8-Year-Old Girl Discovers Iron Age Sword In Swedish Lake

"Earlier this summer, an 8-year-old girl named Saga Vanecek was doing what she often does: wading in Sweden's Lake Vidöstern."

"'I like to walk around finding rocks and sticks in the water, and then I usually walk around with my hands and knees in the water and in the sand,' she explained to Radio Sweden yesterday."

"It was then that she felt something odd beneath her hand and knee. She lifted the object and saw that it had a handle."

"She pulled it out of the water and carried it over to her father. 'Dad, I found a sword,' she said."

"'I'm not sure you should be touching it anymore,' he replied. 'It looks fragile.'"

"Saga and her father took the sword to authorities and found that it was very old indeed."

"'Indeed an amazing story!' Mikael Nordström, head of the cultural heritage department at the Jönköpings County Museum, told NPR in email. 'We now believe that the sword is about 1,500 years old.'"