Bec De Corbin

[Confusion]

I'm not sure if this information exists at the moment, I have no way of checking at the moment.. my Fantasy Hero book is spending some quality time with our GM. Anyway, is there a writeup for the polearm known as the Bec De Corbin?

For the visually minded, it's the first weapon on this page: http://www.bytheswordinc.com/acatalog/Pole_Weapons.html

If there is no existing writeup, and I have to do it myself, any suggestions?

I'm thinking an AP attack for the hook, a regular attack for the spear as well as the hammer/claw end. And since I'm going to be using it on board a ship, any thoughts for using it as a grapple/gaff? I'm at work so really don't have much more than thoughts on the subject.

[mayapuppies]

Yeah, I could see a multipower setup for this much like a net or shield or main gauche.

[Markdoc]

I've rated Bec de Corbin as a 1.5d6K AP, STR Min 10, weight 5.0 kg, 2H, +1" stretching. I haven't bothered adding any modifiers for it, but the hook does mean that you can grab at things with it.

As an aside, although the photo of the bec de corbin is accurate to real ones I have seen, I wouldn't place much faith in the text on that site - it's riddled with errors.

The "viking halberd" resembles no viking weapon I have ever seen - and I've seen every large collection of viking weapons that there is. The weapon refered to in the sagas is called an "atgeir" in the sagas: roughly translated as "mail piercer". We know it had a pointy bit on the end, because various people get fatally stabbed with them and we know you could use it one handed, because various people do - and finally we know you could throw one - Grettir does so. We know it wasn't an ordinary spear - that's a spjót or a geir and we know it wasn't an axe - that's an øx. In Egils saga it is usually translated as halberd because Thorolf uses it two-handed but in the killing of Atli in Grettir's saga it is explicitly identified as a broad-bladed spear (When Thorbjorn runs him through Atli looks down and says, "Broad spears are in fashion these days" before dying - one of my favourite lines). The thing in the photo looks like a sort of bill (which was used by the Swedish Leidang in the middle ages, long after the viking age).

Likewise the derivation of "poll axe/pole axe" is pretty dubious. People have been arguing about where the word came from for at least 300 years (because of Hamlet in the "fighting against Norway" passage). The short version is it could simply come from pole axe (meaning axehead on a pole, or long handle) or poll axe (an axe with a long handle used for polling, or cutting back tree branches) or a "bole axe" (meaning basically heavy or big axe) or finally it could just mean an axe with a single blade (the flat bit at the back of an axehead is called the poll). The suggestion it had anything to do with heads is a recent confusion from slaughter houses where poleaxes were used to kill cattle - hence the expression "poleaxed". Trouble is, plenty of those "poleaxes" still exist as do description of their use - and they usually don't have a blade - just a heavy head with a spike.

OK, useless pedantry - but just a warning to regard any information from sites like that with some caution.

cheers, Mark

[Confusion]

I've rated Bec de Corbin as a 1.5d6K AP, STR Min 10, weight 5.0 kg, 2H, +1" stretching. I haven't bothered adding any modifiers for it, but the hook does mean that you can grab at things with it.

That is similar to what I came up with..
Though I also noted 1d6+1k for the hammer, and a 4d6 Regular Attack for the staff or blunt end.
I did not do my homework regarding grappling though.. I thought having a decent meal and doing my laundry was a better use of my time.. silly me.

[Confusion]

As a separate followup.. yes, I realize the site is little more than a retail site and they are merely posting whatever the manufacturer gives them. I have seen the same descriptions verbatim for several of the weapons. However, it has in my opinion the nicest image of what I was looking form.

[Curufea]

On a side note - that site has some decent prices. A shame the weapons appear to be sharp. I'll point it out to my re-enactment friends.

[Thia Halmades]

The difference between a doctor and a bachelor is how many sources you can cite without looking stuff up. Rep to the good doctor. Where was I?

Oh yeah. Colloquially, this is a straight forward enough weapon; I would go with a Compound Power (no need to get all messy with a Multipower, though you can) and build it as:

1 1/2d6 RKA (Stabby/Armor Piercing), plus Dispel Armor 1d6 (because you'll pretty much ruin armor with the bill, FMU that's what it was for), but Markdoc may post different and I'll amend. plus +4d6 HA, everything is +1" Stretching, and you could build an MA around just this weapon and in said MA have grab/entangle/trip, OR build it into the weapon itself.

[Basil]

Likewise the derivation of "poll axe/pole axe" is pretty dubious. People have been arguing about where the word came from for at least 300 years (because of Hamlet in the "fighting against Norway" passage). The short version is it could simply come from pole axe (meaning axehead on a pole, or long handle) or poll axe (an axe with a long handle used for polling, or cutting back tree branches) or a "bole axe" (meaning basically heavy or big axe) or finally it could just mean an axe with a single blade (the flat bit at the back of an axehead is called the poll). The suggestion it had anything to do with heads is a recent confusion from slaughter houses where poleaxes were used to kill cattle - hence the expression "poleaxed". Trouble is, plenty of those "poleaxes" still exist as do description of their use - and they usually don't have a blade - just a heavy head with a spike.

OK, useless pedantry - but just a warning to regard any information from sites like that with some caution.

cheers, Mark

According to the online OED:

[< POLL n.1 + AXE n.1;

Where "POLL n.1" is the sense of "a head". Continuing...

It is unclear whether the compound orig. denoted an axe with a special kind of head, or one for cutting off or splitting the head of an enemy. Spellings which show reinterpretation of the first element as POLE n.1 are found sporadically in Middle English (cf. quot. 1356-7 at sense 2), and frequently (including the now standard poleaxe, poleax) from the 17th cent.;

So no, the "The suggestion it had anything to do with heads" is not "a recent confusion from slaughter houses where poleaxes were used to kill cattle." It is indeed the origin of the word.

Nitpicking, I know, but I thought I'd clear up any confusion.

[Markdoc]

According to the online OED:
Where "POLL n.1" is the sense of "a head". Continuing...

So no, the "The suggestion it had anything to do with heads" is not "a recent confusion from slaughter houses where poleaxes were used to kill cattle." It is indeed the origin of the word.

The word "Poll" to mean head is not recent - it is thought to come from Dutch "Pol" meaning top and since most Dutch words entered english in the Tudor period has probably been around for a while.

The use of "Poll" meaning head as having anything to do with poleaxes *is* a recent confusion, the other derivations that I mentioned having been debated at some length (as noted, Shakespeare refers to a poleax in Hamlet although he writes it "polax" - though to be fair he also writes ice as "yce" in the same sentence ) - and as I noted, the evidence cited for "Poll" meaning head is a recent addition to the suggested derivation of the word poleaxe (from late victorian times - I'd regard that as "recent") refers specifically to slaughterhouse poleaxes which were spiked clubs used to bash the head. If you have an older reference, credit to you for producing it!

It is of course, impossible to be sure, though of all the suggested derivations "head" makes the least sense - but derivation of words is a slippery business.

Since you mentioned the OED, here's what they have to say on poleaxe:

Poleaxe: [ME. pollax, polax, Sc. powax = MDu. polaex, pollaex, MLG. and LG. polexe, pollexe (whence MSw. 15th c. polyxe, pulyxe, MDa. polöxe), f. pol, POLL n.1, Sc. pow, MDu., MLG. polle, pol head + AXE: cf. MDu. polhamer = poll-hammer, also a weapon of war. It does not appear whether the combination denoted an axe with a special kind of head, or one for cutting off or splitting the head of an enemy. In the 16th c. the word began to be written by some pole-axe (which after 1625 became the usual spelling), as if an axe upon a pole or long handle. This may have been connected with the rise of sense 2. Similarly, mod.Sw. pålyxa and Westphalian dial. pålexe have their first element = pole. Sense 3 may be a substitute for the earlier bole-axe, which was applied to a butcher's axe.

Cambridge Definitive History of English states:L Palus, stake becomes OE pal, whence ME pol, pole, E Pole, the ME cpd pollax, polax becomes poleaxe, AE poleaxe: cf AX (E)

OED notes the poll = head reference and the difficulty of identifying definitively the origin of the word, but obviously prefers the more standard "pole" argument. Fair enough: people in the 1600's obviously thought it came from Pole (you can see why I refer to late victorian as "recent" now, yes?) and it's hard to argue that the southern german word "pålexe" is derived from head when the word is probably older than its english homonym and the word "Poll/pål" does not mean head - especially as swedish and norse both have similar words - where again "poll" is unknown - but all four languages share "pal/pole" as meaning "a long wooden stick".

Probably more etymology than we needed, but you did ask

cheers, Mark