Far be it from me to say that Child might be wrong, but this was not to put an edge on the sword, it was to demonstrate how sharp the sword was. One of the little tricks of intimidation before a sword fight was to take something like a straw, blade of grass, or perhaps a silken scarf, drape it over the cutting edge of the sword, and let the adversary watch as the item cut itself in two by its own rather negligible weight.

This was a bit of hyperbola, really, because any blade that sharp could nick easily when it struck a defensive bit of armor plate or a parrying blade, and a badly nicked blade might break at that point on a subsequent blow. Most embarrassing in the middle of a duel to the death.

Don Firth