Nice Catch! Magnet-Fishing Find Authenticated as Viking Sword

The heavily corroded Viking sword dates to between 850 and 975.
Photo: Trevor Penny via the Oxford Mail

We have seen plenty of stories about metal detectorists turning up buried treasure, finding lost valuables, and even uncovering clues to historical mysteries. Magnet fishing can do the same. This hobby is essentially what it sounds like—attaching a very strong (usually neodymium) magnet to a rope or cable and dropping it into a body of water to “catch” metal. Magnet fishers have found things like road signs, antique weapons, discarded safes (sometimes with their contents!), and the occasional steel-toed boot. Last November, Trevor Penny, a magnet fisher in the UK, reeled in an interesting-looking sword, recently proved to be a Viking weapon from over a thousand years ago.

Penny, a member of the Thame Magnet Fishing group on Facebook—which has seen increased interest since his find was made public—was fishing in the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, England. When he pulled a corroded metal object from the water, he wasn’t sure what he had until a friend recognized it as a sword.

Trevor Penny holds the 1,100-year-old Viking sword
he pulled from the Thames while magnet fishing.
Photo: Trevor Penny

A little online research indicated that it was a Viking sword. Penny contacted the Portable Antiquities Scheme and took the sword to the relevant finds liaison officer, as required by law in the UK. Since then, experts have authenticated the sword and dated it to 850 to 975 AD, a time when Vikings invaded, settled in, traded with, and controlled parts of Britain.

There are many laws surrounding magnet fishing in the US and UK, and there are some regions where it is prohibited for safety reasons or requires a permit. Penny found himself in a legal dispute with the Rivers Trust, but the trust decided not to take legal action on the condition that the sword go to a museum.

The sword has been declared “archaeologically rare” and is the oldest verified item found by magnet fishing in the county of Oxfordshire. Viking swords and other artifacts occasionally go to auction and are bought for private collections, but that will not be the fate of this one. As requested by the rivers trust, it will stay in the county and likely be displayed in a local museum.

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