Originally Posted by
Zaq
My apologies if this has come up before.
Is there a generally agreed-upon explanation for why the sword is the de facto standard weapon in fantasy and (more interestingly) legend? I know that certainly not every legend has a sword in it, but to my (totally) untrained eye it seems like the number of legends in which swords feature prominently kind of outstrips the prominence of the sword as a historical weapon (compared to, say, polearms or bows). I repeat, there's plenty of exceptions, but it's still a pretty common thing, so far as I know. Is there anything at all that we can reasonably point to as a major contributor to this trend?