Curtana
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Curtana".

Curtana, also Cortana or Courtain, is a latinized form of the Anglo-French curtein, from Latin curtus, 'shortened', used for a ceremonial type of sword.

Famous curtanas

For the main article see Sword of Mercy

The "Sword of Mercy" or "Edward the Confessor's sword", is a symbolically broken sword that is part of the traditional English regalia, now included in the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom.

Curtana was also, according to legend, the sword of Ogier the Dane; it bore the inscription "My name is Cortana, of the same steel and temper as Joyeuse and Durendal."¹

In popular culture

In the Halo video game series, one of the main characters, Cortana, is named after this sword.

Notes

Sources and references

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.