https://textingatceu.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/23-b-battle-of-maldon.jpg?w=750&h=500&crop=1
The mounted knight on the very left side is holding a weapon that looks like a sword shaped like the top of a billhook. I've never seen anything else like that in other illuminations or surviving artifacts. Did weapons like this exist, is it supposed to be something else or is it more likely just an idea the artist came up with?
That is a peculiar item! I've never seen anything like it anywhere else. It doesn't look like a sword to me - notice there's no cross guard, which is depicted on the two definite swords. It might be a really funky depiction of a falchion - a curved, single-edged sword - but I can't say for sure. Or the protruding hook may be an error.
It resembles an axe with a blade almost as long as its haft. In addition, the haft appears angled so as to increase the cleaving power of the blade to compensate for the relatively short haft.
For that reason, I’d lean towards it being a representation of a bardiche of some kind. While bardiches are only appearing on Northern battlefields at the time this was created and it would therefore be somewhat anachronistic in its depiction here, they are essentially an evolution of the sparth axe which was a common sight on battlefields involving Vikings.
