Carved Leather Sheath - 2002

Figure 1

This was a project that I did for the 2002 Ice Dragon Pentathlon. I had just purchased this very nice knife and wanted a nice sheath for it. This was not my first A&S project that involved leather carving and it's far from my best work. I must have rushed this. I apologize for the poor documentation for this project; I did not have good source material to work from.

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Carved Leather Sheath

The knife in the sheath is not my work, nor should it be judged. It is displayed in the sheath because the sheath was specifically made for this knife.

The first knife sheathes appeared in the second millennium BCE. It was at that time that mankind had discovered that sharped iron blades were just as dangerous when not in use as they were in use. While a bronze blade could be safely thrust through a rope belt, an iron blade required something to cover it to prevent accidents. The first sheaths were made of wood or bronze. By 1000BCE sheaths made of leather were wide spread; the leather, unlike wood or metal, did not damage the edge of the blade.

Figure 2

Figure 3

This sheath is made in one of the simplest styles, and one of the oldest ones that has survived. Two pieces of leather, one longer than the other, sandwich the blade between them. The longer of the two pieces is folded over to make a belt loop. This allowed the sheath to be carried securely to the belt without the need of a frog, clip, clasp, or chain. This style is most effective when dealing with a flat blade as this used the least amount of leather and took the least amount of work to make while still producing a functional sheath. The lacing used on the outer edges also provided extra security for the wearer as the pinched edges of the leather and the laces made it more difficult for the edge of the blade to cut through if jostled or pushed to the side. While this was not a popular style of sheath for the more wealthy, it was most serviceable for the lower classes, the working man's sheath, if you will. 

Sheaths were often decorated, either to match the decorations of the knife, or to make a plain knife look better. The wide, flat surface of the sheath was perfect for a carving. I chose a stylized Celtic dragon head and knotwork body because I knew that the Celts, like their Irish and Scottish ancestors, did decorate their sheaths. Although I could not find any documentation to show that zooamorphs were used to decorate knife sheaths, although knotwork, spirals and key patterns were, it does not seem impossible that they did not. Unfortunately leather tends to decay over the centuries and only a few examples are left to us. Nor does it help that the majority of sheaths left are of the superb craftsmanship that would have placed them out of the hands of the commoners, and probably were kept in such good condition because they were of such fine quality and were kept as family heirlooms.

Figure 4

The design was inspired by the zooamorph knotwork found in the Book of Kells as were the colors: even after more than a millennial, the reds, yellows, and oranges are still vivid and vibrant.

Sources:

Bain, Iain. Celtic Key Patterns. Sterling Publishing, New York. 1994.

Brown, Peter.  The Book of Kells. Thames and Hudson, New York. 1980.

Coe, Michael and Etc. Swords and Hilt Weapons. Barnes & Noble Books, New York. 1989

Green, Miranda J., Editor. The Celtic World. Routledge, London. 1995.

Ker, W. P.  The Dark Ages. Nelson, London. 1955.

Sullivan, Sir Edward. The Book of Kells. Studio Editions, London. 1920.

Tuchman, Barbara W. A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous 14th Century. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 1978

Weland, Gerald. The Collectors Guide to Sword, Dagers & Cutlasses. Chartwell Books, Inc. New Jersey. 1991

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Observations from 2015:

I would like to say that I did not know what I was doing, when I made this sheath. The design I used was thoroughly a modern one and most likely can't be dated further back than the early 18th century. I can be partially forgiven, though, as I had no access to good documentation in 2002. Furthermore, the leather carving is not that great, but it looked nice from a distance. 

I used this sheath for 5 years, which is why the paint looks so poor: the pictures were taken in August 2015 and show the amount of wear and tear I inflicted on this piece of leather. I also ran into an issue with the stitching: the knife kept cutting through it. This was due to two reasons. 1) I cut the leather too wide and there was too much play within the sheath. 2) The knife, which I still use in the SCA, is very, very sharp. Sharp enough to shave with. Sharp enough to fillet a fish with. Sharp enough to cut deep enough to require stitches at the ER if mishandled (that happened twice, both times the person in question ran a thumb along the blade and asked if it was sharp). As the blade wiggled in the sheath, it would cut the stitches open and then stick out of the newly made hole. I had acquired several holes in my garb over the five years I used it. As you can see from figure 4, the waxed thread I was using was no match for the knife.

However, after five years, I decided to replace the sheath. Not only did I want something more durable, but because of a comment made by one of the judges. That anonymous judge wrote, on the comment sheet, that "carved and painted leather is not period". I knew that the judge was wrong, but I could not prove it. It took me five years to acquire the source material to make a period, and documentable, carved and painted, leather sheath. I would advice anyone reading this post not to use this to make similar piece for an A&S project; the next visit from the ghost of A&S past will be the much better documentation of a more period knife sheath.