"This sword is a big one.

The blade is broad and bold, yet still graceful. It is definitely one of the largest single hand swords I have handled.

The original weighs some 1.4 kilos, even as one arm of the cross and a piece of the point is missing.

The first impression when I saw it was its imposing size and beautiful proportions. There is a crispness in the forging of pommel, tang and cross.

The blade has interesting dimensions. At the base the width flares gracefully. Along the rest of the blade it tapers only very little from around four inches from the cross to the point. This lends a dynamic quality to the design.

The real interest is in the way its distal taper is defined. It is not straight but varies so that the stiffness in the middle is optimized while the point area is as light as possible without compromising strength. This also helps handling characteristics.

A wide, long and rather heavy sword like this needs a careful distribution of mass not to become cumbersome.

The study of this sword gave valuable new insights to this problem. It is a very worn slogan, but this sword really needs to be handled to be appreciated. Its weight and responsive balance makes it very aggressive in cutting.

I would guess that this was a cavalry weapon, perhaps even a knightly sword judging by its quality and understated elegance.

We held a little cutting session with tatami mats in the Albion workshops when I delivered the prototypes. The prototype Tritonia sliced through single, double and triple mat rolls with equal ease. It was possible to make good clean cuts some 6-7 inches apart, both diagonally and horizontally.

Judging from these tests, it is clear that a clean hit with this sword would be devastating.

I would like to say though that the real value in the making of this sword was not to produce a sword that is a excellent cutter, but to find a way to translate the working procedures from my smithy to the workshops of Albion.

There are critical but subtle details in the shaping of the blade and the managing of mass distribution and balance that puts high demand on the skill of the craftsmen involved and the production methods.

At first I was not thrilled about the spherical pommel, but it is a typical feature on some of the Scandinavian swords of this period.

Before long I found myself having no reservations to its pommel. It looked just right and I would not want to replace it to something else. A wheel pommel on this sword would make it more mainstream. It would loose much of its personality.

The pommel of the original is solid and clearly forged, not cast. The hole that takes the tang is slightly too wide (by a millimeter or so on each face of the tang). This gap is wedged with thin wooden slats that are well preserved and still clearly visible.

This very slight "hollowness" is something we have taken into account in the making of the reconstruction at Albion. Not having a hole so large that wedges are needed, but by removing a slight amount of material down the centre of the pommel, the tang is still firmly wedged in place from the base to the rivet and we still get the balance right.

After having worked with the Tritonia on and off for more than two years it has sort of passed beyond liking or not liking. Of course I am fascinated with it and love it, but it has rather taken a place among the extended family, so to say.

The Tritonia has taught me some important things and because of that I am eternally grateful to its original maker (or makers). The sword as a whole has very impressive proportions and is clearly the result of the work of a master craftsman. As such it merits a closer look.

To put into production a sword at custom quality level that is constant not only in dimensions, but also true to the idea of the original sword when it was new, is challenging.

It has been an interesting and very inspiring period working as a consulting swordsmith and designer with Albion. I hope that you´ll find these swords an interesting addition to what is available on the market today."