A few years ago there was a Scottish cultural exhibit being held over at Grand Central Station down on Lexington Avenue. The year was 2005 and I am guessing that this was around April based on the time stamp of my photographs. That was a busy time for me as I had just officially launched PiercingMetal.com but that can be found on another blog. I had to say that for the most part the exhibit didn’t do anything for me, but there was one item on display that was a clear “must see” and a reason to adventure over there without any question. That item was the William Wallace sword.
For those who might not be in the know, William Wallace was a Scottish knight and a patriot in the eyes of his countrymen and lived during the late 1200’s. His was a life of combat and freedom fighting according to his Wikipedia entry and you can learn more about him by clicking on his Wikipedia link which I will have ready for you at the close of this piece.
Once you are more up to speed you also know that his life story and adventures were depicted on the big screen in the Mel Gibson’s blockbuster “Braveheart”. I don’t think you need me to tell you that it was one hell of a movie. I am sure that most of you have seen this one already as well so we shall not go into any cinematic details. If you have never seen the movie, then you should really do so and perhaps even order a copy via the Amazon.com link below the narrative (I’ve added the Blu-ray edition into this as well).
When I was taking these photos, I didn’t think of getting any sort of size comparison from it but let me tell you this much, the sword was massive in size. It looked to be almost five feet long and that is only a couple of inches shorter than me. The coolest part to realize was that this particular weapon dates back to 1306 or something like that making it almost 700 years old. Talk about a visual representation of history.
The other cool thing to note about this particular artifact was the amount of ass-whooping that Wallace dished out with it during his battles and quest for Scottish Independance. The stories you read about or saw enacted during the Braveheart film all had this massive blade involved in them and I had to say that it was in pretty good shape for a weapon of its age when you looked at it a little more closely. It was a bit tricky for me to get absolutely amazing shots based on the lighting of the terminal and the fact that this was encased in glass. That whole reflecting the flash kept on happening and the original digital camera that I had back then was not the most accomodating of devices. Still we made due.
The sword had never left Scotland before this exhibit so that made capturing even only a handful of shots something important to do. It also gave me some visual proof for anyone who insists that it never left the Highlands and came on a little vacation to the Big Apple. I was glad I did this since it was something super impressive to see and very worth sharing with you all in this little realm online.
This statue of a cow was getting into the Scottish heraldry spirit as well and was decked out in tartan design. While it had nothing to do with the sword, we felt it looked interesting enough to snap a shot of as well.
Official Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wallace