“The new weapons are lighter, easier to handle, in every way an improvement on the heavy swords most of us have been using,” Johnny went on. “We’ll be training you in their use—skill with the traditional broadsword won’t make you an expert with these—and we’ll ask for your comments, too. If your chieftain wants to make use of such weapons in future he’ll need to have a smith trained in their manufacture. We can provide that training.”

We watched Spider and Otter testing Sam’s new blades. They looked ill-matched, one tall and thin, the other sturdy and barrel-chested. But neither easily gained the advantage. The bout had them moving light-footed across the open space, their agility and strength belying the fact that each had seen more than forty summers.

“These swords allow the men to move about much more easily,” explained Brenna. “Sam learned how to make them from a Frankish smith who stayed here a couple of winters. And he’s added some improvements of his own. See how quickly the men recover from a swing? You couldn’t do that with the old swords unless you had arms like Cú Chulainn’s.”

“And these have a sharper point,” said Clodagh. “More like a spear point. They can inflict a wound by stabbing, not just hacking. You can’t do that with the old ones; they’re simply too heavy for it.”

“Mm-hm,” I murmured. Living at Inis Eala provided a woman with an unusual breadth of knowledge.

Otter got under Spider’s guard and could have slashed him across the thighs, but made the blow a smack with the flat of the blade, demonstrating remarkable control. Some time later, Spider turned unexpectedly and delivered, not a knockout hit, but a delicate tap to Otter’s leather-capped head. Johnny called out to them to stop, and they did. Spider draped a long arm around his friend’s shoulders; Otter brought his blade up in a salute to Johnny and to the cheering onlookers.

Next up was Rat, who defeated the much younger Oran after a lengthy bout. Flidais, a wisp of a woman, screamed fit to scare the gulls from the sky, and once the battle was over her husband stepped over the benches to gather her up in his arms and give her a hearty kiss.

Gareth took on a big man whose name I did not catch and eventually won, though to my untutored eye the contest looked very even. Then a pair of others battled it out with heavy broad-swords, which restricted the combatants—well-muscled men, the two of them—to ponderous swings and lurching movements. It was dramatically clear how the new blades changed the manner of fighting.

“A broadsword like those can cleave a man’s skull in two,” explained Clodagh calmly. “Or hew off his arm or leg. But what makes them lethal also hampers the user. Once you start the swing, the whole weight of your body goes into it.”

“I see.”