sollingen

Updated: May 1, 2025

We were accosted by the first craft, in which upon the central place of honour sat Mpeso Birimba, a petty chief of Suko Nkongo; a pert rascal of the French factory, habited in a red cap, a green velvet waistcoat, and a hammock-shaped tippet of pine-apple fibre; his sword was a short Sollingen blade.

Sir Richard Francis Burton - Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2

I believe this form was adopted after the Crusades, when the long, straight, cross-handled blades of the Christian knights left an impression behind them that established the fashion. All these blades are manufactured at Sollingen, and are exported to Egypt for the trade of the interior. Of course they differ in quality and price, but they are of excellent temper.

Sir Samuel White Baker - The Nile tributaries of Abyssinia, and the sword hunters of the Hamran arabs

I was shown a sword belonging to the Mijolo: all declared that it is of native make; yet it irresistibly suggested the old two-handed weapon of Europe, preserved by the Bedawin and the Eastern Arabs, who now mostly derive it from Sollingen.

Sir Richard Francis Burton - Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2