Hi Swordsters, [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
I was looking through HoME 8 the other day (he said smugly) and found Denethor describing Pippin's Barrow-sword as a sax. Obviously this description didn't make the 'cut', but perhaps that was due to JRRT fearing that people would be unfamiliar with the term.
As I'm sure you know, a sax was a heavy single edged short-ish sword favoured by the early Saxons (thus the name) and later used by others eg. Vikings. It was designed for cutting rather than stabbing, but I'd guess it would stab quite effectively too.
here's a picture of a reconstruction of a Viking sax
