All language subtitles for Dark.Marvels.S01E05.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH

Tonight, legendary blades

wielded by the most
fearsome fighters.

Heads severed, arms lopped
off with this sharp sword.

Blood spilled
all over the field.

From the brutal Viking axe...

One berserker warrior
kills 40 men with his axe.

To the razor-sharp
samurai sword...

They are single-edge
blades wielded with efficiency.

They could slice
through anything.

To the deadliest
double-edged weapon of all.

You were not
looking to simply win.

You were looking to massacre.
No one is to be left alive.

We explore history's
bloodiest blades

and the warriors who
made them so lethal.

No longer was it just
punctures from a spear.

Now we're talking limbs
and heads flying off of bodies.

Not all inventions are
made with good intentions.

Unlock the twisted history

behind the world's
darkest marvels.

793.

The Vikings raid a
wealthy Christian monastery

on the island of Lindisfarne

near present day
Newcastle, England.

One of the more frightening
events to happen in England,

in the Middle Ages is when
what we call the Vikings show up.

And they show up in force for
one of the first times on record

at a place called Lindisfarne,
and they destroy the abbey.

- It's an old monastery.
- It's a rich monastery.

It's existed forever. We've
got evidence of its wealth.

And we hear that they
went in and killed everybody.

They just wantonly
destroyed an entire monastery

that had been
there for centuries,

that had a place in
a religious society.

The monks did
not put up a fight,

and so many of them are killed.

And it's the monks who survive

who write the story.

And they create this image

of Vikings as
these most horrific,

brutal, savage, crazed warriors.

The terror of this as
these Vikings come ashore

and take everything
was extraordinary.

These people come off
the water in these boats

and wreck the joint,
burn it, and then leave.

This becomes the
M.O. of the Vikings.

The Vikings were often feared

because they were
more of a hit and run force.

They would row up
to a dock, disembark,

cause havoc and
chaos in the towns.

You know, rape, pillage,
grab what they could,

load their boats back up,

and leave before the town
could ever put up a defensive

or an offensive
against these Vikings.

And they'd just move
off to the next town

and do the same thing town,
and town, and town again.

The key to their
successful raids

is an arsenal of deadly weapons.

The Viking weapons
are heralded in history,

and they should be.

They're weapons of war.

They're weapons of destruction

of a people who were
bent on destruction,

often for destruction's sake.

But of all their weapons,

there is none more fearsome

and fabled than the Viking axe.

If you think about an axe

and the damage it
could do to someone.

I mean, if it doesn't
hit with a dead-on blow

that penetrates the body
or takes off a limb or so,

the percussive force of just the rest
of the axe is going to kill the person.

So, you have bearded axes,

which have a blade that sort of
extends down towards the haft.

And you have other axes, Danish
axes, which are longer hafted,

and which you can
get a better swing on

to chop down a big tree
or chop down a big person.

For a bearded axe,

there's many different
fighting edges,

but the one definite kill edge

is that rounded
sharpened head of the axe

with the weight behind it being able
to, you know, carve into your body.

An axe isn't just
for killing people.

It's also something you can
use on the fly to repair the boat...

The very thing that you're
dependent on to cause this warfare.

So, axes are like a Swiss
Army knife, if you will,

but one that's really large and
you can decapitate a person with.

This versatile tool may also
be the weapon of execution

used in a sadistic ritual
known as the blood eagle.

Among the Vikings who
have become very famous,

one of them is Ragnar Lothbrok.

Now, Ragnar is thrown
into a pit of vipers,

a pit of snakes, by King
Aella of Northumbria,

and he's killed in
this pit of snakes.

And according to legend,
in vengeance for that,

his son Ivar the Boneless
and his other sons

take their revenge on Aella
by perpetuating the blood eagle.

The idea is taking a sword,
and you cut open the skin.

Then you're using an
axe to break the ribs,

to expand them outward,
potentially upward.

So they are open
like a pair of wings,

removing his lungs and
placing them on his shoulders

while they're still
pulsing until he dies.

Of course, they're covered in
blood, so it gets the name blood eagle

because it looks like
wings of an eagle, bloodied.

This story has become embedded

in the image of Viking savagery,

and it's associated with
their use of weapons,

particularly the axe.

Another famous saga
with an axe at its center

is the story of Egil
Skallagrimsson.

Egil is a man in
the 10th century.

There's no question
he's a psychopath.

He kills for the
meagerest of means.

At six years old, he
loses in a ball game.

He goes home and gets an axe

and puts it in his
opponent's head.

And his mother, she said,

well, he's going to be
a good Viking one day.

Proving mother knows best,

Egil goes on to murder at
least a few hundred more people

during the course of his life.

His legacy earns him
the title of berserker,

a unique class
of Viking warriors

known to fight in a
rage-fueled trance.

Vikings get a reputation as
savage and horrible berserkers.

They just go mad
with a battle frenzy.

And this is where we
get the term berserk.

Somebody going berserk
is somebody who's just

going completely
mad in a frenzy.

But there's a motivation
behind that battle rage,

and it was a way of psyching
yourself up to face your enemies.

And you could convince
yourself that you were invulnerable

when you were in that state.

And so it has a very specific

purpose on the battlefield.

Berserkers were
more psychopathic

than the psychopaths
that were Vikings.

Berserkers were believed by some

to have taken a
kind of hallucinogen

before going into battle to
get themselves into a frenzy.

All sorts of things
about mushrooms

and maybe other
psychedelics and so forth.

I think they were just bad
eggs in a bad egg carton.

One of the most legendary
berserker rampages

occurs in a 1066 battle.

After the death of
Edward the Confessor,

the King of England, there
is no clear heir to the throne.

So what ends up
happening is a lot of people

want to have the
throne of England.

Including the King of
Norway, Herald Hardrada,

who assembles an army
of nearly 9,000 Vikings

and 300 ships to seize England.

In what's called the
Battle of Stamford Bridge,

when Herald Hardrada
comes ashore,

they have essentially
a Viking army.

He supposedly gets caught out of position
by the English, who marched very fast.

He's on the wrong side of a
river without any of his armor.

And supposedly,
according to one story,

one berserker
warrior of the Vikings

stands on that bridge to
buy his comrades time,

and just starts mowing
down the English,

and kills 40 men with his axe

before he himself is
finally taken care of.

Eventually he's killed in
the most cowardly way,

by a man in a boat
who goes under

and stabs him through
the groin with his spear.

This ferocity on the
battlefield can be attributed

in part to the
Viking belief system.

Vikings seemed very fearsome

because they believed
in the idea of Valhalla.

Valhalla is Odin's
hall in the afterlife.

This is about the
best place you can go.

When you get there, you get to
spend the days fighting each other,

and having sex,

and having lots
of things to drink

and lots of things to eat.

I mean, we have to admit,
Valhalla's the cool heaven.

And so if they were
slain on the battlefield,

then that is how they
were supposed to die.

They were happy to
face that possibility.

And it's that sense
of fated finality

that made them so
terrifying to their enemies,

because they
weren't afraid to die.

Ultimately, the Vikings
are defeated by the English

in the 1066 Battle
of Stamford Bridge,

bringing an end to
their raids shortly after.

But one century later,
a sword forged in Japan

would gain even
greater notoriety.

Kyoto, Japan, 1192.

The Emperor Go-Toba
appoints the first shogun.

The shogun, it's a title,

so it means basically the
military leader of Japan.

The shogun was
the ultimate power.

He could make any rule
he pretty much wanted.

Supporting the
shogun is an elite class

of warrior knights
known as the samurai.

The samurai are a
very unique persona.

They're not like your
typical warrior per se.

Of course, it's common for a
samurai to learn swordsmanship,

how to ride a horse,
basic military strategy.

But they also had to learn
brush writing and poetry,

how to read the classics,

so they had education
on the higher level.

Their minds may be sharp,

but their blades
are even sharper.

The sword always
got the attention

as the weapon of the samurai,

and it became literally like,

if you didn't have your
sword, you weren't a samurai.

The samurai's most
recognizable sword is the katana.

It's lightweight, single-edged,

with a razor-sharp
curved steel blade,

two to three feet in length.

The katana, as a
two-handed sword,

was made in such a way that it
was not just an offensive weapon,

but also a defensive weapon.

Samurai warriors
did not carry shields.

Their swords were their shield.

They were so fast and
so skilled with the blade,

the idea is their opponent's
blade would never touch them.

So the sword would have
to be made in such a way

to be able to take the shock

of blocking another
weapon striking it.

At the same time,
have that sharp edge

to be able to take
limbs and heads

on the next fell swoop.

It's one of the finest edged
weapons ever made for combat.

It is one of the
most iconic weapons

of the samurai era in Japan,

and it's permeated pop culture.

It's also really
effective at what it does,

which is cutting through
things quickly and effectively.

The katana is the
weapon of power.

A lot of people
I've talked to said

they would rather get shot
rather than cut by a katana.

They're razor-sharp and
wielded with efficiency.

They could slice
through anything.

It's also much lighter than
a traditional longsword,

so it can be swung faster
and more effectively in combat.

The katana's legendary
power begins with its forging.

One of the unique characteristics of
the katana is also its material structure.

So, it has very hardened
steel at the edge,

which makes it very, very sharp,

but it has a more
milder steel in the core

which makes it
durable and flexible.

It is built out of the
highest quality iron ore

which is smelted from sand iron.

And that's what makes it so
hard... capable of shaving glass.

The process of making
the steel is taking iron sand,

a very unique form
of iron, and putting it

in a very hot fire... upwards
of 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

This process reduces that iron
sand down into a carbon steel

which then can be worked
and made into the swords.

Once the sword
is near completion,

it is blessed by a Shinto priest

to spiritually purify it in
preparation for the samurai.

It's like they're inseparable.

A good sword is known to
have a good soul, in a sense,

and that soul is
what's taken care of

and appreciated by
the owner, the samurai.

So if your sword
was on the ground,

and somebody stepped over it,
they're stepping over your soul.

You're allowed
to kill that person.

Now, as spiritual
as the samurai were,

the way they tested their
swords was actually quite dark.

The sword would be tested upon
humans to see how well it would cut.

As you can see on this sword,

test cuts were often
recorded in gold and silver.

Most likely these were criminals
that were slated to be executed.

And they were "volun-told"
to be the targets.

So, like, one of these
here, it's two bodies,

also cut through the torso.

So they would stack
them and then cut down.

Kind of sucks to
be the bottom guy

if it didn't go all
the way through.

But not all test
subjects were criminals.

There were other
samurai who were bad

who wanted to test
their skill or their sword

on innocent bystanders.

Now you have to
understand that at that time

the lower class were
looked at as pawns

and that their
lives didn't matter.

There were instances
where evil samurai

would hide and wait for
a commoner to come by,

and they'd test the sword
out by seeing how well

it ran through this commoner.

There's a story
about an evil samurai

named Gonpachi,
the bridge killer,

and he would go out at
night and he would kill for fun.

These people were not the
epitome of a true samurai.

To kill somebody for
your own selfish reason

is against what's known
as the good samurai code.

According to legend,

it's not just a samurai
that can be evil.

It also extends to his sword.

There was an old tale

about two swordsmiths,
Muramasa and Masamune.

And a challenge
was set against them

to see who made the best katana.

The swords were made, finished,

and placed into a river with the
edge against the oncoming current.

Muramasa's sword
cut through everything.

Fish, leaves,

everything that that
blade touched, it cut.

Whereas the Masamune sword
only cut the leaves and grass

that flowed through the water.

Believing his blade is superior,

Muramasa quickly
declares victory.

Until a monk came by and said,

no, the sword that cut
through everything was wicked.

Where the Masamune
sword was forgiving,

because it left the fish alone.

Masamune was so great,
and Muramasa was so evil.

Muramasa swords
became quite popular

because everybody was
intrigued about these blades of evil.

And sure enough,
some of these swords

were used in horrific scenes
of murder and violence.

Tokugawa, who was
the shogun at the time,

was injured, as
well as his father,

by Muramasa blades.

He always had a superstition

that they would cause the
death or bad luck of his family.

So he made a law
stating that it was illegal

to possess Muramasa blades.

And today there are very few
because so many got destroyed.

But the katana isn't
the samurai's only blade.

There are others with
a much darker purpose.

The katana is the
weapon most associated

with samurai warriors
of feudal Japan.

But there are two other samurai
blades that are just as lethal.

One is the wakizashi.

A wakizashi is known to be

the companion
sword to the katana.

And it's because katana were
only allowed to be worn by samurai,

but wakizashi could be worn
by people of other classes.

So that's why there was
a lot of wakizashi made,

and their numbers
outnumber katana by far.

A wakizashi is 12
inches to 24 inches,

and a katana is 24
inches and longer.

Last but not least is the tanto.

The tanto comes to Japan
around the 9th century

and it gains a
lot of popularity.

It's a very short blade.

And because of that,
it's easy to conceal,

it's easy to wield,
and it catches on.

The tanto, it's basically a
knife, a giant knife or a dagger.

They were designed
for stabbing or for slicing.

And they were very thick,

up to 9 or 10 millimeters thick.

They still had a razor edge,
but they were very strong.

So you could almost punch
through some parts of armor

depending on the
type of armor it was.

So the tanto's our short one,

the katana's the long one, the
wakizashi is our middle length blade.

The middle child if you will.

The skills required to wield
just one of these blades

can take a lifetime to perfect.

But in the 17th century,

a legendary swordsman
invents a new style of fighting

using two of them at once,
known as Niten Ichi-ryu.

Well, Miyamoto
Musashi is heralded

as Japan's greatest swordsman.

Musashi was actually
way ahead of his time.

He was a pioneer as
far as strategy goes.

A lot of people would fight with
their longsword only... one sword.

That was kind of
like the unwritten rule.

And he fought...
boom. Guy blocks.

He pulls out his short
sword and kills the guy.

And now he can use two swords.

That's going against what
was the unwritten code.

So he developed all
these new strategies,

and that's what
made him dangerous.

He had over 60 matches,
and he died of natural causes,

which tells you
he was very good.

Because generally when
you lost a match back then,

you didn't live.

But death doesn't always

come at the hands of the enemy.

When a samurai
had to face dishonor

or wanted to escape dishonor,

he committed what's
called ritual suicide,

or hara-kiri seppuku.

Seppuku is to take a sword,

typically using a
tanto or the wakizashi,

plunge it into your gut, and
basically debowel yourself.

This was a way to preserve
their honor as they leave this world.

Samurai believed that their
soul came from their stomach.

So in times of seppuku,

they would make an incision

and open up their stomach,

so their intestines
would come out.

And then eventually
that samurai would die

either, of course,
of the blood loss,

or would have an
assistant with them

that would then behead
him at that point in time.

The most famous
story about seppuku

was the story of the 47 ronin.

In 1701, Lord Asano Naganori
is ordered to commit seppuku

after assaulting a
corrupt court official.

When Naganori's death leaves
his 47 samurai without a master,

they become known as ronin.

And their only goal in life
was to avenge their lord,

but they knew by doing so

they would have
to give up their lives.

After about two
years of planning,

the 47 ronin finally retaliate

and kill the court official.

They took his head,
present it at the temple,

and then waited there
to get their punishment,

which was, of course,
because they were samurai,

they were allowed
to commit seppuku.

46 of the 47 ronin

end their own lives
in ritualistic fashion.

One of the men is pardoned,

some say due to his young age.

Everybody respects them to this day
for what they did and how they did it.

And they proved how deep the
loyalty and honor was for a samurai.

So in that sense,

that's a pure example
of what seppuku was.

It was an end to the honor.

Seppuku isn't
abolished until 1873,

but some engage in the
practice well into the 20th century.

So there's an episode
of modern seppuku

by the famous
author Yukio Mishima.

On November 25th, 1970,

Mishima, with the help
of one of his followers,

performs seppuku in front
of the Tokyo army base

after they fail
to incite a coup.

And he had one of his top
students be his decapitator.

The first cut hit his shoulder.
The second cut hit his head.

And he's, like, totally
panicking by now.

And then the third
cut, he finally did it.

While ritual suicide
falls out of favor,

there another grisly sacrifice
that continues in modern day.

The yakuza is an
organized crime syndicate,

and they would use the tanto.

For them, it was
the ritualistic blade

if you had committed an
offense to the organization.

So what they would do is,
if they did something wrong,

they take out their
finger, cut it with a tanto,

and then wrap
the finger up ritually

and then give it to
their boss as an offering.

And most cases, it was a
tanto that was used for this ritual.

The samurai blades
have left their bloody mark.

But there's another weapon
that's believed to have killed

the most soldiers prior
to the invention of the gun.

Over a 1,000 years before
the samurai first swing a katana,

another deadly blade helps forge
what would become the Roman Empire.

Its name... the gladius.

The gladius was a
short stabbing weapon.

Sharp at the tip and
devastating to have the blow.

Devastating not because
of the weapon itself,

but devastating because of the
man who wielded that weapon.

The Roman soldier.

The most disciplined
killer in history.

But the Romans' initial
inspiration for the gladius

is found in the
hands of their enemy.

218 B.C.

Rome declares war on Carthage,

triggering the second
in a series of wars

fought for dominance
over the Mediterranean.

These are known
as the Punic Wars.

After their crushing defeat
at sea in the First Punic War,

Carthage, now led by the Great
General Hannibal, has a new strategy.

They have land
armies with elephants,

and Hannibal does
the unthinkable.

He takes the war to
Italy, to Rome itself.

He marches with his
elephants coming over the Alps.

So, he ends up in Italy

and begins marching
down the peninsula.

The two forces finally collide

near the ancient city of Cannae,

and Hannibal's men are
armed with a secret weapon.

Known as the
Gladius Hispaniensis,

the sword originates from the
Iberian Peninsula in present day Spain.

Hannibal and his warriors were
up against 80,000 Roman troops.

Now, he knew that he only
had 50,000 troops himself.

But a lot of the warriors
had sword in hand,

up against those Roman
soldiers with spears.

It is a very effective
weapon, the shortsword,

and the Roman armies
are not prepared for it.

And that sword that
they were wielding

turned the tide in that battle.

It's utter carnage, and
one of the worst losses

that Rome suffers, and
really establishes Hannibal

as the greatest general
of all time potentially.

By most estimates,

the Romans lose between
55,000 and 70,000 men.

The Romans could
hardly bury all their dead.

There were limbs,
there was blood.

Hannibal is there for
more than a decade,

and he is just going up and
down Italy just destroying things.

The massive amount of damage,

the massive amount of loss,

it's an incredible invasion.

And then the Romans get smart.

The Romans, I think, took back
from that battle, not just a loss,

but they learned from their mistakes
and learned about that sword.

The Romans improved
the Spanish blade

by changing the
material from iron to steel,

which makes it stronger,
lighter, and sharper.

They added the pommel at the end

to prevent the hand
from slipping off,

and various features
that made it more usable

on the Roman battlefield.

The Roman gladius measures
less than two feet long,

with a three-inch wide
double-edged blade.

Weighing just under two pounds,

it can be swung
with enough force

to produce a gaping
wound four inches long.

A gladius has a wasp waist.

So, the blade swells,

and then it comes
into a wasp waist,

and then it broadens
out again at the hilt.

This new and improved
version of the gladius

helps Rome level the
playing field against Carthage

during the Battle
of Zama in 202 B.C.

No longer was it just spear cuts

and, you know, wounds,

punctures from a spear.

Now we're talking limbs
and heads flying off of bodies.

Needless to say, the Romans
won, Second Punic War is over,

and that's how the gladius
becomes the kind of weapon

that will change the
future of ancient warfare.

197 B.C.

Another enemy is
standing in the way

of Rome's complete dominance
of the Eastern Mediterranean.

After the Romans had
defeated the Carthaginians,

they turn their attention
to the east, to Macedonia,

who had been an
ally of Carthage.

The Macedonian forces

are led by King Philip V,

but he's no match for the
fiercely armed Romans.

When the gladius was
introduced on the field of battle,

very quickly King Philip saw
his army began to get decimated.

You are now hacking
limbs, killing enemies,

literally cutting your way
through the enemy's formation.

This is not a war of attrition.

You are now looking to
do as much mortal damage

as you can to the enemy.

You are not looking
to simply win,

you are looking to massacre.

No one is to be left alive.

The Roman army completely
annihilates their enemy.

Roughly 8,000 Macedonian
soldiers are dead,

and another 5,000 are captured.

King Philip witnesses the scene

with his army devastated,
heads severed,

arms lopped off
with this sharp sword,

blood spilled
all over the field.

And King Philip flees
the scene ignominiously,

never to be seen again.

The Romans had
demonstrated once and for all,

armed with the gladius,
the eastern armies

could not stand against them.

Greece fell,

and Rome continued further east.

For the next three centuries,

the Roman Empire grows,

reaching its peak in 117 A.D.,

spanning over 2.2
million square miles.

The gladius is what gives the
Romans their edge on the battlefield.

It allows their
tactics to be effective

and ultimately allows
them to become

the military superpower
over the Mediterranean

that they are still
remembered as to this day.

Now, the gladius
was just a small sword.

But throughout history,
that gladius had become

one of the most devastating
weapons to mankind.

It has taken more human lives

than any other weapon
until production of the gun.

Once Rome achieves its
superiority on the battlefield,

it achieves superiority in
politics, and economics,

and so many ways
across the Mediterranean.

It's the Roman sea as
far as they're concerned.

And all of this goes
back to the gladius,

and its capabilities
as a weapon of war.

The Roman concept of
warfare was not about attrition.

It was not about
wearing out the enemy.

It was not about coming
to agreements afterwards.

Warfare was about wiping your
enemies off the face of the earth.

You could live happily because
you were the only one left alive.

The gladius itself
represents punishment.

It is the embodiment
of Roman power.

By the time we get to the
imperial period in Rome,

we see individuals who are
sentenced to capital punishment

being sentenced "ad gladium."

In other words, those who
have violated the laws of the state

are punished by the gladius.

The gladius is itself death.

The deadly sword is so iconic

that it will become synonymous

with the most legendary
bloodsport in history.

The gladius will change

when it becomes the
weapon of the gladiators.

And in fact, the
term "gladiator"

comes from the gladius,

which is Rome's favorite weapon.

Gladiator games are
there for one purpose,

to fulfill the
bloodlust of a crowd.

What are all these 50,000 people
showing up to the Colosseum to see?

It's not somebody get poked.
It's somebody get slashed.

Something to get cut.
Bloodshed all over the place.

And the more gruesome,
the more violent, the better.

They're there to show men
hacking other men to bits.

These gladiators
wielding the gladius,

though they were
trained killers,

they were also trained
to keep each other alive.

They were trained to be
able to just show blood,

to be able to cut
flesh in such a way

that the person would be
able to continue to fighting

and would be able to survive
for future fights to come.

But you can just imagine the
gallons upon gallons of blood

that was spilled in that sand.

It's entertainment,

and entertainment
will change the gladius.

It's become a weapon
for the Romans' pleasure.

The blades of the Romans,
samurai, and Vikings

each transformed history.

But there's another that
literally dwarfs the competition.

In the 15th century,

a deadly new sword
is gaining traction

amongst mercenaries
across western Europe,

leaving behind
bodies and bloodshed.

A Zweihander is a
two-handed sword.

A great, big, long
two-handed sword.

In fact, that's basically
where it gets its name.

"Two-hander" is what
Zweihander means.

The sword consists
of a long steel blade

averaging about
five feet in length

and weighing
upwards of ten pounds.

They were impressive to see.
Some of them have wavy blades.

They are double-edged,
and they can be wicked sharp.

So, it has some
usability as a weapon

because of its size, but
that's also its downfall.

You're not carrying this
thing around one-handed.

You're not using this like a
traditional sword anymore.

It's sort of almost a
cross between a spear

and a longsword simultaneously.

Now, carrying one of
these swords into battle

might be somewhat unwieldy.

And, of course,
wielding a Zweihander

for too long can get tiring.

But when you train
with a Zweihander,

you are learning specific moves,

specific parries
that are designed

to essentially use the
momentum of that blade itself.

A baseball player,
you can think about

the same way you hold the bat.

You're holding this weapon back.

But it really is nothing
more than a big blunt club.

So what it's doing is
it's hitting somebody,

and killing them with
a percussive blow

rather than
chopping them in two.

And if you hit
with enough force,

and you hit the different
quadrants of the body,

you can slice through,

or you can crush, or
you can break bones.

But you also have enough
agility with the Zweihander

to stab and thrust
with both hands,

and actually pierce and
run your opponent through.

The warriors bold enough

to wield this weapon are
known as the landsknecht.

Landsknecht emerge
in the 15th century,

and they are both Swiss and German
mercenaries, essentially soldiers for hire.

They're paid to go
in and just kill people.

And they do it with the
Zweihander because it's there

and it can kill very,
very effectively.

The sheer size of this
two-handed monstrosity

has a psychological
effect as well.

And we have to think of
this as an imposing symbol.

If you can imagine a
mercenary going into a village,

he wants everybody to run because
he's carrying one of these Zweihanders.

He wants that
weapon to be feared.

But the most
notorious Zweihander

belongs to a man
named Grutte Pier,

and it's believed to be
the largest European sword

ever used in battle.

Grutte Pier lives
in northern Europe,

and he's also extremely large.

The man stands
at seven-foot-tall.

This man is quite
literally a giant,

but he's a gentle giant.

He is reported to be
an excellent swordsman

with the Zweihander.

In fact, his own Zweihander

measured somewhere
upwards of 15 pounds.

- He's a peaceful guy.
- He's a farmer.

He's happy with
his wife, his two kids.

Then the Black
Band comes through.

The Black Band were a group

of landsknecht mercenaries
hired by the Saxons

who would basically
carry out the dirty work

that the Saxons didn't want to
be really recognized for doing.

What they would do
as part of any campaign

is loot and rob
and rape and steal

from the surrounding
countryside.

As a result, the Black Band

is incredibly notorious
across northern Europe.

They come through Grutte's area.

They wipe out his farm.
They rape and murder his wife.

They level his church.

Basically, they destroy
everything he cares about.

He is left homeless,
property-less.

He has nothing whatsoever.

And so Pier takes it upon
himself to put together

what becomes known as
the Black Hope of Arum,

his own mercenary band
who is not looking to get hired,

they're not looking
to really get paid.

They're really just looking to
get revenge against the Germans,

the mercenaries, the outsiders,

who are within their territory.

And the gentle giant
turns into a war machine,

and raises his own force

and takes the fight
to the Black Band.

Grutte Pier,
meaning "Big Peter,"

with having a frame
the size he had,

he was easily able to
wield that Zweihander.

Where most people would not choose
to use that weapon because of its length,

Big Peter could twirl it
around like a normal sword.

In Pier's hands, the Zweihander
becomes an incredibly deadly weapon.

His sword is like
a weed-whacker,

just ripping through
the countryside,

leveling everything in its path.

He's able to take
out multiple enemies

with a single
swing of the blade.

And the blade itself, his
blade is heavy enough

to cut through arms,
cut through armor,

cut through shields.

Nobody is able to
stand against him.

Basically, become a
David and Goliath in one.

He is little David taking on
this much larger evil band,

and yet he is
physically Goliath.

He is himself a massive giant.

Now, the rampage
does not last forever.

This is basically
a four-year period,

and Pier dies right after that.

So he has a pretty short
life, and frankly so does

his beloved weapon of
choice, the Zweihander.

It's just too big to be wielded in
a practical way on the battlefield.

And by the 16th century, you're
really only gonna find it in a museum.

Now the Zweihander
was still a very intimidating,

very showy weapon,

and continued to be used
in ceremonial circumstances,

continued to be put on display all
the way, really, up to the present day,

even though its effectiveness on the
battlefield was ultimately very limited.

Like its famous wielder, the
Zweihander legend lives on,

just as Pier's does.

Whatever their size,
shape, or body count,

blades like the Viking
axe, katana, gladius,

and Zweihander made legends
of the warriors who wielded them,

inspiring fear and fascination,

and forging a lasting
legacy in blood.