Jennings - Pagan Portals - Blacksmith Gods : Myths, Magicians & Folklore

First published by Moon Books, 2014

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Text copyright: Pete Jennings 2013

ISBN: 978 1 78279 627 5

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Under a spreading chestnut-tree

The village smithy stands;

The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands;

And the muscles of his brawny arms

Are strong as iron bands.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Village Smithy

That opening verse of a well-known poem gives us a vivid image of a powerfully built artisan. It is a traditional and time-weathered description, which could easily be applied to such craftsmen over a span of thousands of years. Yet within it there are many questions to be asked: is he purely a worker in black metals, making him a blacksmith, or is he a redsmith working in the softer copper or bronze? There are even white smiths, those mainly itinerant tinkers using pewter or tin. Does he wear the split apron of the farrier, a specialist in shoeing horses? Does he work with more precious metals such as gold and silver, intricately setting precious jewels into them, or applying an enamel a goldsmith or silversmith perhaps? Is he in fact completely physically flawless, or do his unmentioned legs have some deformity?

There is the possibility that he (or today she) will be all of those things, combining skills to provide whatever is required within the community in which he is placed. Nowadays we are used to tradesmen becoming very specialised within a particular niche, but that has not always been the case, and I would hazard a guess that a smith in a small village a couple of centuries ago would have been poorly considered if he could not shoe the horse as well as make a chain for it to haul with. Of course, even then there would have been an elite of better trained, more experienced workers drawn to produce finer quality goods for the gentry. I doubt that the metalworker who created the complex beauty of the 7th century Anglo Saxon Sutton Hoo heavily ornate gold belt buckle (more than 412 grams in weight) would have had his talents wasted by turning out lots of simple horseshoes.

Yet even at the basest level of the smiths craft, a sense of awe, magic and mystery attaches itself. Little wonder, when those early workers of the Bronze Age and Iron Age obtained metal from rocks and turned it into tools and weapons. It was a world away from their stone implement ancestors. We hear about the magical drawing the sword from the stone in Arthurian legend, yet that is what those early metalworkers actually achieved. No wonder they kept their trade secrets, making sure that they maintained a local monopoly on such goods. Of course, keeping their secrets from the general population (and working apart from them to prevent the spread of fire) would be bound to lead to an idea or suspicion that they were working some sort of magic; that is actions that could not be explained by other ordinary people. In some places even iron or other metals were imbued with an air of magic, good or bad, and consequently would not be used in ritual situations. Sir James Frazer lists many of these taboos from Africa, Estonia and Poland, Native Americans to ancient Greece, Crete and Rome.

An early trade guild of blacksmiths in London was mentioned in 1299. the Fraternity of St. Loie,

In some cases blacksmiths may actually be working magic, in the sense of doing something unknown to the general understanding of people. I am particularly thinking of farriers: the art of horse magic still has not been completely swept away by mechanisation in my native East Anglia or, I understand, in its other stronghold of Scotland. The ability of a person to control horses to stand still or to move forwards or backwards without any verbal or physical commands is a handy one when trying to nail metal shoes to their hooves. Whilst some of the more inquisitive may have found out about the efficacy of certain secret unguents applied to a toads bone or other receptacle in the pocket, to most it would remain a wondrous magical ability. The power of the horsemans grip and word transmitted orally from one generation to the next in the secretive horsemens guilds is still little understood or published, yet is respected by many older people who still remember the use of heavy horses and the men who controlled them.

Blacksmithing is woven into our very English language; think of the popular sayings:

You have to strike while the iron is hot: the meaning is to seize an opportunity before it vanishes. Richard Edwards used the phrase in a play acted before the Queen in 1564 called Damon and Pithias and it refers to a blacksmith having to work metal whilst it is still retaining heat from the forge.

Having too many irons in the fire is generally considered a bad thing. A blacksmith would be very busy in that case, and may miss withdrawing an object from the fire at the right moment.

Going at it hammer and tongs indicates a blacksmith putting a lot of effort into a task.

Something having a nice ring to it suggests something sounding attractive or good. If a cracked metal or glass vessel is struck it has a dull tone instead of making a clear ringing sound, so no doubt the process would be an easy way to check the quality of a smiths work.

They all derive from the blacksmiths art.

Think too of the wonder of a pattern welded sword or other weapon: as an Anglo Saxon re-enactor I can tell you that the modern public are still fascinated to learn why the best high status swords may have an intricate pattern within the middle of the blade. In some cases it is visible all the time, but in others one has to breathe on the blade to reveal its sinuous serpent-like curves. The process that causes this is lengthy and complicated, and inevitably raises the potential value of the sword. Strips of metal are twisted together and hammered out. The process is repeated many times. The end result is a central core to the sword that is not only visually attractive, but more flexible. A harder metal which is easier to sharpen is then welded around this core to make the cutting edge. Any small mistake in this process will result in many hours of work wasted and the rejection of the finished article. Even with our modern tools and temperature gauges this is a process that only a few of the best sword smiths use, and they command a much higher price for them than the more usual one-piece combined sword blade and tang. Little wonder then that their ancestors would have kept the process secret and encouraged a sense of mystique about their master craftsmanship. To produce a blade that reveals a dragon or serpent when breathed upon still feels magical even when you know the process.