Skip to main content Skip to page footer
Fryske Akademy Fryske Akademy
Still from FryslânDOK 'Swurd', Omrop Fryslân.

Still from FryslânDOK 'Swurd', Omrop Fryslân.

The documentary ‘Swurd’ (‘Sword’) brings Frisia back to life

History and heritage

Media

In 2024, archaeology enthusiast Sander Visser made a remarkable discovery: using his metal detector, he unearthed a rare fragment of a 10th-century Viking sword in Witmarsum, Friesland. In the FryslânDOK documentary ‘Swurd’ (‘Sword’), filmmaker Mirjam de With brings the sword back to life: what might it have been through? And if it could speak, what might it tell us about Friesland in the Viking Age? Researcher Nelleke IJssennagger-van der Pluijm from the Fryske Akademy helped her explore these questions.

In the early Middle Ages, swords were more than just weapons. Swords were decorated, given names and attributed with human characteristics. After all, their shape resembles that of a human: a hilt with a head and arms, the blade forming the body. What is peculiar about the sword pommel in question is that it has been pulled off. The sword had been decapitated. Why? And what might its body have looked like?

Archaeological blacksmith Sebastiaan Pelsmaeker reconstructed the sword using techniques from the year 950. He did so for the Fries Museum’s exhibition ‘Redbad: the legendary king’. In Swurd (Sword), the manufacturing process can be seen step by step. Diana Spiekhout (curator of the Fries Museum) and Nelleke IJssennagger–van der Pluijm (director of the Fryske Akademy and professor by special appointment of Cultural History of the Southern North Sea Region in the Early Middle Ages and Viking Age) explain who wielded the sword, what ancient Friesland (Frisia) looked like at the time, and that the Frisians and Vikings did not live as separately as we thought.

Voice

Filmmaker Mirjam de With initially doubted whether the subject matter was right for her; as a feature film director who creates her own characters, non-fiction was still uncharted territory. That changed when she discovered that swords were regarded as living beings in the Middle Ages. “I immediately wondered what he had been through. The sword had to be given a voice. He was my narrator!”

Swurd (Sword) takes the viewer back to ancient Friesland, a world of battles, warriors, gods and Vikings, and brings Frisia back to life.

Swurd (Sword) ties in with the ‘Redbad' exhibition, which opens on 5 September at the Fries Museum.

Sjen

Swurd (Sword) can be seen on:

- Saturday 5 September: 3.30 pm on NPO2
- Sunday 6 September: 1.15 pm on NPO2 and from 5.00 pm every hour on Omrop Fryslân.

Want to watch it online? You can do so from 5 September on fryslandok.nl en NPO Start.

Pommel

We previously reported on the discovery of the sword pommel: Exclusive: 10th-century Viking sword fragment discovered in Frisian soil.

 

Back