at country
to lead us to regard it as aesthetic 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 mediaeval 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!"

The same story is told of St. Eloi, and probably of most of the
mediaeval artistic spirits who were unfortunate enough to be human
in their temperaments and at the same time pious and struggling. He
was greatly troubled by visitations such as persecuted St. Anthony.
On one occasion, it is related that he was busy at his forge when
this fiend was unusually persistent: St. Dunstan turned upon the
demon, and grasped its nose in the hot pincers, which proved a most
successful exorcism. In old portraits, St. Dunstan is represented
in full ecclesiastical habit, holding the iron pincers as symbols
of his prowess.

He became Archbishop of Canterbury after having held the Sees of
Worcester and London. He journeyed to Rome, and received the pallium
of Primate of the Anglo-Saxons, from Pope John XII. Dunstan was a
righteous statesman, twice reproving the king for evil deeds, and
placing his Royal Highness under the ban of the Church for immoral
conduct! St. Dunstan died in 988.

[Illustration: WROUGHT IRON HINGE, FRANKFORT]

Wrought iron has been in use for many centuries for hinges and
other decorations on doors; a necessity to every building in a
town from earliest times. The wor