Geir is the Old Norse word for spear, and the Norse thought about spears a great deal. Odin's had a name — Gungnir, glossed as the swaying one — and what the Eddas single out about it is not that it was sharp, or unbreakable, or forged by anyone in particular. It is that the thing was so well balanced it would strike its target regardless of the skill or the strength of whoever held it. In the Völuspá, the first war among the gods begins when Odin hurls a spear over the heads of an assembled enemy; the poem does not say whether that spear was Gungnir. Now set those stories beside the plain reason a spear was the weapon every man in the north actually owned. It is cheap. It keeps trouble at arm's length. And it makes someone with almost no training dangerous almost at once. The god's spear is that last quality carried to its limit — a weapon that hits for you. It is difficult to believe the poets did not know exactly what they were idealising.

W. Britain give him the working version of it: spear thrust out low past the shield rim rather than raised for a dramatic overhand jab, shield brought across, weight back. That is a man holding ground, not winning a duel. He stands well beside "Edgard" Saxon Defending with Spear and Kite Shield and "Algar" Saxon Defending with Spear — the same job on both sides of the field — and he belongs in the second rank behind "Seaver" Saxon Shield Wall Defender, since the spears in a shield fort were thrust out through the gaps between the shields rather than over the top of them.

Model: 62139 / W. Britain / 1/30 scale / matte finish / 1 piece set