This week on the channel +629K views this week

Matt Easton investigates Viking weapons that archaeology can't quite explain

Saga descriptions and a winged spear replica frame scholagladiatoria's most watched new upload, alongside a Renaissance sword-fighting question.

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scholagladiatoria Story of November 6, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.

Why we DON'T KNOW what these mystery VIKING WEAPONS WERE - the 'Atgeir', 'Hoggspjot' & 'Kesja'

Things we can learn from the video

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1:08Familiar medieval halberds and bills belong to later periods, complicating English translations of Viking saga weapons.
7:44A winged spear replica helps Easton examine possible interpretations of the atgeir.
10:55Hoggspjót means a hewing or cutting spear, rather than a hunting weapon.
15:43Egils saga describes unusually large blade dimensions and reinforcements that Easton struggles to reconcile with surviving finds.
20:58Easton suggests the krókspjót, often translated as a barbed spear, may instead describe a winged spear.
23:14His tentative interpretation is that the atgeir was a long-bladed spear, with written sources leaving substantial uncertainty.

The names survive. The weapons are harder to pin down. Matt Easton's busiest new upload on scholagladiatoria examines saga polearms whose descriptions don't neatly match the archaeological record, and it has reached roughly 94,000 views.

In "Why we DON'T KNOW what these mystery VIKING WEAPONS WERE - the 'Atgeir', 'Hoggspjot' & 'Kesja'", Easton starts by challenging translations that give Vikings halberds familiar from much later centuries. Holding a winged spear replica, he tests possible interpretations rather than pretending the mystery has a tidy answer.

The awkward details are the interesting ones: an exceptionally long blade, structural reinforcements and accounts of combatants throwing apparently enormous weapons. Easton thinks the atgeir was probably a long-bladed spear, but the description in Egils saga leaves him stuck: "I can't put together the description of it in Egil's Saga and anything that we know that exists archaeologically."

Viewers have brought their own reading to the puzzle, discussing spear finds, translation choices and whether later material culture crept into accounts of the Viking Age. One wants a reconstruction made for Easton to test.

His other upload, "Why did the dagger DOMINATE over the buckler in SWORD FIGHTING?", asks why the Renaissance sword's companion changed. It's currently gathering views fastest, while October's "Why SPEARS and PIKES are so DIFFERENT?" remains active too.

Across the channel, weekly views came to roughly 629,000 and subscribers held steady. Daily viewing is a little below its usual level, but the two new uploads give readers distinctly Easton questions: what a weapon actually was, and why someone chose to carry it.

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What viewers say

I'd like to see Todd make one based on the description for Matt to test.
@kenbrown9287See it on YouTube
To think that putting a sharp thing on a long thing can have so many variations.
Really fun video, please continue to be Matt Easton.
@ulfhazelcreek8108See it on YouTube
6:50 The boom referenced is the horizontal piece of wood that stabilizes the bottom of the sail, which is manipulated by the main sheets (rope).
@cyborgrhinofromspace1108See it on YouTube

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