Just a little story as part of my inspiration to perform and create new effects with metal rings.

Many eBooks will be released in the next couple of months.

‘round the forge


Our town was bigger than a village, but small enough to still have some magic ‘round and ‘bout. At least it seemed that way when I was eleven, with some free time after chores on Saturday to look for it. Well, let it find me actually. Even I knew back than that if something happens as expected or by your command, it is science and not magic at all. I like science too, but that’s for school and cooking and repairing Fred’s tractor. Mostly I watched and listened instead of pestering and getting underfoot. What most adults are doing isn’t either science or magic anyway, so I’d rather sit on a stump and wait for a bit of wonder to amble by. Yup, present tense ‘cause I still do at near eighty. Jake was different. I don’t recall him ever saying much. Or sitting either. He did things. Mostly these were projects no one else could or were willing to try. Anything folks figured was not possible for them to do they took to Jake. Close enough to magic for me, especially since he did not always know how to solve the problem. He did it anyway.

A century or two ago Jake might have been a Smithy. You, know, giant chestnut tree and muscles of his brawny arms strong as iron bands. You can read that poem yourself and know something of the wonder of it too – why children like me would, “Look in at the open door.” But, I mean to tell you about a day he did something special just for me. Maybe it was a kind of reward for me working the bellows last week when his son was sick. I like to think he just knew I was ready, or had the right mental squint, or something. Well, my younger sister was tagging along as usual, which is OK since she was cute and folks paid attention to her instead of me. Some adults said it was sign of responsibility for me to take care of her, which I guess I did. Anyway, there were just two of us watching Jake finish up this huge iron gate made with metal leaves beat out on the anvil. Tinkedy- tink – wham; tinkedy - tink, bam! Lorene always jumped when the pulsing glow hit the water. Steam would dash up to the rafters and she said she could hear the poor metal scream.

Jake stood with hands on hips and grinned. His eyes and teeth both flashed brightly through the soot on his face and beard. First he took a long piece of heavy wire and wrapped it around the end of a hitching post to form a spiraled coil. This was set in the coals as he searched for some tongs and clamps. The coils were drawn over the horn of his huge anvil until they stuck. Then, one by one, he struck the wire loops with a chisel and a loud clank. Each ring bounced off of the horn to be trapped by his foot, still too hot to touch. Each looked like a piston ring with a gap, except of being round and as large as a horseshoe. I was not surprised to see him next stick the four rings into the coals again and pump the bellows.

The second adventure entailed forging a chain. One ring edge was clamped to the anvil, the other gripped by his tongs. He forced the glowing ends to overlap and beat them with the hammer. No ‘tink’ now, just a deep thunk as the wire became a solid circle of steel. Next over the horn again as a small hammer worked the joint from all sides. Lorene held her breath in anticipation as the ring was plunged into the oak bucket. Shish-ter-eee-pa. The perfect ring was then clamped onto the anvil for his brother to arrive. The new loop was hooked though the first to secure one side as the tong and hammer closed the gap forever. Then two more with trips to the bucket and the eerie screech of surrender. Four rings were now a single chain that Jake hung over a rafter spike. Then he grabbed two rings and swung about like a ham in the root cellar.

Lorene figured the show was over, but I sensed it was only beginning. Maybe it was his rumbling laughter or the way the light sneaking though the wall cracks caromed off the shiny metal. Sure enough, Jake pulled up a stool opposite our bench with that chain dangling from his fingers. Then he gathered them up and let them lie flat on his fingers like a lotus flower. He nodded to Lorene and whispered, “Pick the happiest one.” She giggled and pointed to the one near his right hand, then changed her mind and selected another. Balancing the woven pattern display on his left fingers, Jake grabbed the chosen ring and slowly wiggled it out from the others to be free and alone over his right thumb. “What,” I stammered, and was answered by the other rings jingling down into a shorter chain. He quickly gathered these up once more into smaller, flat flower; grabbed a second ring and wiggled it loose to join the first on his thumb. He flipped the left rings over that thumb to match, then let one fall to a chain of two shining rings.

Now I know you are thinking that maybe he switched the rings or that this was so long ago I don’t remember right. Well, I thought that too, but what happened next knocked that silly notion out of my head. He had a pair of chained rings in his left hand and asked Lorene which she preferred. Then he viably wiggled it off and handed to her. Nope, he had three single rings left and asked me if I want one, two or three of them to try myself. I chose two and he showed us both how to hold ours against our forehead and look through the ring like a portal to the stars. Next he had Lorene choose a spot on her ring and he hit his against it right there. Ping! They were linked back together. Now he had me take my two rings and rub them together, then jerk. Ping! It worked! I checked really close, especially those weld spots. They were just as he had pounded them a while back.

That's enough for you to know the flow of the magic. Yeah, he went on to link others in my hands or hers, finally holding chain of three. Then he retrieved the last ring from Lorene’s hand and tossed it back on the chain where it belonged. For years she would tell people how she had personally inspected all four rings and seen the metal melt right though. I can’t argue with that, and my story included how I felt a tingling in my arms when the linking happened. I read up on the history of the Chinese Linking Rings, but they always had a bunch of rings being linked together and making fancy designs. It made sense to me that a chain made by hand for a couple of kids might want to be together. Each ring had free ends before the fire and maybe they remembered.

My family move away to a bigger city and I never saw Jake again. But years later I met his son at a campground and shared stories of those magic years. He nodded and said, “That solves a little mystery for me.” The he pulled out a beautiful hunting knife with four rings engraved on the blade. “Dad said he melted down some rings to make this. It holds a keen edge.”

Thank you for sharing this!

Bryn

WOW ! I performed the link it brings because my mother asked me too over 40 years ago