Around a hundred and seventy Viking-age swords have been found with a name inlaid into the blade: Ulfberht. It is a Frankish personal name, of the same family as Wulfbert, and it turns up on blades from the ninth century to the eleventh — Norway has produced forty-four of them, Sweden seventeen, Germany thirteen, with a scatter reaching as far east as Russia and Ukraine. Nobody knows whether Ulfberht was one man, a workshop, or a line of smiths. What is obvious is that the name was worth having on a blade. The spelling wanders badly: scholars sort the surviving inscriptions into seven groups, the tidy +VLFBERH+T accounts for only about fifty of them, and the rest run to forms like +VLEBERHIT and +VLFBEHT+ — people copying a mark they plainly could not read, onto swords they wanted to sell. Nor was the reputation empty. These were made in an age when European blades were still predominantly pattern-welded, and at least one Ulfberht has turned out to be high-quality hypereutectoid steel, possibly imported from Central Asia.

W. Britain give Brandr a sword with an inscription worked into the blade and a small axe in his off hand — an unusual and rather practical pairing, reach in one hand and a shorter, heavier answer in the other. He wears mail under a cloak, which puts him in the same bracket as "Svend" Viking Defending with Sword and Shield: a man who can afford his equipment. Set him with "Torgny" Viking Attacking with Axe for the two ends of the same weapon, and near "Overwhelmed" for a quieter reason — the trade routes that carried captives east were the same ones that carried eastern steel and silver back the other way.

Model: 62133 / W. Britain / 1/30 scale / matte finish / 1 piece set