The Real Life Hobbit-Sized Sword

So it's a Custeel, it's a sword for elves and hobbits and um thugs and there we are. Hi there everyone I'm here at Tewksbury Medieval Festival with Todd. Hello everybody. Of Todd's Workshop. Yep and Todd Cutler. And Todd Cutler and as usual you've got your um your stall here especially for re-enactors to. Yeah so for those of you who don't know Tewksbury Festival it is, I don't know if it's the oldest festival in the UK, history festival, but it is absolutely crazy. It's a place of legend so 15th century, big battle, all that. Really big market, that's why I'm here. And yeah it's just kind of a crazy place with a good beer tent and loads of great customers and a great vibe. Great so um you're here trading and as usual you've got some new uh new stock. And yeah yeah. How many new swords have you released this year? I don't know. I don't know uh six. Okay yeah yeah. So there's more coming. The range is growing. Yeah very much. And it's very exciting um I think one of the things that I've been saying since I first started the channel is re-enactors get swords that weigh correct weights and have a proper feel to them if you're ever going to hand a sword to a member of the public because people remember the weight of something more than they remember you telling they're too heavy. Well it's like you were saying yesterday actually that you walked past a conversation where somebody picked up a sword and they went oh they really are heavy aren't they? It's like not one of my swords. And it's because blunted swords the way they're made means that because you need like a three millimeter edge all the way to the tip you've got a lot of mass out at the end. You have to counterbalance that or you just can't use it. Counterbalance it you've got to have a massive pommel and suddenly the whole thing just goes yeah yeah and it it just changes the feel of them. They feel more like clubs than swords. Well they are more like clubs. Yeah yeah yeah so um talking about light swords you one of the new swords for this year is very small so here it is there it is. So it's a Custeel and I can't actually remember how long the blade is on it I'm gonna say it's about 55 centimeters so uh about 21 inch maybe something like that. And there we are. So this um a friend of mine has just got one of these and I saw it and instantly I called it the hobbit blade because it it's just like a sword but it's also it just looks so small and basically my first instinct was that's not a sword that's a long dagger. Well there we go uh just gonna put this away because we are and for the noise as well we're you know in the middle of trading in the middle of the event so I'm putting that away for safety. Yeah sure. Uh so Custeel um it is a long dagger or a short sword and and that's actually sort of part of so the Custeel were a bunch of French brigands basically um end of the 14th beginning the 15th century uh I suppose you know it's a time of trouble in France you know you've got 100 years war kicking off and it's not war all the time so you haven't got people fighting all the time so sometimes they're fighting but sometimes they're not and if they're not and they're you know they've got tools of the trade they go out and be brigands. Yeah. Now Custeel were part of that whole atmosphere of the time not that much is known about them but they were named after their weapons so the weapons that they favored uh were Custeel. Yeah. And the description of that is that it was a very long knife or a short sword. Okay. So you can assume that it's it's a very long knife or a short sword. Yeah. But it's effectively sword style. Yeah. Now you look there are none that I know of tell us if you do none that I know of in museums and none that are actually labeled as as Custeel they're sort of one of those things that have faded into um obscurity enough that it's just really hard to bring it back. Yeah. You can look at manuscript pictures of the time and again as ever with artwork isn't it there's interpretations. So is it a regular dagger that they've made look big because they're trying to emphasize that. Yeah. The weapon in that picture um is it a sword that actually they've made smaller because of the framing of the picture it wouldn't work if it was a full sword. Yeah. So it's a bit difficult you can't point at a picture and say that is a Custeel. Yeah. But you can say that guy in the picture looks like the kind of guy we're talking about. Yeah. And he's got a weapon that looks. Yeah. About the right kind of size. Sure. And that's what I've done and that's all that's all I can do and as far as I know if anybody says this is a replica of a Custeel they can't say that. Yeah. So from a manufacturing point of view I assume it's from a manufacturing point of view as to why you would choose one of these right because reach is quite important but then cost for these lower status soldiers might play a big factor in it. Well I don't think so in honest. Okay. Because yeah smaller things generally cost you less yeah I mean it's a given and there is going to be because the blade's shorter you can make the pommel smaller. Sure. You know everything could be a little bit lighter so yes you are saving money on materials but the cost of making a guard and a pommel bar the material cost the actual labour cost is basically the same it doesn't really change the technology. Making the blade yes it's going to be cheaper to make a shorter one but not vastly. Okay. So I think it was a choice and you do get choices like you know we've got Katzbelger here behind us they're short they're for close quarter fighting they're for street fighting, room fighting, crawling on the field when you're really up and close and the long sword doesn't yeah and so it could be that kind of thing that they're just really handy in ins and in just tight situations you know. So I've done a video recently about why lances fell out of fashion and one of the reasons I said for that was that it's most of the time on campaign you're actually carrying something rather than using it yeah so having ease of carry I guess will also make a big difference. Actually that's that's a good point I hadn't considered yeah good one because these guys are living on the road yeah you know because because what they're not doing is setting up the camp and hanging out there because that doesn't work if you're a brigand. So yes transport portability so maybe that's a good part of it and and carrying that around and wearing something like that yeah show you the size again you know it's small is a hell of a lot more convenient than a long sword. Yeah and my long sword's quite short but even then like when I kneel down I've got to be careful about what I'm like yeah knocking it or knocking something. Exactly and you know things like moving through woods and bushes and scrubland yeah moving through marketplaces running away yeah um yeah these are all things that long swords are just not suited to yeah yeah so maybe maybe it's as simple as that that I don't think it's the economic type okay that I think what you've got is something that's long enough to be effective and certainly long enough to be intimidating and to work yeah but short enough to be convenient cool yeah so I think that's probably what it is so so for the manuscript picture that I chose you can see there's a very slight downturn to the guard you can see that they um have a wheel pommel uh double-sided seem to be I worked off about two or three pictures of possibles and that that's all I can say so is that a copy of a kusil that existed no it's not no is it a decent interpretation of what it probably was like I'd say yes it is yeah um yeah I think there's an important thing there of having items that someone in the medieval period would look at and go oh that's a kusil rather than having everything that needs to be something from a museum because then we have survivorship bias and things like that you know if everyone's wearing the same avant harness or yeah you know that sort of thing or carrying the same dagger then it doesn't work yeah it's it's as much a re-enactorism as as anything so having those things that are definitely would not have out of place in the period and a medieval person will go that's kusil yeah I mean that that's what I tried to do with my work actually is um in the nicest way try to make it not stand out yeah because if it if it stands out as being really weird or really unusual or really super finished or really super decorated or bling or something yeah it's not a real thing that would have been that's what I aim at in terms of of what it is it's small it's fast uh it's very handy it's excellent tight spot nice pointy blade for nooks and crannies yeah yeah it's it's a great little thing I mean what's your opinion of it so I I am so impressed by this to be honest because it's so light and yeah the point I can't remember it's like 500 ish grams yeah the point just moves so well and you can see from the design this is going to be very easy to get into gaps um which when you're fighting against someone even in some armor uh that's really important um it's very dainty um you wouldn't really be wanting to oh you wouldn't really be wanting to wear gauntlets that was nearly my tent roof by the way yeah uh you wouldn't really want to be wearing gauntlets with this but then a lot of the manuscripts show people in otherwise you know quite quite a lot of armor not wearing gauntlets um and that's uh that's just a fact of it you know we we very much value the use of our hands um they did too of course but um sometimes the best defense is a good offense yeah you can move your hand better and get the the strike in first then I think I think one of the things about that is um I don't in fighting you do that but you make choices you know when you say about we value our hands of course they value their hands too and that actually in a way more so yeah because if you get a couple of fingers cut off well you've got state security you've got voice operated um um dictation systems you know it's not actually going to make that much difference your life if you're a working man or a fighter and you lose two fingers actually that could basically be the end of your life yeah yeah so but the thing is you fight not for your life yeah and that changes how things happen yeah and they seem to make choices like not wearing gauntlets or saying well you know what today I might have to run fast I'm not going to wear leg armor yeah but they're still facing arches yeah they're making choices that you look at them go that's crazy why are you doing that you can see it in the pictures they're doing stuff and you're going I just don't get it yeah but they did do it yeah choose not to wear armor at times yeah and it's it's one of those things you know if my gauntlets foul a hit and I I'm too slow to get one in that's not me dead uh but if if that happened to them yeah then that's it um so yeah and I mean I'd argue that again brigands it's going to be a motley crew some are going to have chose have stolen want to wear gauntlets or other armor whatever yeah other guys are not because it's like you said if they're spending you know six weeks on the road or whatever that's another bit of weight that they have to carry everywhere another bit of bulk yeah um yeah yeah well thank you very much for uh showing us this it's um like I said for something that shape-wise is exactly what you'd imagine a sword would look like uh it's so interesting because it's also once you see the scale of it not what you'd imagine a sword but yeah it's um it's a big part of our history so it is and it's it's kind of interesting that it's is it that obscure I don't know it's obscure in the sense of we don't we don't know very much about it yeah and I suspect we probably never will yeah you know we would have uncovered more information by now so yeah yeah uh Todd Cutler to steal it's a sword for elves and hobbits and um thugs yeah yeah anyway all right thank you guys thank you bye-bye see you soon yeah