A Damascus Sword

The Damascus sword is legendary for both its strength and its flexibility. (The craftsmen of these swords happened upon a technique that was not understood until recent developments in carbon nanotechnology.) By virtue of its combination of these, it is renowned for being a most potent weapon. Its legendary qualities are described thusly:

These ‘Damascus blades’ were extraordinarily strong, but still flexible enough to bend from hilt to tip. And they were reputedly so sharp that they could cleave a silk scarf floating to the ground, just as readily as a knight’s body. . . .

Damascus blades were forged from small cakes of steel from India called ‘wootz’. All steel is made by allowing iron with carbon to harden the resulting metal. The problem with steel manufacture is that high carbon contents of 1-2% certainly make the material harder, but also render it brittle.

This is useless for sword steel since the blade would shatter upon impact with a shield or another sword. Wootz, with its especially high carbon content of about 1.5%, should have been useless for sword-making. Nonetheless, the resulting sabres showed a seemingly impossible combination of hardness and malleability.

Usually adherence to principle and satisfaction in one's doctrine is thought of as a sign of rigidity, and a willingness to hear out opposing viewpoints and forge compromise a sign of flexibility. All kinds of positive and negative connotations get ascribed to these qualities.

The Damascus sword strikes me as all positive. The only question I see is how best to forge it.