Antony Cummins - The Illustrated Guide to Viking Martial Arts.

A special thank you to Todd Palmer for his essay on the Viking quotations that has allowed me to produce this work. Viking Fighting Notes from 23 Sagas was the foundation and inspiration for this book. Also to Jayson Kane for his work on the graphics, his noir style bringing the images to life.

Antony Cummins is an author and historical researcher. Having obtained his Masters degree at the University of Manchester in Archaeology, he has worked as a TV presenter, documentary fact checker and writer. He is also the head of the Historical Ninjutsu Research Team who translate and publish medieval ninja training manuals from various clans of antiquity. As a martial artist, Antony has spent most of his martial arts life studying human movement and the dynamics of combat, concentrating on the Japanese arts but with the aim of understanding the universal principles of movement that define historical combat. For more information on his work visit his website:

www.natori.co.uk

Jay Kane studied Art and Design in England and works as a freelance graphic designer. He has has worked alongside Antony Cummins for many years, realising his visions. Jayson lives in Stockport, England. For more information on his work, visit his website:

www.iamjaykane.co.uk

The Weapons and the Images

The Overhead Cut

The Strike to the Neck

The Downward Strike to the Shoulder

The Upper Shield Cleave

The Lower Shield Cleave

Severing the Arms

The Horizontal Cut

The Mid-level Strike to the Leg

The Low-level Strike to the Leg

Cutting Through Both Legs

The Thrust and Stab

The Leap and Thrust

The Downward Stab

The Two-Handed Cut

Throwing the Sword

Pummelling

Sundering a Weapon

The Parry and Cut

The Spear Throw

Catching and Throwing it Back

The Thrust

The Upward Thrust

The Lower Thrust

The Impale and Lift

The Slash and Cut

The Strike to the Centre of the Back

The Overhead Cut

The Strike to the Neck

Striking the Shoulder

The Shield Cleave

The Horizontal Cut

The Mid-level Strike to the Legs

Attacking the Feet

Attacking the Arms

Sundering a Weapon

The Parry and Cut

Ambidexterity

The Shield Wall

Individual Protection

Hemming In

The Sword Disarm

The Shield as a Weapon

The Redirection

Knocking Down a Spear

The Body Grapple

The Manipulative Grab

The Improvised Weapon

The Throw

The Disarm

Leaping the Spear

The Pre-combat Dismount

The Spur Gash

Combination 1

Combination 2

Combination 3

Combination 4

Combination 5

Combination 6

Combination 7

Combination 8

Combination 9

Combination 10

Group Combat 1

Group Combat 2

Group Combat 3

The Way of Death

The Way of Suicide

Claiming the Head

Armed and Ready?

The Spiked Shoes

The sagas referred to in this book were sourced from the Online Medieval and Classical Library (OMACL) and are a collection of public domain texts that are available to all. For further information, please view the full manuscripts on the OMACL website or the published sagas themselves. Each saga has been given a Roman numeral for ease of reference.

The pounding of the surf, the call of a horn and the sight of a square sail on the horizon; you may be thinking that the next sound would be the troubled cry of a beachcomber screaming the word Vikings! This may not have been the case. While the Anglo-Saxon word Wicing existed, we do not know when this word became the common name for all Scandinavian raiders, they may also have be called the Danes, North-men or other names. Viking may be derived from the Old Norse word vik , meaning a bay, implying a Viking was one who kept his ship in a bay, or the Old English wic , meaning a camp or a trading place. However, the word Viking is used today to describe Scandinavian warrior-farmers and/or Scandinavian privateers and raiders. It is not the intention of this book to list and identify the social differences in the Viking world, or to differentiate between those who were warrior-farmers and those who were professional sea raiders and privateers. The purpose is to attempt to reconstruct the fighting arts of all the people within the medieval Scandinavian world. No matter what they were called or how they were portrayed, we know that what we are dealing with is a group of men who are warrior-farmers and that for the purposes of this book it does not matter if they were fighting in Scandinavia over land disputes, raiding monasteries or protecting the Dane-law in England. For this investigation into the martial arts of the Vikings, we have only to know that a Viking, as we have come to know them, was a Scandinavian who was part of a warrior culture with its own methods of fighting. Therefore, this book will refer to all Scandinavian warriors as Vikings, as that is the name by which they are now most commonly known.

ANALYSING THE TEXTS

The first thing an academic would do is list the pitfalls in attempting to reconstruct the Viking martial arts by using the post-Viking era writings. These include:

1 The time delay between the events of the saga era and the recording of the sagas can average around 200 years.

2 The authors were writing for a specific audience.

3 The clothes, weapons and items of the world in the sagas actually reflect the Christian medieval period at the time of writing.

4 The subtleties of translation could lead to mistakes.

5 The writers embellished the feats of those in the stories beyond the reality.

These problems are all good reasons not to trust the word of the sagas. Most academics would say it is too problematic to get a correct martial understanding from them. However, the aim of this book is simply to take the basic elements of the combat as described and start to reconstruct them as a martial art, not to analyse the historical record in full. So this book becomes a starting point for all Viking enthusiasts to work from, as a guideline for reference. While some feel that the reality is too far away to grasp, the author feels that the truths that will be unearthed through this approach are worth the effort of tackling the problems that the saga writers have left for us.