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Dark Rocks

The Nemain Longsword




This striking weapon was inspired by Irish swords of the mid 14th Century. Built with a blend of traditional and modern methods, it captures the spirit of Medieval Ireland while ensuring durability across the decades. We named it for one of the three sisters of the Morrigan, a goddess personifying battle frenzy.


The sword's design is inspired by an amalgam of elements found in Andrew Halpin's Irish Medieval Swords c. 1170-1600. It features a distinctive elongated pommel and a "three-pronged" guard with downturned quillons and a pronounced ecusson. Compared to the slender pommel, the blade is broad at its base, with its 8mm stock lending itself to a nimble central rotation and an eagerness in the cut.


Please see our pricing structure for an idea of what a similar sword would cost.



 

∴ Specs ∴

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  • Weight: 1590g

  • Total length: 115cm

  • Blade length: 89cm

  • Blade width: 4.8cm

  • Blade stock: 8mm

  • Grip length: 17cm

  • Grip and pommel length: 25cm

  • Quillon span: 20cm

  • Point of Balance: 11cm

  • Ambidextrous

  • 2mm edges

  • Fencing flex

  • Swollen tip






 

∴ Notes ∴


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The hand-forged and heat-treated guard and  pommel are blackened to a matte finish.


The guard features sharply downturned short quillons with flared terminals and hand-carved ball detailing. The elongated ecusson sits in the deep central fuller of the blade. The long almond-shaped pommel is hand-carved with a raised facet to either side, and finished with a brass peening block.


The oak grip is wrapped first in linen thread and then in deep green leather, with cord risers to the top, bottom and waist.


 

∴ Gallery ∴



 

∴ A Constant Frenzy ∴



There were those who considered it ill, naming the sword as you did. Better that such a thing should go nameless, they said, than to risk rousing one so willful. Your sister bade you leave the sword outside her hall, lest its namesake follow in its wake. She wrote the name rather than speak it, in sheer superstition, as if it were something wild and beyond.

As if it could be left outside.


You did not seek to unweave her illusion, recalling that time when for you, too, gods dwelt beyond the veil. What wouldn't you give to hide death behind names and runes and rites again? To count the magpies and score the loaves, and think your sins atoned?


But you have been beyond the black mountains, where the blood of battles long past still marks the soil. You have seen Nemain at work in the camps of friend and foe, so that brothers in arms turn on one another in despair, and brave soldiers fall on their own swords. You have heard her frenzied cry, boundless and boar-like, sparing none from its madness, only to find it spilling from your own lips.


You know such discord cannot be turned aside with a word unspoken - for you feel it in you still. At your table and in your bed. The ever-beckoning brink of battle frenzy.

Ready to start your Balefire journey? Get in touch now to share your vision.

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