Broadswords and Iron
6 THE COMMONWEAL November 10, 1926 BROADSWORDS AND IRON "DROBABLY gold was the first metal that man came ¦*• in...
...Homer, who flourished about 880 B. C, knew all about iron...
...But man did not know how to smelt this any more than the Eskimo and other dwellers along the north of Ontario knew how to smelt the native copper which they found...
...Both just hammered their ores into such rude shapes as they could...
...The Reverend Kirk, minister at Aberfoyle, knew too much, and according to Sir Walter Scott, the fairies carried him away to an underground retreat and there immured him...
...Then came steel, and of steel we are the products...
...The swords which were capable of dealing a "swashing blow" in the words of Shakespeare, were no good for stabbing, where the bronze sword excelled...
...6 THE COMMONWEAL November 10, 1926 BROADSWORDS AND IRON "DROBABLY gold was the first metal that man came ¦*• in contact with, but of course then he used that solely for ornamental purposes...
...No doubt man knew it first in its meteoric state...
...Considering that it first came from the heavens, it is little wonder that iron was long looked upon as a sacred metal...
...It had been in use for two or three centuries in Crete, if, as is believed, his Phaeacians were the people we now call Minoans...
...but the knife was not thrown and Kirk returned to fairy-land, where presumably he still remains...
...Whether he did not see his brother-in-law, or whether he thought that the world was doing just as well without him, we shall never know...
...However, it is a long time since the metal was worked in the manner approximate to that we now employ, for the Hittites, that great military race, used it for their soldiers as early as 1300 B. C. A correspondence of that date shows that Rameses II, traditionally the Pharaoh of the Exodus, was trying to obtain supplies of it from his brother monarch...
...The baptism took place in due course, and Duchray was there, but threw no knife...
...He would be invisible to all but Duchray, whom he implored to throw an iron knife over his head by which means he would be restored once more to his wife and family...
...Further west, the Philistines maintained such a monopoly in it that Saul and Jonathan were the only Hebrews of their day who had iron swords...
...With the prongs up that deterrent figure, "the horns," is produced, which averts the "evil eye" and other dark forces...
...There is a curious tale told of the author of that most entertaining ancient work, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies, wherein those beings are as gravely and carefully described as they could be by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...
...Their describer was a Presbyterian minister in Scotland, whose book was published in 1691...
...Friend thinks were thus derived...
...Moreover, they were apt to bend in delivering their swashing blows, just as a piece of hoop-iron will...
...Consequently, as we learn from early writers, the fighter had from time to time to "haul off" and straighten out his weapon with his foot —an awkward manoeuvre when hot-pressed by a foe...
...Thereupon ensued a tremendous trade in tin, and the opening up of routes and sailings of vessels, for tin became an essential...
...Friend has been investigating the history of iron...
...Iron beads have been found in Egypt in predynastic times, at least six thousand years ago, which Dr...
...Lately Dr...
...Tempering by water was known 2,000 years ago, for Vergil describes it in the Aeneid...
...He later came to know about copper, perhaps from accidental smelting of a surfacervein by a hunter's fire, and from it his ingenuity produced tools in the semblance of those which he had previously fashioned from stone...
...We have the aftermath of that today in the horseshoe which is still to be seen hung over doorways in country places—generally with the prongs down, which is quite inaccurate and, as any person learned in the occult knows, a sheer invitation to all evil influences to enter the house...
...Then some genius discovered that by adding 10 percent of tin to copper a hard, serviceable alloy resulted, out of which swords, daggers, and digging tools could be made...
...At any rate, the story is one among many which shows the great sanctity in which iron has been held throughout the centuries...
...Their race lived in the bronze age, while the Philistines lived in the iron age...
...In some way he was able to communicate with a child to whom he gave directions to go to his brother-in-law, Duchray, and tell him that he, the prisoner, would be allowed to be present at the baptism of his supposedly posthumous child, which was shortly to take place...
...The difficulty about this early iron is that it was iron, and nothing more...
Vol. 5 • November 1926 • No. 1
