A spear flying through History?

The brynþvari is an elusive type of spear mentioned in the Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson, an its name seems to define it as a mail-piercing weapon.

A very accurate description is given in the chapter 53 of the saga (that is, as accurate as it can be once biased by the translation and interpretation):

He had a kesja in his hand; the blade was two ells long, and forged to a four-edged point, but at its base the blade was broad. The socket was both long and thick. The shaft was not longer that what was needed to be able to grasp the socket with the hand, and was exceedingly thick. There was an iron spike in the socket, and the shaft was all bound with iron. Such spears were called brynþvarar.

Let's skip over the fact that kesja is also a debated name for a weapon, and assume that it is just a literary word for a spear. The description might be slightly exaggerated (the 90 cm long spearhead seems a bit huge), but we have to trust the author on the other details.

The description of the brynþvari matches no weapon found during the Viking Age, nor does it really match any later weapon that could been incorporated into the saga between its historical setting (10th and 11th century) and its time of writing (13th century).

However, some older weapons are able to match the description very closely.

First, let's have a look at high-ridged spears of the Vendel Age (Migration Period). These are the most closely related to the Norse culture, being Scandinavian and separated in time by only two or three centuries. Several spearhead of this type have been found in Scandinavia, at least two of them being stored at the Stockholm Historiska Museet.

Vendel Age spearhead, about 38 cm long.

But if we take a leap back in time and move out of Scandinavia, we can find many more examples of such spearheads : "bayonet-spears" of the late Iron Age (La Tène Period) are a subtype of Celtic spears with a strong ridge and a narrow, elongated point.

In the middle, a large bayonet-spear from the Gournay-sur-Aronde sanctuary in northern France.

A reconstruction of the previous bayonet-spear, about 68 cm long.

Another interesting fact is that Celtic spears very often had a butt-spike (as can be seen above), much more often than Norse spears, and in the Saga of Egil, the brynþvari's shaft is firmly thrust into the ground so as to keep aloft an impaled body... which strongly suggest the presence of a butt-spike.

It is a known fact that sagas are full of anachronisms, usually bringing later medieval elements into Norse stories of the 9th to 11th centuries. Having a 1200-year old Celtic spear originating from continental Europe featured prominently in a major saga goes beyond that usual level of anachronism...

It is almost impossible that the author of the written saga would have had knowledge of the Celtic weapon. At best could he had known of the Vendel age weapon. But the most probable answer is that of an actual similarity between all these spears from different time periods. Is it a lineage? Is it a random evolutionary convergence? In any case, it seems that the bayonet-spear, or the brynþvari, was a blade design that saw action across at least twelve centuries.

Yours,
Eiríkr