Viking Shield Combat Principles 

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It is challenging to try to fight in the way it was done in the IX-Xth centuries with books that explains how to fight in the XIVth century. If that's what you have learned, there might be a little bias towards thrusting movements as the XIVth century sword was made mainly for thrusting whereas the Carolingian-Ottonian-Viking sword is a cutting weapon, mainly. But the lack of written sources can be corrected by looking at art work from the period and how they show that swords and shields were hold and fought with, of which there are many many examples, with mainly cutting positions.

Thankyou for your content Roland. New to reenactment combat and your videos have been an invaluable resource

At 3:13 the "duel" was already over and the defender would not be able to do anythign to counter is as he'd be dead. After all, the attacker (guy in blue) would already have thrust his sword into the defender's face. BTW, even though Viking swords were mainly cutters looking at their design, in actual use it's only Common Sense they could thrust just as well. If you don't think the somewhat rounded tip of a Viking sword is not an effective thrusting blade, you'd probably be shocked when you're run clean through with one. Even a FLAT tip blade thrust into a face will cause severe damage, but if done forcefully enough it will go into the skull. I don't think ANY of us today -- even the so-called "experts" -- have a TRUE (realistic) idea of how Vikings (or ancients/Medieval) men/armies fought. We're just guessing. For example, look at all the illustrated medieval sword instruction manuals (like the famous 1.33 for Sword & Buckler) you want -- on the battlefield, ALL that form & science goes right out the window, as it's an absolutely chaotic situation. On the other hand, in a duel, if both are armed identically, then "fencing form" would apply of course -- unless your opponent throws in some "trick" move (yes, there were those a Master MIGHT teach a student -- or not!), but on the battlefield with assorted kinds of weapons being used, none of that "fencing form/stances" applies whatsoever. Again, we have no clue how those people REALLY fought, but I'm sure it was a complete free-for-all (melee) and nothing more except when it came to one-on-one combat (duels). In battle, you survived more on "luck" than skill -- except for true knights with their high level of training of course, but even THEY could "unluckily" catch an errant spear thrust, Dane axe blow or arrow not even aimed at them -- ask Harold Godwinson. ;-) -- BR