A fantastical take on a classic design, this basket-hilted broadsword was made to match its "sister", the Adagio sidesword. The similarities between the two can be seen in the hand-carved ribbon bars of the basket and the curling spirals of its construction.
The basket was built with ambidextrous training in mind, and features a design that is symmetrical in proportions, offering optimum coverage for either hand, while asymmetric and organic in aesthetics.
The blade features a broad base and a strong presence, its triangular profile finding a good middle ground between dexterity and authority.
Named along the same lines as the Adagio, the Adante is a musical term translating to "at a walking pace". The term brought to mind a slow march across the Highlands, broadsword in hand.
Please see our pricing structure for an idea of what a similar sword would cost.
∴ Specs ∴
Total length: 97cm
Blade length: 81.5cm
Blade width: 4.5cm
Blade stock: 6cm
Grip length: 9.5cm
Grip and pommel: 14cm
Grip to guard: 5.5cm
Quillon span: 26cm
Point of Balance: 8cm
Weight: 1333g
Ambidextrous
Blunt edges
Rounded tip
Fencing flex
∴ Notes ∴
The hand-forged and heat-treated basket and pommel are blackened to a matte finish.
The basket features hand-carved ribbonwork bars, S-shaped quillons, a saltire, and spiraling curls.
The spherical pommel is hollow for a central balance, and the construction is completed with a faceted steel nut over a copper peening block.
The oak grip is finished with a braided copper and steel wire wrap, with Turks head knots to top and bottom.
∴ Gallery ∴
∴ A Marching Pace ∴
Footsore doesn't begin to cover it. Five days and ten you've been marching now, leather boots wearing through and your pack growing ever heavier. But you're a hardy bunch, as happy to sleep beneath the boughs of a spreading oak as you are to find a wayside inn.
It's an oak you're making now, low-hanging yet proud, its broad trunk splitting an old stone wall. Decent enough shelter from the wind, you think. A squint over one shoulder confirms what your shadow tells you: the sun is nestled low between the heathery foothills.
"Right lads, let's make camp," you call. This way you'll be sure to get a hot meal before nightfall. Finley caught a rabbit and your mouth waters at the thought, but you're loathe to light a fire after dark. You never know who's keeping watch.
While the men unfurl their bedrolls and rummage for tinder and flints, you scramble over the ramshackle wall to relieve yourself behind the oak. You're fumbling at the laces of your britches when you spy something gleaming, tangled in the tree's crooked roots.
Your first thought is money, and your heart leaps, but as you kneel to uncover the hidden treasure you let out a low whistle. The copper gleam is not coin, but the braided wire grip of a broadsword. Its blackened basket spirals around it, a mass of elegant curls and crosses, and you forgive yourself for not picking it out immediately against the dark whorls of roots.
With a wrench and a muffled curse, you free the weapon from the web of wood, and wonder at its short, broad-shouldered blade. You heave yourself upright and try a few circling cuts. The sword is as lithe as it is authoritative, darting and dominating at once. Whoever left this beauty here surely didn't last long without it.
As you step in time with your swings and cuts, a lilting ditty rings out from the other side of the oak. Finley has found his whistle, and the tune is one you know by heart. Your feet feel lighter than they have in a fortnight as the sword sings in your hand and the drill becomes a dance.