The great combat knife has had a long tradition in Europe. Beginning in the Seax and single-edged Germanic swords of the Iron Age, a weapon with a big cutting blade mounted as a knife was celebrating a popularity as a functional and no-nonsense sidearm of warriors and civilians alike through the ages. In German speaking areas, the Falchion did not reach the same popularity as elsewhere in Europe. Instead the big war-knife saw a development of its own.