The Ondata Sidesword |

∴ A Turning Tide ∴

Clenching your fist about a smooth, dark stone you breathe deeply. Focus on its coolth, its stillness, its solidity. It is not enough. With an all-but inaudible cry you hurl the impotent totem into the churning water below and plunge your hand back into your pocket.

The crashing of waves against slick black cliffs is almost enough to drown out thought. Almost, but not quite. Still beyond the rush of incoming and sigh of outgoing sea there’s space – that stomach lurching lull of neither push nor pull. Space enough for memories to splutter to the surface.

You’ve stood here almost every night since the raid. Stood staring at the horizon where the boats appeared like a mirage, dauntless and damaging and barely real. As if watching now could make up for not doing so then. As if any amount of hue and cry could bring back what was lost.

You snap your eyes down from the mist-wreathed band of black – down to the furious spume about the rocks, all the whiter for the waxing moon. At first you do not see it, and then you cannot make it out – bright steel against white foam, dark metal against black rock. But the more you peer, precarious on the precipice, the more it can’t be anything other: a sword, long and left behind, gleaming beneath the glowering cliff.

Something more than vertigo leaps within you. Could it be the sword they took? Or one of their own in its place? Has the sea itself carried it back to you? And if so, what does that mean? What revenge does the sea ask of you now? With something more akin to hope than you’ve felt in months, you pick your way down the perilous rocks.

∴ Specs ∴

This captivating sidesword features the simple lines of a Bolognese-style hilt, combined with curling decoration to the pommel and grip. While its open port offers angled protection to the fingers, the tapering S-shaped quillons offer options in the bind. Though not modelled after any particular piece, the sword’s general proportions, flared tips and ball decorations were inspired by a stroll around the Wallace Collection.

The sword’s name is the Italian word for “wave” or “surge”, referencing both the breaker-like curls in the pommel and grip and the force of nature that this sword will doubtless become in the salle. Particularly eager in the cut, it has a balance just forward of central and a ready, wieldy weight.

A similar rapier would come to upward of £900 plus postage.

Weight: 1030g
Total length: 110cm
Blade length: 97cm
Blade width: 3cm
Blade stock: 6mm
Grip length: 8cm
Grip and pommel length: 11.5cm
Quillon span: 24cm
Point of Balance: 13cm
Right handed
Sparring-safe edges, flex
Swollen tip

∴ Notes ∴

The hand-forged and heat-treated guard and pommel are blackened to a matte finish. The guard features flat bars and S-shaped quillons with hot-forged spheres at their terminals. The round pommel is hand-carved with spiralling curls and finished with a steel nut. The splendid oak grip is carved first into a spiral shape and then wrapped in twisted copper and steel wire, finished to top and bottom with turks head knots. The hollow-ground blade features a fluted ricasso and a deep central fuller.