Sword Sunday #30

This week, two stories came up in the news feed that needed to be talked about. 

The right place at the right time

This week saw the closing chapter of a dark drama that started in 2017 with a home invasion. In the morning hours of June 23th, 2017, a man broke into an apartment, his goal was to assault a guest sleeping at a friend's place for the night. 

Said friend, one Mac Dolan, 25, woke to hear the sounds of his guest screaming for help.

“I saw the guy standing over her, and she was kicking and screaming,” Dolan told the Chicago Sun-Times days after the attack. “And I just started yelling and running at the guy basically and grabbed the sword that we have on the wall and chased him toward the back stairs.” citation

The sword he is referring to is a $100 replica of the the 'greatsword' wielded by members of the Stark family from the HBO Series "Game of Thrones". Described in the article as being '44 inch long, 10 pounds', the weapon is most likely little more than a wall hanger, and would be close to useless in an actual sword fight. 

Mac Dolan outside his Wicker Park apartment 
Max Herman / Sun-Times file

But, in the panicked moments of that terrifying June morning, the sight of the massive weapon was enough to drive off the attacker.

“He didn’t really start running until he saw me grab the sword,” said Dolan, “Then, he went bug-eyed. When I got to the landing at the top of the stairs, I took one cut at him with the sword, but he ducked, and I missed and dented the wood railing.”

As chance would have it, the man's second mistake of the night became self-evident when Dolan found the attacker's wallet on the floor. 

Hours later, the suspect walked into the police station to report he had been mugged and lost his wallet. By then, law enforcement had already been contacted about the assault, and the wallet was in their custody. The man was arrested soon after filing his false report. 

Chavez'es victim, who has remained anonymous, has said through a written statement that even though the attacker was driven away and ultimately arrested, she had had to seek treatment for debilitating PTSD episodes that have impacted her life ever since the incident. 

This week, Francisco Chavez, 42, pleaded guilty to charges that included aggravated criminal sexual assault, assuring he will spend the rest of his life on the sex offender registry, and currently his sentence of 5 years in prison. 

ANOTHER cool sword found

So, imagine this; your out for a walk in the woods with your family and you decide to stop and sit by a small stream and enjoy the scenery. You decide to clear away the leaves and brush so that you can all sit comfortably. When, while you're doing that, you discover something most unexpected... a sword drive straight into the ground, with only its handle exposed. 

That's exactly what happened to Tomasz Wierzbicki, of  Świebodzice Poland. 

At first, the rusted and mostly destroyed weapon was thought to be a remnant of the Third Reich, an not uncommon source of such artifacts in Poland. But after turning it over to a historical society for inspection, he learned that it was, in fact, much older. 

The blade recovered by Tomasz Wierzbicki 

"“It’s a typical Prussian artillery sabre from the 19th-century that most officers would have carried at the time,” said Bogdan Mucha, from Żarowska Izba Historyczna, a local history association. Citation

Reproduction of the 1900M73 Prussian Artillery Sabre

Exactly how the weapon to there is still something of a mystery, as there are no Prussian artillery units ever garrisoned near the town. However, one working theory is that the 42nd Field Artillery Regiment was temporarily stationed there, and that the blade may have been lost during maneuvers at that time. 

His Lordship Ivo Blackhawk
Kingdom of Ansteorra
"Long Live the King!"