Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 2769279" data-attributes="member: 3146">Not at all. What some people seem to be thinking of is "weapon that was used to win an extraordinary victory." The story of Samson is quite clear about where the magic was: it was on Samson. When the spirit of God came over him, he was strong enough to tear the gates of Ashkelon (IIRC) off their hinges and carry them several miles. He wrestled a lion and killed it. When thousands of Philistines attacked him, he picked up the jawbone of an ass and killed them all with it. In the story, which is special, Samson or the jawbone? It's Samson who is empowered and the point of the jawbone is to demonstrate that he is empowered to the extent that he can defeat thousands of Philistines without a decent weapon. Deciding that the jawbone must be a magic weapon defeats the entire point of the story--then anyone with that particular jawbone would have won the same victory.If you subscribe to the idea that a spectactular victory won with a weapon means the weapon must be magic then every story from sergeant Rock to Eddie Rickenbacker and the Red Baron to David's each of David's mighty men described in the book of Samuel must have had at least one magic weapon each. However, if you want your paper to be relevant to the archetypical, literary sense of a magic weapon, then you would be better off sticking to weapons that are specifically ascribed magical properties or legendary powers. Mjolnir, Durandel, Excalibur, the lance of Longinus, Gae bolge, Gunnar's bill (from the saga of burnt Njal), and possibly the ogress of war (Skarphedin's axe from the same saga), etc qualify. (As does the sword from the saga of Kornack the Skald even if it didn't win Kornack the victory he wanted). The sling of David and the Samson's jawbone of an ass do not. If anything, the point of those stories is that the weapons do NOT have any special powers.</blockquote>

Verification