This is yet another sword design yes I do love swords. The blade is usually the thing that all people recognize on a sword however I was curious what the large round ball was for on the end of the hilt. At first I thought it was just a counter weight but as I looked at it closer I found it had a slight cone shape to it so I went to Google and researched the real purpose of the end of the hilt. First reason I found was the one I originally thought it was it truly was a counterweight put on the end of the hilt to counter balance the weight of the blade. This made it so it could be used with one hand. There also was a second reason however. During the medieval periods the development of plate armor made it harder and harder to punch holes into your enemy and so they put a heavier weight on the end to pummel the enemy with. This is why that part of the sword is called a pummel; also note that the pummel is only on European made swords Asian swords do not have a pummel because they never used plate armor.
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