(urth) Fuligin invented

[Matthew Keeley]

On Jan 17, 2008 4:58 PM,  <brunians at brunians.org> wrote:
> That sucker in the wiki article was as long as TE. Couldn't tell if it had
> a mercury channel, but that kind of thing would be obvious. I have heard
> of swords with sliding weights also.
>
> So Severian wasn't joking when he said the horizontal stroke was harder
> than the vertical one....

According to the Wikipedia article, "The Sword of Justice at the
Higgins Armory Museum is a fine example of such ceremonial weapons
used to designate status and authority." If that's the sword in the
picture, that's really neat, as the Higgins is only about fifteen
minutes' walk from my house. I'll check it out next time I'm at home
(i.e. in six months) and ask about weights and mercury in blades of
that type. If anyone would know about that sort of thing, it's the
folks at the Higgins. I'll see if I can get some relevant pictures as
well.

I recall that Wolfe mentioned basing TE off real swords, so I wouldn't
be surprised if the Higgins had something similar.

So... report forthcoming I guess.

-Matt