In fact in Norse mythos, some would acquire weapons from old buried relatives to use in important battles. Even some unrelated warriors would acquire them; sometimes even asking permission from the living relatives.

 

Your sword would wear after use, but it shouldn't break. Even if it did then you now just have a shorter sword or even a knife.  

 

But swords do last for a long time. In the migration period, some would intentionally destroy their weapons when they fell ini battle because they didn't want them to be used by the enemy or even a one of his own (who could, god forbid, be a coward in battle).

 

 

 

Then of course is how well is it looked after? If a sword is to be kept for a long time it needs regular maintanance to prevent it from rusting.

 

Later medieval swords (which were longer, and meant to be used while riding a horse) were of a harder and more brittle metal, better to thrust, but more liable to break when hit on the flat side. The best of these came from Spain, where the art hardening of metal by tempering them with carcoal was perfected.

The layering of early swords (woots) did not make it stronger than later swords. In fact, it was more prone to breake alot of the time as this type of construction is often a hit or miss exercise. The folding of the steel is done in order to spread the carbon content of the steel and get a homogonous carbon content throughout the blade.

 

In later medieval times, technology improved to a point that you could now get billets of steel that was already carbonised and therefore the need to spread the carbon throughout the steel became unnecessary. The practice of woots never died out in Europe (the folding effect still looked pretty), but the fact that a sword smith could now order billets ready and suitable for sword-smithing allowed for more swords of the same quality to be manufactured. This is also why you see a remarkable increase in the use and variety of designs of swords later in medieval times. Although you got the swords designed more for thrusting with little flex you also got the swords designed more for cutting with alot of flex and all those inbetween. Refer to Ewart Oakeshotte's "The archeology of weapons" for a detailed discussion.

 

Spain only became a sword-producing centre fairly late. In medieval times the biggest producers of swords and armour were Germany and Northern Italy (Innsbruck and Milan). In fact if you read up on museum pieces, it is very likely that you'll find in the description that the fittings were produced locally but that the blade were of German origin.

 

 

Japanese Swords used a process very similar to Pattern Welding which was also developed in China and spread from their in the early years BCE.

 

You are correct I mixed up my terms. Apologies