[Mister Underhill]

Literary allusions and quasi-historical associations aside, I found some interesting info in the aforementioned Burton’s “The Book of the Sword” regarding the practical reasons for the scimitar’s curved shape and some notes on how its use in battle differs from a straight sword. I’ll risk over-quoting here because I think some of this stuff is interesting:

...the shape of any pattern or model, whether of tool or of weapon, suggests its own and only purpose. A swordsman chooses his Sword as a sawyer his saw. Show the mechanic a new chisel, and its form at once explains to him its use: he learns by the general shape, the edge-angle, the temper, the weight, and similar considerations, that it is not made to drive nails, nor to bore holes, and that it is intended to cut wood or soft substances. Thus, too, the form of the Sword is determined by the duty expected of it... The Sword has three main uses, cutting, thrusting, and guarding. If these qualifications could be combined, there would be no difficulty in determining the single best shape. But unfortunately – perhaps I should say fortunately – each requisite interferes to a great extent with the other. Hence the various modifications adopted by different peoples...

[...]

The peoples who fought from chariots and horseback – Egyptians, Assyrians, Indians, Tartars, Mongols, Turks, and their brethren the ‘white Turks’ (Magyars or Hungarians), Sarmatians, and Slavs – preferred for the best of reasons the curved type. The straight Sword, used only for thrusting, is hard to handle when the horse moves swiftly; and the broad straight blade loses its value by the length of the plane along which it has to travel. On the other hand, the bent blade collects, like the battle-axe, all the momentum at the ‘half-weak’, or centre of percussion, where the curve is greatest. Lastly, the ‘drawing-cut’ would be easier to the mounted man, and would most injure his enemy.

[...]

...it is the drawing motion which, added to the curve of the weapon and its oblique presentation, increases the trenchant power. The ‘Talwár’, or half-curved sabre of Hindustan, cuts as though it were four times as broad and only one-fourth the thickness of the straight blade. But the ‘drawing-cut’ has the additional advantage of deepening the wound and of cutting into the bone. Hence men of inferior strength and stature used their blades in a manner that not a little astonished and disgusted our soldiers in the Sind and Sikh campaigns.

[...]

The old Persian Sword, often called by mistake the Turkish Sword, ends in a point beyond a broadening of the blade. The effect is to add force to the cut; the weapon becomes top-heavy, but that is of little consequence when only a single slash, and no guarding, is required of it. This peculiarity was curiously developed in the true Turkish scimitar, which we see in every picture of the sixteenth century, and which has now become so rare in our museums. The end gradually developed to monstrous size; the length was cut down for the sake of handiness and the guard was almost abolished, because parrying was the work of the shield.

[...]

I have given precedence to the curved blade because cutting is more familiar to man than thrusting. Human nature strikes ‘rounders’ until severe training teaches it to hit out straight from the shoulder... Yet there is no question of superiority between the thrust and the cut. The man who delivers point has an advantage in time and distance over the man who uses edge. Indeed, the man who first ‘gave point’ made a discovery which more than doubled the capability of his weapon. Vegetius tells us that the Roman victories were owing to the use of the point rather than the cut: ‘When cutting, the right arm and flank are exposed, whereas during the thrust the body is guarded, and the adversary is wounded before he perceives it.’ Even now it is remarked in hospitals that puncture wounds in the thorax or abdomen generally kill, while the severest incisions often heal... Moreover, the history of the ‘white arm’ tells us that the point led to the guard or parry proper, and this ‘defence with the weapon of offence’ completed the idea of the Sword as now understood in Europe.

Hence, we can see that different weaponry suggests different fighting styles to those who are knowledgeable in such matters. It’s easy to imagine the Orcs using a weapon designed for chopping and hacking, employing a style that is more brutal and savage and less refined, less concerned with guard and defense.

I imagine those Orc-Dwarf wars were just bloody chop-fests, no quarter asked and none given, with battlefields no doubt strewn with severed limbs and cloven gear after the dust had settled.

As a bonus, here are a few etymological notes:

‘Scymitar’ is originally the Persian Shamshír, but as the Greeks have no sh sound, it made its way into Europe curiously disguised... In England scymitar was further degraded to semitarge. I have no objection to scimitar, but scymitar is the older form.