High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! An atgeir, sometimes called a "mail-piercer" or "hewing-spear," was a type of polearm in use in Viking Age Scandinavia and Norse colonies in the British Isles and Iceland. It is usually translated in English as "halberd", but most likely closer resembled a bill or glaive during the Viking age. Later the word was used for typical European halberds, and even later multipurpose staves with spearheads were called atgeirsstafir.