Ulfberht blades

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Lerion's Ulfberht-style longsword

Ulfberht blades are medieval European swords, dated to the 9th to 11th centuries and inlaid with the inscription +VLFBERHT+. Ulfberht was a Frankish personal name that became a trademark used by various blacksmiths. Early versions of the blade were pattern welded to replicate the wave pattern of rarer Damascus steel until the steel and its working techniques became more widespread.

History

In the mid-800s, one of these blades was fashioned into a longsword. It originated in the central European Carolingian Empire and was owned by East Anglian ealdorman Lerion, who kept it in his personal villa. Following his execution, his villa was looted by bandits who took the sword to their Forest Hideout.

In 866, following the Vikings' capture of York, Ivarr the Boneless gifted his late father Ragnar Lothbrok's Ulfberht sword "Odin's Flame" to Ulf Stensson for exemplary actions during the battle.

In 870, the Raven Clan Viking Sigurd Styrbjornsson also found one in Bulgar while on his two-year journey across the world. Seeking to possess "a blade worthy of Brokkr", one of the mythical Æsir's dwarven blacksmiths, Sigurd's quest brought him to East Europe, where he heard the smith Tekin could supply him with such a weapon. On Sigurd's arrival at the smithy, Tekin showed Sigurd a finished Ulfberht blade of Damascus steel, before declaring that the Viking would instead be its first victim for being a Norseman like the ones who killed Tekin's brother. At this, Tekin and an associate charged at Sigurd, who swiftly killed them and claimed the Ulfbhert blade and other weapons in the room as battle prizes.

Sigurd carried the sword with him into a rich merchant's castle and used it in his fight against the Hidden One Ammon after inadvertently alerting the guards, but Ammon's Hidden Blade proved stronger than the sword. Sigurd's shock at seeing his blade break near the hilt gave Ammon an opening to stab him in the side before jumping out a window. Sigurd survived this wound and took a bearded axe with him as he tracked Ammon, leaving the broken sword behind.

The shieldmaiden Eivor Varinsdottir, Sigurd's younger adopted sister, managed to collect three Ulfberht blades throughout her lifetime. On arriving at England in the early-870s as part of the Viking expansion, she explored the country and looted a chest at a bandit's Forest Hideout that held Lerion's sword, which she claimed for her own. A decade later in 886 CE, she sailed to Francia to aid Viking leaders Rollo and Sigfred in laying siege to Paris, and while there found a scribbled diary page in the ruined temple Blihaut by a man named Bo, who wrote about his quest with a group to retrieve an Ulfbhert sword from the Frankish military camp of Pruvinis, only for them to all be killed and leave him the sole survivor. Upon realizing to her disgust that he had in fact killed his comrades in a possessive frenzy for the weapon, she claimed the Ulfbhert short sword Egbert for herself. Shortly after returning to England, she left and sailed down the River Rhine in Germany to raid it on the advice of the retired Jomsviking Vagn and defeated a local champion stationed along the river who wielded another Ulfberht sword.

A millennium later during the Victorian era in the 1860s, another one of the blades was kept in Buckingham Palace in Westminster. In 1868, it was stolen by Jacob and Evie Frye, twin members of the British Assassins, who used it to craft the Legendary Assassin Kukri.

Weapon statistics

Name	Class	Atk	Spd	Stun	Crit Pre	Wgt	Availability
Carolingian Longsword {{#section:AC:CST/Weapons|"Carolingian Longsword"}}
Egbert {{#section:AC:CST/Weapons|"Egbert"}}
Ulfberht Sword {{#section:AC:CST/Weapons|"Ulfberht Sword"}}

Gallery

• 
  Ivarr presenting Ragnar's Ulfberht blade to Ulf Stensson
• 
  Sigurd inspects an Ulfberht blade

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (first mentioned)
• Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Song of Glory (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Blood Brothers
• Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
  • River Raids
  • The Siege of Paris