Peter King writes:
> 1. From reading about mythology many years ago, I recall that there are a
> number of Indo-European gods, which were classified described as hammer
> gods. I think this may have included the German Odin, latin Juppiter,
Greek
> Zeus, and Indian Indra (?). Perhaps they were all associated with metal
> working, which was no doubt regarded as a relatively 'magic' activity.
it
> may be useful for you also to look at other mythologies.
Indeed I am. For instance, the original eternal fire of the Irish Goddess /
Christian Saint Brigid was apparently open-air, in a circular enclosure, but
blown with bellows - suggesting a desire for a high heat. Brigid is anyway
associated with metalcrafts, so it would not be a surprise there if the
sacred fire was based on the forge or furnace.
> 2. On a visit to a site in north Wales, Peter Crew showed members of
> Historical Metallurgy Society an Iron Age anvil, or rather half of one.
> This was merely a large boulder. The other half had probably been removed
> for continued use as an anvil after it broke.
By the Viking Age (when the iron-topped altar was recorded) most large
anvils were still stone - due to the difficulties and expense of making such
large forged objects and the lack of suitable casting technology at the
time. However, some consisted of iron tops to boulders or even stumps, and
there were also smaller, forged, stake-type anvils.
> 3. The description of nimbus clouds as like an anvil refers to a
relatively
> modern blacksmith's anvil and is purely descriptive of its shape. I do
not
> know when iron anvils came into use. Since these clouds may be thunder
> clouds, their association with hammer gods is however perhaps not
> inappropriate nevertheless.
Some of the Viking age stake anvils actually look more like the shape of
cumulo nimbus clouds than do modern anvils - not of course that that
confirms the association in Viking times.
> 4. One of the lectures at the launch of the book Furness Iron a year or
two
> back was on iron in the Scottish Highlands. It was stated that the
> chieftain's smith was quite a high ranking member of society in a Highland
> clan. He was apparently making weapons with bloomery iron, with iron ore
> as his raw material. I am not sure who the speaker was.
Thanks for that - there certainly seems to have been less division of labour
between smelters and smiths in the past, not surprisingly.
Yours,
Chris Wood
Norwich
England
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