Sword swallowing

“ On dissection, fourteen knife blades were found remaining in his stomach, and the back spring of one penetrating through the bowel, seemed the immediate cause of his death.
Several women have adopted the profession of sword-swallowing, and some have won much more than a passing fame. ”

“ Sword swallowing exhibitors have rendered important services to medicine. It was due to one of them—a swallower of both swords and pebbles—that, in 1777, a Scotch physician, Stevens, was enabled to make the first studies upon the gastric juice of human beings. ”

“ The swallowing of a sword, or rather passing its blade down the throat into the stomach, is very common with these Singhalese itinerant exhibitors, a facility which is acquired after much patient practice, and which is not necessarily injurious to the performer. ”

“ But by the eternal thunderer above, She shall not triumph thus------------ Mine aged arm, inur'd to war and blood, Is not so worn by time, nor yet so weak, But it can send her murmuring soul to hell; Nay, harder still, has strength to grasp the hilt, And plunge this vet'ran sword in thy base breast, To let out that false blood that taints thy soul And poisons all my peace. ”

“ Now, if you give a man a jab in the knuckles, or if you run your blade delicately up his arm from the wrist to the elbow, this is what happens. The man involuntarily yells out, and as involuntarily drops his sword on the flags. If you prick a man on the knuckle-bone, he will leave go his sword before he has time to think, it being an action entirely unconscious on his part, just like winking your eye or drawing your breath; yet I have seen men run through the body who kept sword in hand and made a beautiful lunge with it even as they staggered across the threshold of death's door. ”

“ Why doth a broken spear gird thy huge side? Why, perchance, dost thou defend thy stalwart breast with a feeble sword, and forget the likeness of thy bodily stature, trusting in a short dagger, a petty weapon? Soon, soon will I balk thy bold onset, when with blunted blade thou attemptest war. Since thou art thyself a timid beast, a lump lacking proper pith, thou art swept headlong like a flying shadow, having with a fair and famous body got a heart that is unwarlike and unstable with fear, and a spirit quite unmatched to thy limbs. ”

“ When the child comes near the executioner, his sword trembles in its scabbard—an unmistakable sign that it thirsts for her blood. The huntsman's head, when it is cut off, flies towards her, and the teeth grip her frock. ”

“ One blow, at last, inflicts a ghastly wound in his ankle; he clutches at the bed for support, but misses it, and falls, groaning heavily, at full length on the floor, where, taken at a disadvantage, a sword is thrust into his heart, and with horrid struggles he dies. ”

“ I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand. 32:40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, And say, As I live forever, 32:41 if I whet my glittering sword, My hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my adversaries, and will recompense those who hate me. 32:42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the head of the leaders of the enemy. 32:43 Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. ”

“ I had not knelt by my fallen enemy a moment, when suddenly my men set up a cry behind me, there was a rush of hoofs, and, ere I could regain my feet or snatch my sword or shield, a great black French rider, like a shadowy fury dropped from the sullen evening sky, his plumes all streaming behind him, his head low down between his horse’s ears, and his long blue spear in rest, was thundering in mid career against me not a dozen paces distant. As I am a soldier, and have lived many ages by my sword, that charge must have been fatal. ”

“ And there was great slaughter, and laying low in graves, and many comely men fell there in the stall of death. Pride and shame were there side by side, and hardness and red anger, and there was red blood on the white skin of young fighting men. And the dashing of spear against shield, and sword against sword, and the shouting of the fighters, and the whistling of casting spears and the rattling of scabbards was like harsh thunder through the battle. And many slipped in the blood that was under their feet, and they fell, striking their heads one against another ”

“ Casting the weapon aside, he grips her and tries to hurl her down, while her claws and teeth clash upon his corslet but cannot penetrate the steel rings. She throws her bulk upon him, crushes him down, draws a short sword and plunges it at him ”

“ This is so thoroughly true, that if you set two men to fight in a fencing-room with blunt swords, you notice at once that the assault is something very different from what it would have been with mere foils. You might almost fancy that the swords, though they can no longer wound, are still possessed by the spirit of mortal combat, and retain some reminiscence of the real thing, of naked chest opposed to naked steel. ”

“ Sometimes in my dreams the wild commotion of that most desperate combat comes back to me. I see again before me the crowd of half-naked men, curving in a semicircle measured by the length of my sword, their faces distorted by the passionate anger that stirred their souls; and I see one fierce face after another lose out of it the look of life, yet not the look of hate, as my sword crunches into the vitals of the body to which it belongs ”

“ An infuriated man, also in fancy costume, stood astride over the dead body, with his sword lifted to the lowering sky, and watched, with a horrid expression of delight, the blood of the man whom he had just killed dripping slowly in a procession of big red drops down the broad blade of his weapon. ”

“ Violent without craftiness, and furious without malice, one may imagine him seated masterfully with a double-edged sword on his knees upon the painted and gilt clouds of the sunset, bowing his shock head of golden locks, a flaming beard over his breast, imposing, colossal, mighty-limbed, with a thundering voice, distended cheeks and fierce blue eyes, urging the speed of his gales. ”

“ A spear he hath, blue-red, hand-fitting, on its puissant shaft. It stretches along the wall on the roof and rests on the ground. An iron point upon it, dark-red, dripping. Four amply-measured feet between the two points of its edge.
Thirty amply-measured feet in his deadly-striking sword from dark point to iron hilt. It shews forth fiery sparks which illumine the Mid-court House from roof to ground.
'Tis a strong countenance that I see. A swoon from horror almost befell me while staring at those three. There is nothing stranger.
Two bare hills were there by the man with hair. ”

“ I saw the blow coming, even in the dark, and despairing to avoid it, let drive right forward, at the same moment muffling up my eyes in the sleeve of my idle arm, for the terror of death was upon me then. Our swords sang.... But even as I struck I knew that a miracle had been wrought, for his sword never fell. Sick with amazement I opened my eyes, to see him go over amongst the bales, where he sank down with a great sobbing cry. His sword hung quivering from a rafter of the ceiling, which it had bitten into by the blade's breadth. ”

“ The sword and the spear, which wound nigh at hand, are nothing to him; the darts, arrows, and sling-stones, which wound at a distance, do him no damage; nature has so well armed him cap-a-pie—at all points, against them all. The defensive weapons which men use when they engage with the leviathan, as the habergeon, or breast-plate, often serve men no more than their offensive weapons; iron and brass are to him as straw and rotten wood, and he laughs at them. It is the picture of a hard-hearted sinner, that despises the terrors of the Almighty and laughs at all the threatenings of his word. ”

“ There are always to be found in this country those who are singularly dexterous in the use of the swords that I have mentioned. They use them for performing amputations in their own barbarous way. If mortification from an ulcer or any other cause seems to be setting in, so that a hand or a foot is deemed incurable, the limb is fastened to a block of wood, and with one blow of the sword the part affected is severed almost within a hair’s breadth of the part that is sound. ”

“ He beats his head against the sand, till eyeballs and tongue protrude, then he slowly rises, and retreats a pace or two, still with his eyes on his supposed foe. He feels backwards with his hand till he touches a sword, he seizes it, and with a yell springs forward again and stands triumphant over his fallen fellow, the deadly knife just grazing his neck. ”

“ Then, after various chants, dances, and howls over the hole, and over the sick man, who is not far away, of such kind that a well man would have enough of it to deafen him, he takes a naked sword and slashes it about so furiously that the sweat 121 comes out in great drops all over his body and he froths like a horse. ”

“ So cautious had he been that not one of those who stood there so much as suspected his foul play, and when they saw him fall ’neath my murderous stroke, a dozen swords leapt from their scabbards, and with angry cries of “Shame!” and “Murder!” they flung themselves upon me. ”

“ They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. ”

“ In the assault with its incessant alarms and perilous crises, in encountering the wiles and avoiding the snares of the enemy, those who use the sword find their ‘crowded hour of glorious life,’ the hour crowded with illusions and disenchantments, the rubs of fortune, the ups and downs of victory or defeat. ”

“ Therefore it is that man, wounded, bleeding, burdened, staggering, fumbles at the buckles that bind the weight of his armor on his back, longing to cast it off, and wondering if they that take the sword must after all perish by the sword. ”

“ She draws her sword from the glances of her eye-lashes, sharp and penetrating as the blade of her forefathers, and with it her eyes commit murder, though it be sheathed: is it not surprising that a sheathed sword should be so sharp against its victims! Graceful is every limb, slender her waist, love-beaming are her glances, waving is her form. The damsel passes the night with musk under her veil, and its fragrance is increased by the still fresher essence of her breath. ”

“ I sprang aside, whipped out my sword, sent up a lusty cry for help that made the houses ring again, and set my back against the wall to sell my life as dearly as I could. They closed round me and attacked instantly; a swift lunge sent my blade through one of them, a swinging cut made another drop his knife with a great cry of pain, and an unexpected, but tremendously violent back-handed blow with the hilt of my sword right in the face sent a third down reeling and half senseless. ”

“ Never shall ye eat in blood your shameful feasts through sin defiled with blood. For most he injureth himself and his soul's honour whoso shall slay another with the sword. Verily! in no wise shall his heart have joy in his reward! For many times more heavily will I avenge man's life upon his murderer, because his sword hath prospered in violence and blood, and his hands in death. ”

“ In his hand he carries a two-edged sword, with which he deals doughty blows at the invisible foes in the air; but sometimes he inflicts bloody wounds on his own back with the weapon or with a ball which is studded with long sharp nails. ”

“ When thou drawest thy sword, however, strike but a single stroke. Her mortar, her pestle, and her broom, all her faithful servants, will cry out to thee to strike again, but if thou strikest a second stroke, she will instantly come to life again. ”

“ I punctured every ghostly, swinging arras, and stabbed the black shadows in a score of dim recesses. But nothing I found until, in one of these, my sword-point struck something soft and yielding, and sank in. Jove! it startled me. ’Twas wondrous like a true, good stab through flesh and bone; and my fingers tightened upon the pommel, and I sent the blade home through that yielding, unseen “something,” and a span deep into the rotten wall beyond ”

“ Snatching his sword from its sheath it flashed for a few moments in the sun, as he brandished it on high, and then, with a madman's howl, he plunged it into the bodies of an infant and its mother who was advancing with a timid smile to offer drink to the thirsty travellers.
Tearing the reeking weapon from his first quivering victims he rushed on over them, dealing death and wounds frantically around him. For some moments he was alone in his dread activity. The Indians were spellbound with the dismal horror. Even his own fellows were awe-struck with the impetus of the hideous onslaught. ”

“ Why, you must know that my sword may almost be regarded as part of my own body. I have heard that certain men seem to have warnings given them by feeling something the matter with their legs, or by a throbbing of their temples. With me, it is my sword that warns me. ”

“ But the flesh merely sank in with the point of the spit, without being in the least injured.
"Another day, she placed the point of a very sharp sword against the hollow of the throat, just below the epiglottis, and, standing with her back against the wall, called on them to push the sword. A vigorous man did so, till the blade bent, though not so much as to form a complete arc. The point sank into the flesh about an inch. I was curious to measure the exact depth, and found that the flesh rose so far around the sword-point that I could sink a finger in beyond the first joint. ”