He said they helped stop the sword being trapped in an enemy's flesh. Ealdwulf finished the blade by hammering grooves that ran down the center of each side. Serpents breath, Brida called the patterns, and I decided to give the sword that name: Serpent-Breath. In some light you could not see the patterns, but in the dusk, or when, in winter, you breathed on the blade, they showed. It took days, yet as the hammering and cooling and heating went on I saw how the four twisted rods of soft iron, which were now all melded into the harder steel, had been smoothed into wondrous patterns, repetitive curling patterns that made flat, smoky wisps in the blade. After finishing it, he whispers to Uhtred that one day he will "kill Danes with it." Ealdwulf is killed along with Ragnar and his family in Kjartan's ambush.Ī small silver cross - a gift from the Abbess Hild - was worked into the hilt after Uhtred's return from slavehood in " The Lords of the North".Īs an old man, Uhtred still carried Serpent-Breath, remarking that it was still beautiful, in spite of the metal's glint having faded, and the blade being thinner from having been sharpened so often over the decades.
Įaldwulf uses seven iron rods, three hard and four soft. In " The Last Kingdom", the sword is forged by Ealdwulf, a Northumbrian blacksmith formerly employed by Uhtred's father, who later works for Earl Ragnar and the Danish occupiers.
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