# Communities > Antique Arms & Armour Community > Antique & Military Sword Forum >  Identify this sword

## Ian Shirley

I am trying to identify this sword I know a little about the maker or distributor and approximate age but as for the particular pattern of sword I am a little lost. Its a J J Runkel. In some respects it looks like a naval sword in others an 1803 flank officers sword. The hilt has been modified and part of it removed and only holds a royal cypher on the blade but not the hilt. I appreciate any help. I have seen sabers belonging to the royal scotts that seem to be the closest i can match with where the part of the hilt that has been removed would have been.










Also second and more important question. I have uploaded some pictures of the rusting/ aging. Is this anything to be concerned about, do I need to clean it up or just put a good coat of protective wax on? 










Thanks

Ian

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## Ian Shirley

I'm also wondering why the hilt would of had part of it removed? has anyone else ever seen something like this before?

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## Will Mathieson

Runkel supplied blades and this sword was most likely hilted in Britain. The loss of a guard bar would be from battle damage or later careless storage/handling. I don't believe it would have been purposely removed.
It is a very nice sword and some Renaissance wax is all you require to keep it preserved as it appears that any corrosion had been previously removed.
Looks to be Scottish infantry circ 1800 maybe a bit earlier. Robsons has one #163 pictured

Blade length?

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## Martin Read

This type of sword usually has a blade of about 27-30 inches in length. It is a British officers' sword dating to, as has been said, around 1800. It can be seen as an unofficial predecessor of the 1803 flank officers infantry sword. However, I suspect that such swords were worn by yeomanry cavalry officers and even naval officers, in addition to infantry officers. While very showy and with a relatively short blade, suitable for dress wear, I think that the blades were stout enough for field use. The grip is of ivory, you would need some documentation concerning it's age before trying to move it internationally.

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## Ian Shirley

The length of the blade is 32" and overall length of the sword is 39". So what I'm thinking is this sword is not an exact pattern and most likely prior to a pattern sword existing. I know the 1803 flank officers sword was an attempt to standardize the sabers grenadier and light infantry officers were buying, so I'm guessing this is one of these swords. Runkel appeared in London in the Late 1790's so that would make sense but I am no expert.

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## Martin Read

> The length of the blade is 32" and overall length of the sword is 39". So what I'm thinking is this sword is not an exact pattern and most likely prior to a pattern sword existing. I know the 1803 flank officers sword was an attempt to standardize the sabers grenadier and light infantry officers were buying, so I'm guessing this is one of these swords. Runkel appeared in London in the Late 1790's so that would make sense but I am no expert.


If it has a 32 inch blade then the sword was either made for a cavalry officer, or for an infantry officer of exceptional height. A 32 inch blade on a sabre would not normally be used by an infantry officer, or a naval officer for that matter. No, the sword is not a pattern sword but it is a type - I have a very similar sword - lions-head pommel, ivory grip, reversed P guard, etched blade. The only difference being that mine has only a counter-guard and no scroll guards, and its blade is 29 inches long (therefore probably an infantry sword).

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## Ian Shirley

Yea I noticed the sword seems fairly long to be used dismounted, myself not being very tall. Perhaps you are correct it may have been a cavalry officer's sword or an officer in any case who spent a great deal of time on horse back.

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## J.G. Hopkins

I disagree about the length.  31"-32" is about average for an infantry sword, at least in my experience.  My P1803 is 31".

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## Ian Shirley

> I disagree about the length.  31"-32" is about average for an infantry sword, at least in my experience.  My P1803 is 31".


J.G. I take my my previous opinion. You are absolutely correct. Although I find the blade a tad long for a shot guy like myself. I did a little internet searching and found that most 1803's are around 32" or just under including most modern day replicas. I'm going to judge a guess that this was a flank officers sword prior to the 1803 standard.

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## Martin Read

Measured in a straight line, not around the curve?

The 1796 LC sabre was 32.5-33 ins in blade length and was considered too long for convenient foot use - Robson gives 30.5 ins as the average for the 1803 flank officers' sabre. The ivory hilted, lion pommelled type was at least partly a dress sword, and this would tend to restrict the blade length for convenience's sake. My sword has the figure of a uniformed man on foot (with a drawn sword) engraved on the blade, but I have seen examples for sale with the figure of a mounted light cavalryman on the blade. I think that they were fashionable swords for officers of all services, not merely the infantry. They offered an alternative to the Turkish-inspired mameluke-hilted sabres, which were also very fashionable around 1800, probably they appealed to those who preferred a more traditional European-type hilt and who also wanted a greater level of hand protection.

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## Matt Easton

Martin,
The 1796LC was not considered too long for use on foot - the 1796 infantry officer's spadroon had a blade of 32.5 inches, as did the previous 1780s spadroon and as did many flank officer's sabres and highland broadswords. The fact is that the dragoon sabre was actually pretty short for a cavalry sword.

Matt

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## Matt Easton

p.s. The thing that makes a 1796LC sabre bad for foot use is the point of balance, at around 7 inches from the guard. Flank officer's sabres and other infantry officer's swords generally balance at around 4 inches from the guard.

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## Martin Read

> Martin,
> The 1796LC was not considered too long for use on foot - the 1796 infantry officer's spadroon had a blade of 32.5 inches, as did the previous 1780s spadroon and as did many flank officer's sabres and highland broadswords. The fact is that the dragoon sabre was actually pretty short for a cavalry sword.
> 
> Matt


A straight-bladed sword, particularly a relatively slender one, is a different animal entirely from a sabre. The 1788 LC sabre, at 36 ins in the blade, was criticised for being too long and unwieldy. But this is beside the point - the variations in decorative elements on swords of this type (not a pattern of course) indicate that some were made for cavalry and naval officers. It is therefore a type of sword favoured by British officers in general, and not merely those of the infantry.  They were showy enough for dress wear, but had blades that were stout and functional and therefore could be used in combat.

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## J.G. Hopkins

Sorry for the poor quality of this photo--I took it a long time ago.  The swords are not lined up perfectly, but I believe they are close enough to be able to see the relative lengths of each blade:



And here is how I measured my P1803:

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## Matt Easton

> A straight-bladed sword, particularly a relatively slender one, is a different animal entirely from a sabre.


Flank officers' sabres and the 1803 pattern sabre also regularly had 31-33 inch blades, as did all infantry officers' sabres from 1822 onwards. Highland broadswords and earlier English backswords also has 32+ inch blades and were as broad as sabres, with similar mass and point of balance. 32 inches is not long for swords used on foot, it is pretty much an average length, from around 400AD to the modern day.
Cutlasses and hangers with their 27-ish inch blades were *short* by normal standards.




> The 1788 LC sabre, at 36 ins in the blade, was criticised for being too long and unwieldy.


Was it - by whom? The 1821, 1853 and 1864 pattern swords all had 35+ inch blades.

Over a very long period it was common for officers who fought mostly on foot to have circa 32 inch blades and those who fought mounted to have circa 34 inch blades. The 1796 light cavalry sabre was fairly short by the standards of European cavalry swords.

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## L. Braden

Besides having other advantages in combat, a sword could never be too long if it kept you at a safe distance from your opponent; and a common sentiment was that if you couldn't handle a long sword, then you had no business being a swordsmen! Anyway, I never read of any 19th-century complaints of British military swords being too long - rather the opposite, in comparison to French swords during the Napoleonic Wars.
P.S. According to "Encyclopedia of the Sword", sword blades of all varieties were generally longer in the 16th-18th centuries than in the 19th, when swords gradually became devalued as combat weapons; and perhaps for the reason cited above, according to a 16th/17th-century English law regulating duels, rapier blades were to be "one yard and half a quarter" in length.

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## L. Braden

A Brief History of the Gradual Decline of British Swords & Swordsmanship, From Various Sources:
In 16th-century England, the longer the sword, the better. (Angelo: "He was held the greatest gallant that had the longest rapier.") Rapier blades, for example, generally measured from 50 to 65 inches. A sword was an essential part of the apparel of every "gentleman" and numerous others, and he generally knew how to use it. Buckoes swaggered through town, competing with each other as to who had the longest blade and could wield it effectively, which resulted in many bloody street fights, which then resulted in Good Queen Bess issuing this proclamation in 1562, and again in 1566, and yet again in 1579: "Her majesty ordereth and also commandeth, that no person shall wear any sword, rapier, or such like weapon, that shall pass the length of one yard and an half a quarter of the blade at the utmost." (In some town regulations: "Blades to be one yard and a quarter in length.") In the following century, rapier blades had generally diminished to 36 to 40 inches. Other swords averaged 30-40 in. By the 19th century and the predominance of firearms, swordsmanship was gradually replaced by marksmanship and swords by pistols; and with few exceptions, the devalued sword was reduced to less than 40 inches; fencing was generally out of favour, duels were mostly fought with pistols, army and navy officers took little or no interest in swordsmanship, sword training was usually perfunctory, and it was lamented by the few remaining proponents of the sword that "we are no longer a nation of swordsmen". Ironically, Angelo  was partly responsible for this by proclaiming that the longest sword should not exceed a total of 38 inches. What must the Highlanders have thought of that, with their 42-inch blades, which earned them great glory in battle! To them, any blade of less than 40 in. was considered to be virtually worthless as a combat weapon; and they counter-proclaimed that swords should be designed by those with practical combat experience, not by fencing masters and impractical theorists, for the simple reason that unlike in a fencing or military-training match, a variety of swords and sword lengths were encountered in battle.

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## Martin Read

> Was it - by whom? The 1821, 1853 and 1864 pattern swords all had 35+ inch blades.
> 
> .


Le Marchant, and by repute the surgeons treating the high incidence of self-inflicted wounds caused by the 1788 pattern cavalry swords during the Low Countries Campaign in the French Revolutionary Wars.

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## Martin Read

> A Brief History of the Gradual Decline of British Swords & Swordsmanship, From Various Sources:
> In 16th-century England, the longer the sword, the better. (Angelo: "He was held the greatest gallant that had the longest rapier.") Rapier blades, for example, generally measured from 50 to 65 inches. A sword was an essential part of the apparel of every "gentleman" and numerous others, and he generally knew how to use it. Buckoes swaggered through town, competing with each other as to who had the longest blade and could wield it effectively, which resulted in many bloody street fights, which then resulted in Good Queen Bess issuing this proclamation in 1562, and again in 1566, and yet again in 1579: "Her majesty ordereth and also commandeth, that no person shall wear any sword, rapier, or such like weapon, that shall pass the length of one yard and an half a quarter of the blade at the utmost." (In some town regulations: "Blades to be one yard and a quarter in length.") In the following century, rapier blades had generally diminished to 36 to 40 inches. Other swords averaged 30-40 in. By the 19th century and the predominance of firearms, swordsmanship was gradually replaced by marksmanship and swords by pistols; and with few exceptions, the devalued sword was reduced to less than 40 inches; fencing was generally out of favour, duels were mostly fought with pistols, army and navy officers took little or no interest in swordsmanship, sword training was usually perfunctory, and it was lamented by the few remaining proponents of the sword that "we are no longer a nation of swordsmen". Ironically, Angelo  was partly responsible for this by proclaiming that the longest sword should not exceed a total of 38 inches. What must the Highlanders have thought of that, with their 42-inch blades, which earned them great glory in battle! To them, any blade of less than 40 in. was considered to be virtually worthless as a combat weapon; and they counter-proclaimed that swords should be designed by those with practical combat experience, not by fencing masters and impractical theorists, for the simple reason that unlike in a fencing or military-training match, a variety of swords and sword lengths were encountered in battle.


Rapiers were a civilian phenomenon, contemporary swords made for war were quite different. Some gentlemen entered the opening stages of the English Civil War using rapiers in combat, they soon abandoned them for stouter (and shorter) bladed swords (see the writings of General Monck or the records of Gustavus Adolphus' army). I have an early South German basket-hilt from 1580-1610, it has a broadsword blade of 33 ins in length.  I also have a firangi with a 40 in European backsword blade, if you offered me this or a 1796 LC sabre and said your life will be on the line in combat I would choose the 1796.

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## L. Braden

A practical reason why the overlong rapier eventually fell out of favour was because it gave "an unfair advantage", not simply because it was unwieldy according to some of its detractors. Note that I made a distinction between rapiers and "other swords", and never meant to imply that rapiers were commonly used as military weapons, even if they were.
Note also that I said "19th-century complaints", in particular re the length of British swords during the Napoleonic Wars. Le Marchant, of course, complained in the 18th century. His sword, however, also had its numerous detractors; so, it was simply a matter of personal experiences and preferences. Lt. Waymouth, of the 2nd Life Guards, alluded to "the great disadvantage arising from our swords, which were full six inches shorter than those of the cuirassiers"; a British dragoon officer, in an article entitled "The British Cavalry on the Peninsula", referred to the 1796 heavy-cavalry sword (with its 35-inch blade) as "a lumbering, clumsy, ill-contrived machine. It is too heavy, too short, too broad"; and other complaints can be found in that book on swordsmen of the British Empire, along with rebuttals. As I said, a matter of individual experience and preference. Anyway, other than re the Napoleonic Wars, quotations of 19th-century complaints about British military swords being too LONG will be greatly appreciated.

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## Matt Easton

> Le Marchant


Did Le Marchant say that the 1788 pattern was too long?




> by repute the surgeons treating the high incidence of self-inflicted wounds caused by the 1788 pattern cavalry swords during the Low Countries Campaign in the French Revolutionary Wars.


Do you have a source for this please? I'd be really interested to know if there is an actual source for self-inflicted sabre wounds on this scale.

Regards,
Matt

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## Matt Easton

Just to correct one thing - the length of rapiers is actually very well documented, thanks to all the surviving examples in collections and also the detailed measurements given in various 16th and 17th century fencing treatises - they did not generally have 50 to 65 inch blades, that's an exageration  :Smilie:  Most rapiers dating to between 1560-1640 have blades of around 38-45 inches, with a very few reaching 48 or 50 inches. I am not aware of a documented examples with a blade longer than that and certainly the majority from the heyday of the rapier have blades of around 42 inches.

Bear in mind that Georgian and Victorian knowledge of earlier weapons was often TERRIBLE! They thought medieval swords weighed 20lbs and that armoured knights had to be winched into their saddles  :Smilie: . No doubt they also had exagerated ideas about the length of rapiers. If you look t Egerton Castle's book you'll see he gets all kinds of stuff wrong - Hutton's later Old Swordplay contains less errors, but even he gets a load of stuff wrong. Our data and understanding of pre-1700AD arms and armour is MUCH better now thanks to decades of careful study and analysis.

In regards to cavalry and infantry officers swords, the data is also overwhelming. All over Europe the standard length of cavalry blades over a very long period of time was between 32-38 inches. The 1796LC was 33, the 1796HC was 35, various later models of British cavalry sword had blades of 33-36 inches and at the extreme end you get French cuirassiers and British household cavalry with 38 or 39 inch blades (and bigger horses!).
Equally the data for infantry officer's swords is clear - blades generally measured between 30 and 34 inches for most cut-and-thrust combat swords designed to be used primarily on foot.
Hangers and cutlasses generally had blades of 24-30 inches, across numerous nations and for a period of around 300 years..

In regards to whether a person prefers a 33 or a 35 inch blade, that is very subjective and depends entirely on your personal attributes and how you intend to use the sword. If you sit on an 18-hand heavy cavalry horse and only have a 32 inch blade you'll have trouble reaching anybody standing on the ground... If you try to use a 38-inch bladed rapier in the press of a melee on board a ship then you'll find it more or less useless after the first thrust. There are very good reasons why heavy cavalry used significantly longer blades than sailors!

Finally, it's worth noting that some officers in the 18th and 19th centuries chose and designed their own fighting swords. These are found in a variety of shapes, sizes and lengths, to suit their personal tastes, attributes, opinions and expected use. One officer might choose a 32 inch blade of 'Percy' type (essentially a short rapier or spadroon) whilst another might choose a 36 inch bladed 'Flat Solid' with an extra wide blade (essentially a big chopper). I have many examples of non-regulation special-order officer's swords and in their blade types, shapes and sizes they are as varied as any swords you can find in the 17th century.

Matt

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## Matt Easton

Incidentally - I fence on a weekly basis with a variety of swords, sabres and rapiers, of various blade lengths from 30 inches to 45 inches - here is a spot of fencing, in the style of John Musgrave Waite (1880), with military gymnasium sabres of 2lbs total weight and 33 inch blades:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAiDHPo8iTs

A fighter's choice of blade length depends on a number of factors, most importantly what style/context you intend to use it in.

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## L. Braden

Matt: That 50-65 approximation came from Encyclopedia of the Sword, the sources cited being Ashdown, Burton, Palffy-Alpar, and Wilkinson. It also seemed to me to be an exaggeration, as well as old prints depicting such monstrosities in action; but since truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction, who am I to judge? You're the sword expert, not me. My only interest is in history. Cheers!

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## Martin Read

> Did Le Marchant say that the 1788 pattern was too long?
> 
> 
> 
> Do you have a source for this please? I'd be really interested to know if there is an actual source for self-inflicted sabre wounds on this scale.
> 
> Regards,
> Matt



I think Fletcher covers the matter, but Thoumine and Denis Le Marchant certainly do.

Fletcher, I. (1999). Galloping at Everything: The British Cavalry in the Peninsula and at Waterloo 1808-15. Spellmount, Staplehurst. ISBN 1-86227-016-3.

Le Marchant, D. (1841). Memoirs of the Late Major General Le Marchant. London: Printed by Samuel Bentley.

Thoumine, R.H. (1968). Scientific Soldier, A Life of General Le Marchant, 1766–1812. Oxford University Press.

It was also claimed that the 1788 swords twisted in the hand - leading to slaps with the flat of the blade rather than cuts - and also tended to break their blades in combat on contact with other swords.

Also If you look at the illustrations in Rules and Regulations of the Sword Exercise of the Cavalry, Adjutant Generals Office (1 December 1796), the sword illustrated appears to be a 1788 LC sabre with a cut down blade. It looks as though Le Marchant had been experimenting with the existing LC pattern to make it more handy.

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## Martin Read

The difference between Le Marchant's views on swords in combat and the detractors (always officers) of the 1796 patterns is that Le Marchant was intelligent and logical (unusual in a British cavalry officer). He saw the 1788 patterns in action, and also the contemporary Austrian swords - the heavy cavalry version was copied directly for the 1796 British HC sword. Le Marchant saw that the 1788 patterns were only suited to the largest and strongest troopers and designed the 1796 LC sabre to be free of excess weight so that all troopers could wield it effectively.

Le Marchant also saw that the type of sword carried in the formal battlefield charge was fairly irrelevant, the relative morale, horsemanship and ability to hold formation of the two sides were so much more important in the outcome of a charge. Once he had come to this conclusion he proposed that the sword carried by a trooper should be optimal for melee fighting - ie a handy manoeuvrable sabre. At Campo Mayor in 1811 two and a half squadrons of the 13th Light Dragoons, armed with the 1796 LC sabre, routed three squadrons of French dragoons (26th Dragoons), armed with the long straight French Klingenthal HC swords. The two sides threaded each other twice (ie the ranks passed though each other) when the French swords should have been at an advantage. In the subsequent melee the 13th broke their opponents (killing their commanding officer in the process), and they routed for 7 miles, taking 3 squadrons of French light cavalry with them. In melee combat the long French swords were inferior to the 1796 LCs, the French outnumbered the British by a whole troop (c. 60-75 men).

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## L. Braden

Exactly!
Re self-inflicted wounds: needless to say, these (like "friendly fire") have always been a significant and virtually unpreventable problem in the heat of battle; and the advent of the pistol made matters even worse for cavalrymen, particularly during the American Civil War, when bullets often found the wrong billets during all of the wild shooting that usually occurred in melees. Also, those who favoured "the point", as well as those opposed to "razor-sharp" blades, cited many instances of self-inflicted wounds, wounds to fellow troopers, and wounded horses. But the well-meaning idealists were never able to remove all of the risks from close combat!

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## L. Braden

Evidently, from what I can discover, there are no actual statistics as to accidental sword wounds in Le Marchant's time - only the verbal info that he received from surgeons in Flanders that "many of the wounds" were accidental and that "the horses were perhaps the principal victims". (Not his words, but those of his first biographer, Denis Le Marchant.)

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## L. Braden

Some afterthoughts:
Here's the full phrase: "many of the wounds, which the men received in the field, could have been inflicted by no other swords than their own." How did the surgeons know this for sure? Did any of the troopers admit it, if they were even aware of it? 
As for the horses, who were reportedly "often gashed about the head and neck by their riders", there are accounts of horses being intentionally as well as unintentionally wounded by opponents; because, of course, when you disabled a horse, you frequently disabled or otherwise inconvenienced its rider. If not, then an active swordsman on foot could be a far more dangerous customer to deal with than one on horseback! So, how did the surgeons know for sure that the horses were "often" wounded by their riders? Did any of the troopers admit it, if they were even aware of it?

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## Martin Read

> Some afterthoughts:
> Here's the full phrase: "many of the wounds, which the men received in the field, could have been inflicted by no other swords than their own." How did the surgeons know this for sure? Did any of the troopers admit it, if they were even aware of it? 
> As for the horses, who were reportedly "often gashed about the head and neck by their riders", there are accounts of horses being intentionally as well as unintentionally wounded by opponents; because, of course, when you disabled a horse, you frequently disabled or otherwise inconvenienced its rider. If not, then an active swordsman on foot could be a far more dangerous customer to deal with than one on horseback! So, how did the surgeons know for sure that the horses were "often" wounded by their riders? Did any of the troopers admit it, if they were even aware of it?


There is at least one record of a British cavalry trooper intentionally cutting his own horse's head in combat, in order to have an excuse to pull up and get out of harm's way. I imagine that the self-inflicted wounds referred to by Le Marchant were mostly to the troopers' lower legs and feet, it wouldn't be too difficult for a surgeon to ascertain the angle of impact causing a wound. These incidents were noted by the men close to those who had clumsily injured themselves or their horses. During the charge at Sahagun, when 400 British hussars routed 800 French chasseurs a cheval and dragoons, the British troopers noticed that one of their number managed to shoot his own horse with a pistol. There is not much fog of war when you are a couple of yards away from some clumsy oaf.

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## L. Braden

Thank you for your comments!
I wondered, too, if the types of swords used by both sides had any bearing on the cause and nature of the wounds. In any other words, for example, a curved blade making (or more apt to make) a distinctly different wound than a straight one, thereby offering a means by which the source of that wound can be identified.

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