Steve -- very interesting, thanks!

My husband is a metallurgist, so I asked his opinion.

He says that earlier swords did bend, because the "technology" was not yet advanced enough to reliably produce swords of metal hardened enough to not bend with great impact. (In fact, he suggests that those few swords where they managed to get it right & produce a sword that did not bend may well have something to do with tales of "magical" swords.) He says that after a number of heavy blows (and/or parries), a soldier might well try to find a quiet(er) spot (if possible) where he could straighten his sword before re-entering the fray.

I think that's fascinating, although IMO it doesn't really shed any light on the song; it seems to me that once a battle was over you wouldn't want to leave your sword 'bent'...

I asked him about new vs rusty, & he said that although swords did indeed rust, great care was taken to polish & store them in such a way as to avoid rust, which makes sense.

I also asked him about steel (or iron) vs bronze; he says that both could have been in use at the time. Steel would have been significantly more expensive than bronze, so poorer folk would prolly be more likely to be using bronze weapons.

All of this suggests to me that -- for the purposes of the song -- Hughie is basically saying "Give Johnny my no. 1 sword & give Jimmy my no. 2 sword," -- which (again) makes sense to me...