Аркан – Arkan – heroic warriors dance of Ukrainian hutsuls (instrumental)

8qa7X-NlNx4 Not a dance video despite the name…there are some interesting images shown under the song. The knife is particularly interesting.

1844 Description of the “mountaineers” in the Carpathians.

“The mountaineers here are called Huzzulen as in Bukovina. We found two of them sitting by the fire at the inn, leaning upon their hatchets. They told us that they were never without their hatchets, that they travelled with them, danced with them, and wore them as a part of their Sunday finery. They went [...]

Mountain Axe at ISMAC XI 2011

Wow, I have really neglected this site for the last year or so haven’t I? Like anyone is reading:) So here is an update…while I may have let the site slack a bit I have been keeping up with my axe work and was lucky enough to present a class on the subject at the [...]

Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians

Cold steel to sokyra update

I did a little more work on my converted Cold Steel Norse tomahawk…it felt nice but was just a bit too heavy so I worked on grinding the head into a lighter more historically accurate shape. After a few hours of constant grinding and quenching , I can honestly say I am overjoyed at the [...]

Cold Steel to Sokyra

A few weeks ago a took the head off of my CS Norse Hawk and put it on a  hickory sledge hammer handle I had bought just just for this purpose. After trimming the handle it measures at 35″. I took the handle itself to a belt sander and while it already had an oval [...]

E-tool clip

Here is a short clip I made showing the basic defensive motions I use when working with the e-tool. All these motions will work just as well with a hatchet sized axe.

Mountain axe at SS!

Small class like last year but that is ok…I would prefer to have enough axes for everyone rather than have someone not able to do it for lack of a trainer. We concentrated on the various figure-8 patterns this year. We also talked about using these motions with a larger Dane style axe rather than [...]

Mountain Axe at SCA Saxon Summer again this year.

I will be teaching a workshop on the mountain axe again this year at the local SCA event called Saxon Summer on September 12. I believe the event is being held in hubbard Ohio again this year but will post the address when I get it. Should be a good time. Last year it was [...]

Axe galore at the RV Weekend!

We got to play with all sorts of axes last weekend at the 5th annual Recreational Violence Weekend here in Northeast Ohio. Medieval pollaxes, tomahawks, entrenching tools and our beloved moutnain axe were all featured in classes this past weekend. Photo courtesy of Kirk Lawson The first axe class was on the use of the [...]