Among ourselves, and in some of the principal European countries, blacksmiths are highly respectable members of society, although they do not usually deal in occult science. But in portions of the Russian empire, as in the province of Mingrelia, the Caucasus, and neighboring regions, blacksmiths do enjoy a certain reputation as magicians. Solemn oaths are taken upon the anvil instead of upon the Bible. In Abyssinia and in the Congo country all iron-workers have the reputation of sorcerers, and among the Tibbous of central Africa they are treated with great deference. When an inhabitant of the Orkney Islands wishes to obtain an amulet, he applies either to a farrier, or to his son or grandson; and the Roumanian gypsies are mostly blacksmiths, their wives obtaining a livelihood by mendicancy, the practice of divination, and the interpretation of dreams; while both men and women are thought to have the faculty of summoning to their aid powerful spirits of the air.[100]
In Morocco, at the present day, there still exists a community of dwarfish artisans, workers in metals, magicians, and adepts in the healing art, who make little books which are used as portable amulets; and the Haratin, who inhabit the Drah valley, deem it sinful even to mention by name these dwarfs, whom they consider entitled to extraordinary respect.
Each member of this mysterious tribe of pigmy smiths is said to wear a haik, or outer garment, having upon the back a representation of an eye, a symbol suggestive of the Cyclops of old.[101]
There was, indeed, as we have seen, a common opinion throughout a great part of Europe that the earliest smiths were supernatural beings; for it was reasoned that the marvelous process of melting and fashioning iron could not have been conceived by man, but must have originated through magical agencies.
In Germany blacksmith’s forges were often situated on highways remote from settlements, and were the resort of travelers and teamsters, who stopped either to have a horse shod, or to obtain veterinary advice. Quite naturally these smithies, like the modern crossroads variety stores, became little centres of sociability and gossip, and even of conviviality. Moreover, questionable characters sometimes frequented these places, and hence their reputation was not always savory. But the blacksmith himself, by virtue of his calling, was looked upon with respect, even after his craft had ceased to inspire the vulgar with mysterious awe.[102]
In south Germany and the Tyrol, when a blacksmith rests from his work on a Saturday evening, he strikes with his hammer three blows upon the anvil, thereby chaining up the Devil for the ensuing week. And so likewise, while hammering a horse-shoe into shape, he strikes the anvil instead of the shoe every fourth or fifth blow, and thus makes doubly secure the chain wherewith Satan is bound.[103]
Blacksmiths are usually clever enough to recognize the Devil, even when disguised as a gentleman.
Once upon a time the Evil One appeared at the door of a smith in the village of Gossensass, on the Brenner road, Tyrol, and wished to have his two horses shod. When the work was done, he inquired how much he should pay; but the shrewd smith refused to take any money, and only stipulated that his customer should never enter the shop again, which the Devil promised and went away.[104]
The magicians of Hindostan, when treating cases of alleged demoniacal possession, after the performance of other mystic rites, are wont to sprinkle the patient with water from a blacksmith’s shop, the water having been endowed with additional virtue by the repeated immersion of iron.[105]
In northeast Scotland a cure for rickets consists in having the child bathed by a blacksmith in the water-trough of the smithy. Then he is laid on the anvil and iron implements are passed over him, the use of each being asked, and the ceremony is followed by a second bath. To insure the efficacy of this process, three blacksmiths of the same name must take part in it.[106]