By the Sword! is a game purported to be derived from a poemcomposed by a Nordic ruler of the later Dark Agesera named Bendigeid, which describes a battle in the form of a wargame and its complete rules.
Reception
Fred Askew reviewed By the Sword! in The Space Gamer No. 58. Askew commented that "If you would like to include large battles in your FRP world and don't mind learning a fairly complex new game system, look at this title. If you are not interested in large battles, or don't want tolearn any involved rules, this is not for you. I recommend that anyone interested in fantasy should at least look this game over. It's not perfect, but a great deal of work has gone into it."