I got a new axe yesterday from a friend. I gave him a handful of trees earlier this year and in return he gave me this axe and a snazzy high dollar electrical socket to install by my bed.
Stuck
This type of axe is called a Francisca axe, sometimes spelled Francesca. That's her name too: Francesca. It's an axe style with roots to the 8th century in France, where the first American immigrants with my family name came from. It's part of a project in finding more of myself by going back and finding more of my family.
Francisca axe
This axe, like the original Francisca, is made for throwing. According to the wiki page linked above, this axe is very close in every dimension to the original Francisca. As you can see, it sticks very well. Much better than my slightly smaller tomahawk.
History is a fun topic that I've taken a light interest in since my big trip. Well, not just, but it's been renewed some since then. The French who came to the Americas did more trade with the indigenous people here than the British did. One thing they brought was the tomahawk; a light weight axe that could be used for throwing or other axely type things. The Francisca, my friends and I deduce, is a millennium-old ancestor to the tomahawk that was so widely traded between peoples when Europeans colonized America.
My best two axe group. Francesca at six paces, and the hawk at ten.
This particular axe shape is pretty utilitarian. It makes a good tool, but was primarily designed to be a weapon. It can be used to hook things with the bottom corner, called the heel. The top corner, called the toe, works damn well as a jabbing or stabbing edge. It's also the part of the axe that sticks in a target best as shown by the pictures. The shoulder, the shaft where the handle slips through, can be held to use the axe for rough carving or as a knife. I think that's an interesting approach that the Gauls took while Germanic tribes went with the bearded axe head style. A cool example of different cultures creating a tool to do the same thing but creating it differently. I personally think I prefer the Francisca, but I haven't had much experience with a bearded axe yet.
A few marks to show penetration on a big oak tree.
After my big trip, I lost nearly all interest in the band Heilung that I'd been ravenously listening to and who's subject matter I'd been studying for over a year. Their works aren't relevant to me, I'm the descendant of Gauls and Franks, not of Saxons and Norsemen. Those languages don't hold much for me. My friend started getting into axes around that same time, and at the chainsawing class last weekend he introduced me to Francesca. I used this same axe to fell a few trees and de-limb many more. I've never been much into bladed tools and weapons, but something rang home with this one. I'm excited to have something with this kind of history. It'll be an anchor as I look deeper into my family line and develop a little deeper self understanding.
I'm gonna need a proper axe throwing target.
Anyways. Just a quick post with a little history today. Thanks for reading :)
Love from Texas
Nate 馃挌
