Live Science
By Sascha Pare
March 7, 2024
A corroded sword pulled from an English river by a magnet fisher is a Viking weapon dating to between A.D. 850 and 975, experts have confirmed.
Trevor Penny was searching for lost and discarded objects in the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire in November 2023 when he made the discovery. The magnet fisher had been down on his luck that day and only pulled scaffolding poles from the water, he told Live Science in a message on Facebook. When Penny lugged out the sword, he didn’t immediately recognize what it was.