The "perils that environ men that meddle with cold iron" are
many; but those who attempt to control hot iron are also to be respected, when
they achieve an artistic result with this unsympathetic metal, which by nature
is entirely lacking in charm, in colour and texture, and depends more upon a
proper application of design than any other, in order to overcome the obstacles
to beauty with which it is beset.
"Rust hath corrupted," unfortunately, many interesting
antiquities in iron, so that only a limited number of specimens of this metal
have come down to us from very early times; one of the earliest in England is a
grave-stone of cast metal, of the date 1350: it is decorated with a cross, and
has the epitaph, "Pray for the soul of Joan Collins."
The process of casting iron was as follows. The moulds were made
of a sandy substance, composed of a mixture of brick dust, loam, plaster, and
charcoal. A bed of this sand was made, and into it was pressed a wooden or metal
pattern. When this was removed, the imprint remained in the sand. Liquid metal
was run into the mould so
formed, and would cool into the desired shape. As with a plaster cast, it was
necessary to employ two such beds, the sand being firmly held in boxes, if the
object was to be rounded, and then the two halves thus made were put together.
Flat objects, such as fire-backs, could be run into a single mould.
Bartholomew, in his book "On the Properties of Things," makes
certain statements about iron which are interesting: "Though iron cometh of the
earth, yet it is most hard and sad, and therefore with beating and smiting it
suppresseth and dilateth all other metal, and maketh it stretch on length and on
breadth." This is the key-note to the work of a blacksmith: it is what he has
done from the first, and is still doing.
In Spain there have been iron mines ever since the days when
Pliny wrote and alluded to them, but there are few samples in that country to
lead us to regard it as ęsthetic in its purpose until the fifteenth century.
For tempering iron instruments, there are recipes given by the
monk Theophilus, but they are unfortunately quite unquotable, being treated with
medięval frankness of expression.
St. Dunstan was the patron of goldsmiths and blacksmiths. He was
born in 925, and lived in Glastonbury, where he became a monk rather early in
life. He not only worked in metal, but was a good musician and a great scholar,
in fact a genuine rounded man of culture. He built an organ, no doubt something
like the one which Theophilus describes, which, Bede tells us, being fitted with "brass
pipes, filled with air from the bellows, uttered a grand and most sweet melody."
Dunstan was a favourite at court, in the reign of King Edmund. Enemies were
plentiful, however, and they spread the report that Dunstan evoked demoniac aid
in his almost magical work in its many departments. It was said that
occasionally the evil spirits were too aggravating, and that in such cases
Dunstan would stand no nonsense. There is an old verse:
"St. Dunstan, so the story goes,
Once pulled the devil
by the nose,
With red hot tongs, which made him roar
That he
was heard three miles or more!"
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