Good evening, everyone, and welcome back to Scholar Minor!
Before we start tonight, I want to thank you all again for your patience. Episode releases may be a little closer to bi-weekly for the next month or so, as the surgical procedure I’ve mentioned before will be taking place at the beginning of September. It has been a little bonkers getting everything ready and organized and I am just so appreciative that you’re still listening and bearing with me.
Also, there is more construction happening across the way from my apartment, so apologies if any hammering or nail guns make their way into this recording.
This week we’ll be learning about an ancient profession, with a huge presence in mythology and folklore around the globe - smithing. Also referred to as blacksmithing or metalworking, smithing has had an incredible impact on our histories - affecting not just martial technologies, but those we incorporate in our everyday lives.
Thanks for joining me and I hope you enjoy.
The development of civilization is firmly intertwined with our discovery and utilization of metal. In fact, the impact of metallurgy on our history is so pronounced that historians and archeologists use metals to designate specific periods.
Prior to metalworking, mankind fashioned the tools and weapons we needed from stone. This is why the oldest period of our history is referred to as the Stone Age. During this era, around 300,000 years ago, humans were beginning to adjust from hunting and gathering to congregating in settled communities.
Bone and stone were used for crafting purposes, with weaving, pottery, and sewing emerging in the later centuries of this period - commonly referred to as the neolithic era, preceded by the paleolithic and mesolithic eras.
Around 3,000 BCE the Stone Age transitioned into the Bronze Age, which would last until about 1,300 BCE. The beginning of this period saw the introduction of metal as a crafting material - namely, bronze. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin - copper had been in use on its own for crafting ceremonial objects and jewelry due to its malleability and availability.
Evidence of copper use has been found in Mesopotamia dating back to around 6,000 years ago. Copper mixed with tin to create bronze resulted in a material that was also malleable, but stronger, and made for sturdier tools and weapons.
Bronze and other alloys, like brass - a combination of copper and zinc - replaced stone as the favored crafting material. Early blacksmiths were in high demand, and their importance would only increase with the discovery of smelting and the birth of the Iron Age, at around 1,300 BCE.
Iron is an element, a naturally occurring metal that transformed the world of smithing. Hand-in-hand with its meteoric rise was the creation of the forge - an open furnace, kept at an extremely hot temperature through added oxygen from a bellows or, you know, lungs - and an anvil or surface for hammering out hot metal.
Smiths during the Iron Age discovered that iron was a far stronger substance than bronze, and began to perfect methods for purifying the iron prior to casting and shaping - a process known as smelting.
Smelting required ore - or found material - containing the desired elemental metal, in this case iron. When heated to extreme temperatures in the forge, the iron separates out from the unusable material and liquifies. The liquid iron can then be poured into molds to harden for later use - to be referred to as ingots.
When ingots were again heated and shaped, the process allowed for smiths to eliminate air bubbles and imperfections, increasing the resilience of the finished product. Wrought iron, as the final product came to be known, became an essential part of Iron Age technology.
Blacksmiths then discovered that tiny amounts of carbon added to molten iron created the vastly superior alloy - steel. Steel possessed fewer imperfections and a finer grain, resulting in a strong and sturdy material perfect for constructing weapons of war.
While historians have difficulty agreeing on an exact date, by the early medieval period one of the most important jobs of the blacksmith was shoeing horses. While other non-metallic materials had been in use to protect the feet of horses for a long time - with evidence dating back at least as far as the Greeks - it was soon discovered that iron horseshoes vastly improved the mobility of domesticated horses. Horseshoes allowed the animals to walk on rougher terrain over longer distances, while protecting the sensitive tissue inside the hoof.
Smiths were solely responsible for providing metal goods to our civilization prior to the Industrial Revolution, which began in the late 18th century. Before the automation of bellows and the introduction of industrialized forges, the humble blacksmith was arguably the most important - and one of the very oldest - members of any pre-industrial community.
Metalworking has grown up alongside civilization since its earliest days, so it’s no surprise that blacksmiths are very present in mythologies and folklore around the globe.
It’s not uncommon, in mythological studies, to encounter a “smith god”, a “god of the forge”, or some other deity attributed to the blacksmithing profession. In fact, there are dozens of examples from all over the world.
In Greek mythology, we find Hephaestus - the somewhat raggedy and bearded god of blacksmiths and carpenters. The Romans knew him by another name that will likely sound familiar - Vulcan. Hephaestus was responsible for constructing the weapons of the Gods and other important heavenly artifacts, including hero Achilles’ armor and Hermes’ signature winged helmet and sandals. Volcanic activity was believed to be evidence of Hephaestus working in his forge.
In Japan, we find the mythology of Kagu-tsuchi - the god of fire and volcanoes, and the patron deity of blacksmiths and other craftsmen. Kagu-tsuchi was so hot upon his birth, that he mortally burned his mother - the creator goddess Izanami - forever cementing the association of fire with regeneration and rebirth.
Ancient Irish myth brings us Brigid, widely worshipped and beloved goddess and member of the legendary Tuatha De Danann. She is associated with wisdom, poetry, domesticated animals - and crafting and blacksmithing. Some accounts suggest that Brigid may have been worshipped as a triple deity with her two sisters of the same name - one of whom was dedicated to overseeing the welfare of smiths and craftsmen, being a metalworker herself.
The Itsekiri people of southern Nigeria and the Yoruba share a deity sometimes known as Ogun, who served as the god of war and of iron. Ogun is said to have used his tools to create a place in the wilderness for mankind to settle. In Norse mythology, we find the dwarves - the master smiths living in their underground halls, fashioning the finery and weapons of the Gods.
As one would imagine, given their historical impact and impressive mythological representation, blacksmithing has its fair share of legend, superstition and tradition in folklore.
Germanic legends tell us of a legendary metalworker named Wayland the Smith. This particular blacksmith is mentioned in the Poetic Edda, in Anglo-Saxon poetry including the epic Beowulf. Wayland gained particular popularity in England during the early medieval period, with his likeness adorning coins, carvings, and decorative objects.
Wayland was a smith of inconceivable talent, whose skills quickly surpassed those of his tutors. After his handiwork gained him quite a reputation, he was sought out and kidnapped by a king named Nidudr. Nidudr imprisoned Wayland on a remote island, severing the tendons in his legs to prevent his escape. Nidudr stole Wayland's possessions, redistributing them to his own family, and forced the smith to forge for him and only him.
Before you start feeling too bad for Weyland, when he manages to escape through unspecific trickery, he sexually assaults Nidudr's daughter and kills the king's sons - fashioning their skulls into drinking bowls. In a strange turn of events, Wayland then forged himself a magical set of wings which he used to fly off of the island and back to the safety of the mainland.
Superstition in Berkshire, England tells us that Wayland haunts a stone burial chamber called Wayland's Smithy - and that Wayland's spirit will shoe your horse for you if you leave a coin nearby and avert your eyes. If you look, however, Wayland will be offended and refuse your business.
One of the most recognizable weapons in history and popular culture is the katana, a two-handed Japanese sword with a gently curved single-edged blade. The katana is often conflated with its predecessor, the tachi - which is very similar at first glance, though worn differently and with slight differences in weight and length.
Legend surrounds the creator of the tachi, Amakuni Yasutsuna. In the 15th century, double-edged swords were mass-produced for martial purposes. These swords could be brittle, however, and legend tells us that Amakuni Yasutsuna and his son vowed to make an improved weapon. After smelting the steel for the project, father and son prayed to the Shinto gods before having a vision of the sword that would become the tachi. It took Amakuni Yasutsuna and his son 31 days to create this improved sword that, legend tells us - would never, ever break.
St. Dunstan of the 10th century was a craftsman as well as an English Catholic clergyman, and has since become the patron saint of goldsmiths, jewellers, and locksmiths. One afternoon while metalworking, St. Dunstan was visited by the devil who requested new shoes for his hellish steed. Dunstan instead hammered horseshoes onto the devil's hooves, refusing to remove them unless the devil promised never to enter a home with a horseshoe above the door.
That’ll do it for today, folks, but it wouldn’t be a Scholar Minor episode with a weird tidbit from the Encyclopaedia of Superstitions: "If you find a dime, let a left-handed, blue-eyed smith engrave on it a snake in the act of swallowing itself tail first, and you will be most fortunate in all your transactions."
Thanks for listening, everyone. I just hit 500 downloads and it is an incredibly exciting milestone - I am so grateful for all of you.
As mentioned in the introduction to this episode, while I will try to do weekly releases through September it is possible we will wind up on a more bi-weekly schedule while I recover from my surgery. It just depends on how much energy I have, but it’s not like I’ll be able to do much besides read so it may work out just fine. Either way - thanks in advance for your patience and support, and things should be back to normal by October.
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Thanks all and take care until next time.