day 10

From the fire to the wood




Wow people!!! Today I felt a revelation!!! Remember that normal lookin' smithy from the last episode????
He is my hero from today!!!
I went to pick up my axe.and I shyly stood by the gate, waiting for someone to pay attention to me. As a new dude in the town I don't know the customs I just peeked through the gate. And I saw a biiig horse and two man holding ropes tied to that horses leg and that small man running and punching nails so skillfully that it amazed me!! Than his son came and asked me what I want and I said I left my axe for the blacksmith to repair. And he said "Ah, yes you are Milos" so I said "Yes?!?" confused that he knew my name. Than he said some on in don't stand outside. So I came in and then I saw things I can only imagine. The scene was like in some fantasy novel. The blacksmith's shop had an anvil in the middle and the forge near it, with fire burning red hot. On the forge there were numerous old tools that only expert blacksmith can recognize and use. The inevitable bucket was also there.The shelves were full of axes, tools, and ornaments made out of metal. In the left corner there was a huge machine, that looked like it came from some dwarf smithy. I asked what is it and he told me " It is fully operational!". "Yes I said, but what is it??". "He said it is old mechanical hammer, used for smiting even cold metal!" I stud in awe when he manually started the machine and it pounded on an empty anvil.Smithy's son gave me the axe on which my name was inscribed with chalk and said: "Go to my father in the yard". I stood there watching and waiting for the blacksmith to finish nailing the horseshoe. Horse was so impatient that besides being held by three men and being tied to an iron as thick as my arm. Moved with restless ease. The iron bar vigorously jumped in it's breech. The older man just came to me and murmured the price for his work on the axe and said "mind the horse it is broken". I stood there just looking at him and thinking for myself "How can animal be broken?". I thanked him and gave him the money, and he just excused himself wiped the sweat from his brow and hastily went back to work. His son took over again noticing I'm completely not from around here. We chitchatted for a while when he told me that his father is in mid seventies and he is 50 years old and he is now working as a blacksmith too, after he went out of work in the city as a tradesman. I told him that I expected a tall, huge guy with beard and an apron. At that moment the old blacksmith came in the workshop and heard my naive remark, so they both laughed wholeheartedly. And told me that it is not the strength that makes a blacksmith but the skill of using the tools. In the skilled hands tools almost work themselves. In amazement I went back home through the center of the village and telling everybody the story of the blacksmith. People had a strange look on their face because for them blacksmith is just a neighbor Adam, who is putting horse shoes on their horses and fixing stuff, but for me he and his son were magicians who transform metal into magical but useful items.

So after coming home I couldn't wait to use my new axe!!! And it worked like a dream. Well there were some nightmarish parts since it was my first wood chopping on my own. One neighbor joked: "Do it as samurai" "hmmm I thought, maybe that is not a bad idea" so I remembered my Iaido training and it worked!!! (Thanks Darko and Dejan!!) But video and pictures speak more than words..... But still it is a backbreaking work. Still at the end of the day, one feels happy to live in the place like this and to work hard and see the fruit of his work.