e quaint quiet spot--a dingle, for
example, which is a poetical place, or at a meeting of four roads, which
is still more so; for how many a superstition--and superstition is the
soul of poetry--is connected with these cross roads! I love to light
upon such a one, especially after nightfall, as everything about a forge
tells to most advantage at night; the hammer sounds more solemnly in the
stillness, the glowing particles scattered by the stroke sparkle with
more effect in the darkness, whilst the sooty visage of the sastramescro,
{65a} half in shadow, and half illumined by the red and partial blaze of
the forge, looks more mysterious and strange. On such occasions I draw
in my horse's rein, and, seated in the saddle, endeavour to associate
with the picture before me--in itself a picture of romance--whatever of
the wild and wonderful I have read of in books, or have seen with mine
own eyes in connection with forges.

I believe the life of any blacksmith, especially a rural one, would
afford materials for a highly poetical history. I do not speak
unadvisedly, having the honour to be free of the forge, and therefore
fully competent to give an opinion as to what might be made out of the
forge by some dextrous hand. Certainly, the strangest and most
entertaining life ever written is that of a blacksmith of the olden
north, a certain Volundr, or Velint, {65b} who lived in woods and
thickets, made keen swords,--so keen, indeed, that if placed by a running
stream, they would fairly divide an object, however slight, which was
borne against them by the water--and who eventually married a king's
daughter, by whom he had a son, who was as bold a knight as his father
was a cunning blacksmith. I never see a forge at night, when seated on
the back of my horse at the bottom of a dark lane, but I somehow or other
associate it with the exploits of this extraordinary fellow, with many
other extraordinary things, amongst which, as I have hinted before, are
particular passages of my own life, one or two of which I shall perhaps
relate to the reader.

I never associate Vulcan and his Cyclops with the idea of a forge. These
gentry would be the very last people in the world to flit across my mind
whilst gazing at the forge from the bottom of the dark lane. The truth
is, they are highly unpoetical fellows, as well they may be, connected as
they are with Grecian mythology. At the very mention of their names the
forge burns dull and di