords, and children could absolutely have scaled down swords for training.

http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/text/viking_sword.htm

Here you can read about children's swords in graves.

In 10th century, those would be for children of some very rich landownders.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Swords were very expensive in some places and times.

True, but not relevant: the sword we are talking about is made from a metal that is literally impossible to fabricate - the art has been lost. It was made by reforging an existing sword, by a master weaponsmith, so it was NOT cheap - in fact, they went out of their way to make it quite expensive, because that's how that family operates.

I'd say it is an adult-sized one-handed sword, because you don't go to that kind of lengths to forge a weapon that can only be used for a couple of years per generation. It was a princely gift, meant for the prince to use as his personal signature weapon for the rest of his life.. Did that make it a bit unwieldy for a 12 year old? Sure, but I doubt that was their primary concern. It's not like the little bastard knew how to use it even if it had been the appropriate size.

Grey Wolf

[Jasder]

True, but not relevant: the sword we are talking about is made from a metal that is literally impossible to fabricate - the art has been lost. It was made by reforging an existing sword, by a master weaponsmith, so it was NOT cheap - in fact, they went out of their way to make it quite expensive, because that's how that family operates.

I'd say it is an adult-sized one-handed sword, because you don't go to that kind of lengths to forge a weapon that can only be used for a couple of years per generation. It was a princely gift, meant for the prince to use as his personal signature weapon for the rest of his life.. Did that make it a bit unwieldy for a 12 year old? Sure, but I doubt that was their primary concern. It's not like the little bastard knew how to use it even if it had been the appropriate size.

Grey Wolf

Nah, you're thinking of his later sword, Widow's Wail. Lion Tooth was normal steel, that Arya threw in a river.

Sword length varies enough that a sword made for a twelve year old boy who was tall for his age, particularly in a fantasy world like A Song of Ice and Fire where some people are over 7 feet tall, well it could be any of a pretty wide variety of sizes.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I think you might get a fair way by looking at women's swords.

When I was twelve I was getting taller than several of my teachers. Those teachers were short, sure, but not unusually so. 12 year old boys, even tall ones, miss a lot of the muscle mass grown men have since the testosterone blast from puberty has yet to hit them, but women don't get that either. Now a typical 12 year old would be no good at handling a sword, and the main difference between a sword for a tall 12 year old boy and a sword for a woman would be that the boy's sword is dull and made of wood and he's forbidden from bringing it indoors before he breaks something or hurts himself, and rightly so. But a royal kid, trained as a page (as in the rough page squire knight progression line), with some strength training and lots of coordination/technique training (growing kids tend to lack that), and on top of that tall for his age, yeah, a typical woman's sword would probably be fine. And if that's still a bit on the heavy side even better, he'll grow into it in a few years. He'll be up by another 20 cm at least within two years. I think we measured 14 cm of growth in a tad over a year for me during puberty ones, and I'm the small brother, in our family.

Without doing research into it I think something that looks like a bit of a slender bastard sword, but used exclusively two handed, could be near the mark.

Of course, Joffrey isn't exactly a well trained page who gets enough physical exercise, he's mostly a little prick with no concept of anything, and I'm not even out of season two yet so I know he's still going to get a lot worse. But he would carry a sword made for an actual well trained athletic twelve year old anyway, because most of the point of the weapon is to show off how great a person and ruler he is, and you can't do that with a toy sword.

[The Fury]

Going off what I've read in the books, I'm assuming that George R. R. Martin is referring to a "D&D longsword" whenever a longsword is mentioned because Jon Snow's Longclaw is called a "hand and a half" on a few occasions. So, I'm going in thinking that Lion's Tooth is what Western Martial Arts practitioners prefer to call an "arming sword."

Having said that, going off a replica sword I have, which I'm told is a fairly accurate approximation of a sword of its type, mine is about 39 inches in length overall, with a blade length of about 33 inches. I'm not in great shape, and I'm not all that strong physically, but I can use this sword fairly easily. I imagine that Lion's Tooth would be maybe three or four inches shorter in the blade, so maybe 29 inches. possibly and inch or two shorter in the grip as well, I'd ballpark Lion's Tooth's overall length to be 33 to 34 inches.

Just to be clear, the sword I'm using as my yardstick is this one:

http://kultofathena.com/images/AC17C13_l.jpg

Which, as you can see is, of a later type than the presumed medieval style swords that are used in Song of Ice and Fire, though it is a one-handed cutting sword.

[Blackhawk748]

Its probably the same size as a typical arming sword, though it may look a bit more like a bastard sword if someone extended the handle. Honestly i see no reason why a 12 year old wouldn't just use a normal sword. Yes it would be a bit clunky for a bit, but swords arent particularly heavy and if its well made (as it should be) its very well balanced.

[Jay R]

While the instructions for measuring it are maddeningly difficult to parse, several of the period masters (Fiore, Silver, Swetnam, etc.) describe the perfect sword length as dependent on the fighter's height.

So if Joffrey is tall for his age, but shorter than a normal man, his ideal blade length would be more than that of other boys his age, but shorter than that of most men.

But a Valyrian steel sword is not something you use for a couple of years and outgrow; it cannot be replaced. So I assume that it would be made for his expected final height, recognizing that it will be less than perfect for the first few years.

[Knaight]

I think you might get a fair way by looking at women's swords.

Which aren't really going to be different from men's swords. Swords aren't that heavy, just using them doesn't require any great strength and while strength is helpful in a lot of little ways when fighting the idea of weapons so heavy that lesser men couldn't even lift them is pretty much entirely fantasy (replace "lift" with "draw" and bows come into the picture in a big way).

A lot of usage has more to do with maneuvering the weapon than anything, which has a lot to do with lever arm and ends up coming down mostly to height. A custom made weapon would be expected to end up slightly shorter for women as a whole due to the height gap, but height is one of those things where individual variance utterly dwarfs gender differences (which is most things really, sex variance in humans is pretty tiny compared to a lot of mammals, let alone birds and similar).