The Blacksmith

This is an iron sword. All craftdwarfship is of the highest quality. It is encrusted with Dolomite and decorated with turtle bone and cave lobster shell. This object menaces with spikes of adamantine, magma, and kitten tallow.

"Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands."

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Village Smithy

Someone who shapes tools, weapons and other items out of iron and steel, so called because iron is a "black" metal. This craft has been around since humans first learned to shape iron and iron alloys. Metalworkers specializing in bronze or copper are sometimes referred to as "redsmiths",^note A more common word historically was "coppersmith" and those that work with tin or pewter (or who finish and polish metal goods in general) are known as "whitesmiths."^note Historically also "tinsmith" and "tinker", although the latter became a derogatory term for Irish Travellers (since their main trade historically was itinerant tin-working) "Goldsmith" and "Silversmith" are self-explanatory.

The blacksmith was an invaluable member of the community until the advent of mass-production techniques in the twentieth century and is still plays an important role in less industrialized areas. The smith is often used symbolically to represent mankind's creative abilities by manipulating materials to advance technology. His tools, the forge, hammer and tongs, and the anvil are rich with metaphorical meaning. Swordsmiths were held in high regard in Japan, to the extent of attributing magical powers to their work: Masamune, it was said, made a sword that would cut everything sinful while not cutting that which was innocent. All of these are reasons the name "Smith" is so common not only in Anglophone countries but also, for example, in Slavic countries, where variations of the word "Kovač" are also one of the most common surnames, and also in Romance language with names such as Ferrari, Lefèvre, Herrera, Ferreira, and Fieraru.

Due to the physical strength needed for pumping the bellows, hammering metal, and enduring the temperature of the forge, most blacksmiths will be depicted as burly fellows; variations of this usually include Stout Strength, female blacksmiths with a Wrench Wench vibe, and smaller smiths with wiry muscle giving them surprising strength. If forced into combat, most fictional blacksmiths can use their hammers to devastating effect, but weaponsmiths will often use the weapons they specialize in making instead. The blacksmith may possibly be related to robot tropes as well in a sort of Technology, Strength, and Intelligence sort of way.

While blacksmiths made many different useful items, in fiction you will generally see them specializing in weapons (especially swords), armor, fetters and chains (usually these smiths are depicted less favorably than other metalworkers) and horseshoes (a specialist in the last is often called a "farrier.") In actual history, bladesmithing and armor making were specialized professions that often had their own guilds, and the process involved a whole workshop of journeymen and apprentices rather than a lone smith at the anvil. The tools and techniques required to make arms or armor were also carefully guarded and not available to the average blacksmith or farrier, who would not be wasting his time making nails or horseshoes if he could instead be making blades or plate armor for higher profits. Blacksmiths could, in a pinch, produce rudimentary weapons and armor to equip a hastily-formed militia: this could involve modifying farm tools such as the mowing scythe and threshing flail to work better as weapons, or beating out helmets that resembled cooking pots. In much fantasy, however, an "ordinary" blacksmith may be able to produce weapons of quality well above what he would realistically be capable of.

Also notable is that historically, contrary to stereotypes, women were regularly involved in the trade. It was still male-dominated BUT several of the disciplines (nails, pins, chains) were almost exclusively women. Women owned blacksmith shops, took apprentices, worked the forge - all of the things that mark them as “real” blacksmiths. One anecdote is from William Hutton’s History of Birmingham; he encountered a nailer’s shop in which he noted “one or more females, stripped of their upper garments, and not overcharged with the lower, wielding the hammer with all the grace of the sex.”

Taken to its fullest extent, the blacksmith becomes the Ultimate Blacksmith: the person responsible for weapon class MacGuffins, he is the person who makes the demon-slaying sword or fixes it or purifies it so it will not consume the user's soul. Makes a weapon that the hero treats as his keepsake or turn the seemingly useless ore into something useful. He prides himself in his work and treats them like children and the wielder as a father.

You can still find blacksmiths working today. These days they tend to make specialist and custom items that are not economic for or require a level of attention to detail incompatible with mass production techniques. Such artisans will produce custom knives, film and theatre props, decorations, custom sized wrought iron gates, weapons and armour for War Reenactors, members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, LARP enthusiasts etc. and farriers are still around working for hunts, the horseracing industry, horse owners and the leisure riding industry. Other smiths produce decorative items such as candelabras.

He will generally be the star of a Forging Scene. A trope with similar connotations, but using a more feminine pursuit, is Sweet Baker.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The old man, Godo, who makes Guts' BFS and other gear in Berserk. He likes the sparks that fly upwards.
  • Rickert is becoming one as well, of the smaller variety.
• Vinland Saga: After giving up his Blood Knight lifestyle, Thors becomes a laughably bad blacksmith working in an Icelandic village.
• In Inuyasha, Totosai is the old Youkai swordsmith who forged both the Tessaiga and Tensaiga.
• Presea from Magic Knight Rayearth is a special case. Each weapon she crafts is intended for a specific wielder, and while it's possible to borrow some of them in a pinch, the swords she makes for the heroines can only be handled by them alone. In addition, she forges the weapons through dance and her own will rather than with a hammer and anvil—in the middle of a forest known for canceling out all forms of magic, no less.
  • In the anime series, Presea's Angsty Backup Twin Sierra cannot make weapons, but she can repair them following a similar process.
• Aries Mu from Saint Seiya, the only person able to fix heavily damaged Saint Cloths... at very high prices. Not because he's evil (he is not), but because to repair a 'dead' Cloth is necessary to drench them in lots of blood, and Mu won't give his to see if the Saint requiring the repair is worthy. Shiryu does it to repair two, and almost dies.
  • Side material reveals that Mu isn't actually supposed to be a Clothsmith, as the job would fall to the Sculptor Saint and the Caelum Saint, whose Cloths include the appropriate tools. Currently, there is no Caelum Saint, so Mu is possession of the Cloth and uses its tools for the job (and may be training his little brother for it), while the Sculptor Saint is never seen.
• After the concluding of Fullmetal Alchemist, Arakawa made a side-story chapter where this trope applies. After Al receives his old suit of armor in a package, he decides to turn the material of the armor into automail. In response, Winry takes him and Edward to the blacksmith, where Winry is acquainted with the men there. Who knew that the producing of automail steel actually had a back story? Huh.
• Queen's Blade has two of them: Ymir the dwarf (who isn't the same as the other dwarves), and Cattleya the supremely-endowed human. They had a duel to decide who is the Ultimate Blacksmith, and Cattleya came as the better one. This defeat seems to be one of the reasons Ymir had a Face–Heel Turn in Rebellion.
• Sengoku Komachi Kurou Tan has Kinzo, who sometimes verges into Ultimate Blacksmith territory. A simple village blacksmith who can build various modern farming machines, weapons, and other devices from Shizuko's vague descriptions.
• Pokémon Adventures has Tsurugi Soudo, who is descended from a long line of swordsmiths. However, his knowledge only extends to repairing weapons, not making them. He applies it to fixing and enforcing the natural tools a Pokemon may wield to better aid them in battle, such as his Sirfetch'd's lance leek and his Grookey's stick.

Card Games

• Nahiri The Lithomancer, from Magic: The Gathering, specializes in crafting impeccable weaponry from stone. The Kor, of which she is one, have this as a racial tradition altogether.

Comic Books

• Tony Stark learned traditional blacksmithing techniques on a trip to Arthurian times, and has used them every so often since.
• The 1940s Batman Newspaper Comics had a storyline in which Bruce Wayne was handcuffed to a kidnapping victim. Fortunately, they were able to find a friendly female blacksmith who was quick on the uptake when gangsters followed the couple.
• Fulliautomatix in the Asterix comics. Aside from his forge work, he considers it his duty to take a hammer to the bard should he threaten to sing.
• John Henry Irons, a.k.a. Steel from the DC Universe, often invokes blacksmithing in addition to his folkloric image (see his first and middle names). He is notable for hand-forging the plating of most of his Powered Armor.
• Blacksmith Felix Quintero becomes the outlaw Moonstalker in Topps Comics Zorro series. (He was intended to eventually become an ally of Zorro's but the series ended before that could happen.)
• Iron Mask, a western villain from Marvel Comics, was a blacksmith who built himself a suit of bulletproof armour. Originally appearing in Kid Colt, he would eventually end up fighting The Avengers.
• Wonder Woman
  • In the Golden Age Wonder Woman's lasso was forged by the skilled Amazonian blacksmith Metala, as shown in Sensation Comics.
  • Io from Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman (1987) run is the Amazonian blacksmith. She forges weapons for Wonder Woman out of not only metal but also the essence of truth.
  • Hephaestus/Vulcan maintains his position as blacksmith of Olympus, and some continuities take the Amazon's more amazing creations and credit them to him instead, such as Wonder Woman (2011) which has him as the creator of Diana's more hardy indestructible armor instead of Io.
• Blacksmith "Boom Boom" Brown was the partner of Marvel Comics Western character the Two-Gun Kid.
• An older British comic entitled The Hammer Man featured a spectacularly strong medieval blacksmith called Chel Puddock who, over the course of the series, defeated knights, was himself knighted, led rebellions against corrupt barons, and eventually rose to be a lord.
• Blacksmith Smurf of The Smurfs.
• Big Anvil, The Big Guy of Tomahawk's Rangers, had been a blacksmith before the war, and still sometimes performed blacksmithing duties within the Rangers.
• After journeying to outer space and learning alien magic, including dwarven runework, Doctor Strange has his own forge to make new weapons and artifacts.

Fairy Tales and Folklore

• In The Daughter of the King of the Vilas, the smith advises the hero— and gives him three iron shoes that he wears out on his quest.
• In The Three Brothers, the middle one becomes a very skilled blacksmith.
• In Black Bull of Norroway, the heroine works for a smith for seven years, and he makes her iron shoes to get over a glassy hill.

Fanfiction

• Anna and her father Gofannon are both in the business of crafting battle equipment in The Tainted Grimoire. A notable example of what Anna made is a special sword for Luso while her dad made a custom-set of Parivir clothing for Luso.
• The fourth entry in the Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers Fan Fic series "Gadget Getaways" The Purple Penance reveals the origin of Gadget Hackwrench's last name.
• Naruto in A Growing Affection knows a jutsu (designed for five people, not one) that lets him create weapons.
• Smithy Smurf of Empath: The Luckiest Smurf.
• Both Jaune and his father are Blacksmiths in Forged Destiny. Jaune's father has a very high level for a member of the Labor Caste at 25 while Jaune himself may be well on his way to becoming an Ultimate Blacksmith as he has already greatly surpassed his father's level after attending Beacon for less than a year.
• Kay’la from Vow of Nudity is highly proficient with blacksmith’s tools. All of her gear is self-forged and most of her adventures involve seeking out materials or recipes to craft stronger and rarer weapons/armor.

Films — Live-Action

• Will Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean was a (surprisingly stringy) swordsmith, though he dumped the profession once an opportunity arose.
• Balian (like Will, played by Orlando Bloom) was a blacksmith in Kingdom of Heaven. While he did do standard shoeing and such, he was also noted to be locally famous for his work in silver and had experience as a combat engineer as well. He dumped the profession after murdering a priest and fleeing to Jerusalem as a Crusader. He later picked it back up for good.
  [on being asked if he is THE Balian of Jerusalem]
  Balian: I am the blacksmith.
  Richard the Lionheart: I am the King of England.
  Balian: [Beat] ...I am the blacksmith.
• Kate, the farrier from A Knight's Tale, is the Wrench Wench version. In a case of Shown Their Work this is historically accurate. Blacksmiths of the time often trained their wives in their trade and the smiths' guild had a rule that a woman could continue to work in the profession if her husband died as a way of providing for herself and any children. This is why Kate briefly mentions a late husband in one scene.
• Dr. Brown in Back to the Future Part III: "I'm a scient ... I mean, a blacksmith!"
• Hattori Hanzo in Kill Bill was the greatest swordsmith in the world until he promised God he'd stop; his breaking of that vow resulted in the finest weapon he ever crafted.
• Domingo Montoya, the swordmaker from The Princess Bride, whose murder by Count Rugen would send his son Inigo on a quest for revenge.
• John Rambo seems to have picked up some metalworking skill during his 20 years of residence in Thailand, as he is shown making the blade for a boat rotor and later on smashing a leaf spring into a large knife in the latest movie.
  • A deleted scene for Rambo III demonstrated this as well, and it is obvious why it was cut. The knife Rambo forges here (using soft, delicate lovetaps with a mallet) is practically a sword and features craftsmanship more suitable for someone who's dedicated their life to the trade, rather than a Vietnam vet living in a monastery. In a way, the two scenes contrast the differences between the commercial, glossy, and pompous Rambo III and the grittier, darker, and simpler Rambo IV.
• As in the comic book, Tony Stark forges himself a high-tech suit of armor IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS! While it includes high-tech weaponry and an impossibly powerful arc generator, he spends a good bit of time pounding out the metal armor.
• The titular main character from The Man with the Iron Fists was a blacksmith who made weapons for the various clans in China.
• Gentle Giant Jack is a major character in Gunless, where the Montana Kid is insistent on challenging him to a gunfight, despite him not owning a pistol.
• In Ghost Town (1988), Smithy, the town blacksmith, and his daughter Etta are too the four citizens who come forward to help Langley fight Devlin and his gang. The other two are Grace and Dealer.

Gamebooks

• In the Fighting Fantasy book City of Thieves, there is a blacksmith who works on ordinary everyday items. He also has a secondary business of making chainmail. Your character can buy a set from him, which he takes from a hiding spot in a hayloft. Alternately you can murder him and take his money lying about, but you won't find his chainmail and you lose some luck because the blacksmith was one of the few good people living in Port Blacksand.

Literature

• Discworld:
  • Jason Ogg, son of Nanny Ogg, who's so good at his craft that he's the only one Death trusts to shoe his horse. The downside is, well, he has to shoe Death's horse. The price for being the best blacksmith in the world is being the best blacksmith in the world. As in, being the best obligates you to ALWAYS be the best. If someone brings him something and asks for it to be shoed, Jason must shoe it. He's even put shoes on an ant that some friends brought to him as a joke. He also shoes a unicorn. He has to use silver shoes and nails, and remarks that they won't last very long.
  • Eskarina Smith's father in Equal Rites was a blacksmith. He's described as nodding to a wizard, one professional in an arcane art to another. It's not clear if the wizard agrees.
  • In Unseen Academicals, smithing is one of Nutt's many talents. He needs to the Horseman's Word to keep from frightening off the horses, but he's very good.
• As every self-respecting pantheon must have a God whose remit includes making and smithing, the Gods of Dunmanifestin have Dennis, Handyman and Janitor of the Gods. This is explained on the practical grounds that any big organisation must have somebody who can do all those fiddly little things, like unstick a jammed window or replace a dodgy light fitting.
• Theros Ironfeld in the Dragonlance novels. Blacksmith of the town of Solace, gets his smithing arm cut off by a sadistic hobgoblin. When next he shows up, Theros has a magic arm made of silver to replace it and forges dragonlances for a living. Cool, huh?
• Blacksmiths are specifically mentioned in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland as a good source of allies - their daughters tend to be beautiful and any orphans they raise automatically become heroes with mysterious lost pasts.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Gendry was a smith in training before being sold to the Night's Watch, and his craft comes in useful when travelling across war-torn Westeros, as it makes him a valuable prisoner when taken to Harrenhal and he's later able to assist the Brotherhood Without Banners with their weapons. He mentions he was an armorer's apprentice specifically, rather than an ordinary blacksmith, so his ability to forge weapons and armour for various characters is more realistic than most versions of this trope. He's also a perfect example of the secret legacy variant mentioned above, as his skill with a smith's hammer is an allusion to the fact his father was actually King Robert who was known for his legendary skill with a war hammer.
  • Donal Noye is a retired smith with one arm ...who killed the King of the Giants.
  • One of the aspects of the "Seven" is that of a blacksmith. Although some septons (the Westerosi equivalent of priests) preach that "The Smith" can be seen in other occupations as well. The fact that the blacksmith is the general image for this deity speaks volumes about how important the trade is to this type of society.
• Durnik was a smith who married Polgara in The Belgariad. He gave her delicate roses... of steel. Especially impressive when you consider he only used magic to give them color, smell, and perhaps rust-proof them and The ended up with a whole garden full.
• In The Wheel of Time:
  • Perrin Aybara is an apprentice smith and Closer to Earth than the other Two Rivers characters. He frequently struggles to balance the life of a smith and the life of a warrior — and, later, the life of a lord. Robert Jordan actually researched blacksmithing, and depictions of Perrin working are meticulously accurate (except for a minor error or two that were corrected in later editions.)
  • Blacksmiths are given special eminence in the culture of the Aiel, a Proud Warrior Race. They're the only members of the society not expected to take up arms in a fight and are similarly immune to attacks from a rival clan. Killing a blacksmith is possibly the most heinous crime the Aiel recognise, except possibly for killing a child.
• Charity Carpenter in The Dresden Files is a smith and a former Wrench Wench who worked on custom motorcycles before she got married. An unusual example, because her husband's high-risk job spurred her to work with titanium, Kevlar, and ceramic strike plates as well as steel.
• Daja from Circle of Magic is a blacksmith, and her magic is tied into her smithing.
  • This is specifically cited as a fetish by Rizu, who says that part of the reason she's attracted to Daja is that she's so strong and makes beautiful things.
  • Daja's teacher Frostpine is also a metalsmith, and one of the Great Mages in their world.
• Black Library novels:
  • In Nick Kyme's novel Salamander, Dak'ir does blacksmithing to purge his soul after troubling events.
  • A talented blacksmith shows up in the novel Hammer of Daemons by Ben Counter, and is commanded to provide Alaric with equipment. Given that he has the Black Carapace and is dark-skinned, it's implied but not outright said that he was ex-Salamander, a Chapter renowned for their smithing skills.
• J. R. R. Tolkien knew the importance of the blacksmith in legend and used them a lot.
  • In The Silmarillion, pretty much any given Elf will have forged some weapon at some point or another in their career. The Noldorin elves in particular are noted for their ability at smithing. Most notable is Fëanor, who created the Silmarils, forged the first weapons in Valinor, and was even trained by the God of Smithcraft Aulë. Sauron was also trained by Aulë (before transferring his allegiance to Melkor) and had his fair share of metalworking. The Dwarven race, having been created by Aulë, also fits this trope, almost even more so than the Elves. The go-to guy for really good blades seems to have been Telchar the Dwarf: he forged both Narsil and Angrist, the knife which cut the Silmaril from Morgoth's crown.
  • The blacksmith in Farmer Giles of Ham is a morose man who always predicts everything will fail and is only happy when his doomsayings come true. Pointing out that he is just a village toolmaker, not an armourer, he is unable to make real armour or a shield for the Anti-Hero Giles. He cobbles together some sort of rings attached to a leather coat, however. (Giles doesn't need a weapon — it's that damned magic sword he was given that forces him to become a dragonslayer.)
  • In Smith of Wootton Major, Smith himself.
• In the Alfred series by Bernard Cornwell, the protagonist/narrator Uhtred wields a pair of loving crafted swords, made for him by his Northumbrian castle's blacksmith, Eadwulf.
• In Lloyd Alexander's Taran Wanderer (fourth in The Chronicles of Prydain), Taran briefly stays with a blacksmith who fits this trope description to a T. He teaches Taran how to forge his own sword, and, like the weaver and potter that Taran also stayed with, offers Taran his own philosophy of life.
• Rhunön from Inheritance Cycle.
• Smithmaster Agella from the Shadowleague books.
• Hammersmith in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
• Tiger Eye: Heroine Dela is a rare and peculiar modern smith. She sculpts in metal as well as making commission weapons, and the plot kicks off when one of her weapons is discovered to have been used in a murder.
• Cavallo takes this role in the Conn Iggulden's Emperor books; the Romans do have blacksmiths, but Cavallo is the one who shows them how to make steel.
• Two major characters, and several minor ones, in L.E. Modesitt's Saga of Recluce practice blacksmithing as their profession. Not just weapons, but tools and various other odds and ends. One of the most realistic depictions of the craft in fiction.
• The Dwarves by Marcus Heistz features a blacksmith as the protagonist.
• In Devon Monk's Dead Iron, the father of the kidnapped boy.
• Belisarius in Belisarius Series wishes he was a blacksmith. Instead he is forced by his position to take up another profession that uses iron a lot.
• Karis in the Elemental Logic series is an accomplished blacksmith. She's also an earth witch, and she's aware of what happens to every tool she makes (which is why she makes weapons only for her True Companions).
• Marunde in Someone Else's War fits this trope in role and attitude but instead of swords, he's making grenade launchers.
• Joe Gargery from Great Expectations.
• In the Chivalric Romance Sir Isumbras, Isumbras is reduced to menial work as the blacksmith. However, he makes himself armor, and when some characters, as a jest, give him a horse, he distinguishes himself at the tourney.
• Saaski's adoptive father Yanno from The Moorchild is the local blacksmith. This leads to some problems, because Saaski, as a changeling, is terrified of iron.
• The heroine of the Meg Langslow mysteries by Donna Andrews is a modern-day blacksmith.
• Sir Derek's brother Baldric in Sir Derek And The Faeries is known to be one of the best smiths in the kingdom.
• The Reynard Cycle: Isengrim No-Father. He explains that the blood-guard must forge their own swords before they are considered members of the order.
  • The majority of the priesthood of Fenix are smiths of one sort or another. Their High Priest carries a ceremonial hammer.
• Conor, of Hobgoblin, is blacksmith to a historical castle. His strength and skills let him keep up the castle more or less singlehandedly. His levelheaded nature let him become a father figure to Scott.
• The Iron Sisters from The Mortal Instruments, are a whole order of them. They're the only ones who can handle adamas, the heavenly metal from which Nephilim weapons are forged.
• Guardians of Ga'Hoole:
  • Bubo is the blacksmith of the Great Ga'Hoole Tree, big, burly, and having a good sense of humor. He's also strangely colored for a great horned owl, being a ruddy orange instead of brown like other great horned owls, due to spending nearly all his life near forges and fire.
  • There are other blacksmiths throughout the series besides Bubo, sometimes living with other owls and others on their own. They often fly out on their own to gather their own coals and make weapons like battle claws.
• In the Fairy Oak:
  • Hortensia Pollimon is not only a smith, she's also an artist and can create beautiful crafts using iron, which "has no secrets to her".
  • Lilium Martagon is a mountain of a man and very good at smithing.
• In The Sacred Blacksmith, Luke (who isn't the main character) can magically forge katanas. These break after a few uses, though.
• Ghim the dwarf from Record of Lodoss War.
• This is the Winkies' hat in Tales of the Magic Land: despite not being all that great at fighting, their weaponsmithing and jewelry, not to mention intricate machinery, is top-notch.
• The Tough Guide to Fantasyland: A good source of allies. They'll often serve as foster fathers to a young Tourist and or Missing Heir. Also their skills are useful in being able to teach reforging a sword. However, often they will have a sexy young daughter who will attempt to seduce her foster brother, requiring that they leave on a quest with haste to avoid her father's rage.
• Wagons West: Ted Woods was a Hoosier blacksmith who had been in jail for 10 before joining the original wagon train. He was an important supporting character in the first four novels and would make appearances off and on in the rest of the original series.
• Wraith Knight: The forging of magical items is an important part of the setting with this trade being something that a lot of magicians have to learn. A handful of wizards have also ascended to become Ultimate Blacksmith types like Co'Fannon, Tharadon the Black, and Jacob Riverson.

Live-Action TV

• Forged in Fire is a competition show based around this trope. Typically, the show has four bladesmiths, with one eliminated each round. The first round consists of making a simple blade, and the second round of testing it. For the third and final round, the two finalists have five days to forge a particular historical weapon (anything from a medieval European arming sword to a Maasai lion spear), which is then subjected to rigorous testing. The winner receives $10,000.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Gendry was an apprentice smith before leaving King's Landing, and as such, he upholds his father's family tradition of wielding hammers.
  • The Smith is one of the male aspects of the God of the Seven, symbolizing industry and craftsmanship.
• Burt Reynolds played blacksmith Quint Asper for three years on Gunsmoke.
• In Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Princess Atalanta is a blacksmith instead of a huntress for some reason.
  • Probably because she's played by former Ms. Olympia Corey Everson.
• The Armorer from The Mandalorian. In addition to forging their armor and weapons, she's also shown to hold a position of high authority among the Covert, acting as a High Priest who provides advice and occasionally breaks up fights between members. In the first season finale she also proves to be a capable Action Girl when she takes out five Stormtroopers single-handed using her forging hammer and tongs.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
  • In Numenor, one must have a blacksmith guild crest to be a blacksmith.
  • Celebrimbor is the greatest of the Elven Smiths and is therefore sought out by Elrond, on instruction from High King Gil-galad, to begin work on a "special project". However, he feels his mastery of his craft is vastly inferior to that of his grandfather, Fëanor, whose Silmarils were said to have captivated the Dark Lord Morgoth and almost moved him to repentance. He also mentions that he respects the Dwarves for their smithing skills, in contrast to most other Elves who are largely apathetic to the Dwarf race.
  • Halbrand shows a great interest in blacksmithing and seems to have a great yearning to do so, even claiming that his smithing skills are unmatched, to the point of begging a blacksmith to let him help out in any sort of forging and even attempting to steal a guild emblem so he can be allowed to forge. He later demonstrates that he is indeed quite a capable smith, forging fine weapons with ease that impress the other blacksmiths. In Eregion, he gets to work with Lord Celebrimbor, and mentions being an blacksmith apprentice in the past, he talks about Aulë.
• Gwen's father on Merlin. There's also an official royal swordsmith mentioned.
  • Apparently her brother Elyan is also a smith, though he's never been shown doing it.
• Resurrection: Ertuğrul: Deli Demir, and he's a pretty badass one at that, considering he fights alongside Ertugrul a few times and is shown to be just as capable as defending himself as he is with crafting the weapons he uses. Following his death partway through season 2, Turgut Alp fills this role.

Mythology

• Hephaestus, blacksmith (as well as redsmith and goldsmith) to the Greek gods—and his Latin counterpart, Vulcan.
  • Zeus' thunderbolts were forged by three cyclopes in gratitude for his having freed them from imprisonment: Brontes (thunder), Steropes (Lightning), and Arges (Bright).
• Most fantasy dwarves have this in their makeup somewhere, though they also often work in much more exotic materials. This goes right back to Norse Mythology, the dwarves Brokk and Eiti who forged treasures for the Aesir, including Thor's hammer.
• Wayland the Smith (also known as Volundr) from Norse, Germanic, and Old English legends was the creator of magic rings and the swords of heroes.
• Seppä Ilmarinen from The Kalevala. Seppä translates to Smith.
• In Persian Mythology, Kaveh the blacksmith led an uprising that overthrew the evil demon king, Zahhak. The Derafsh-e Kaviani, used as a battle standard and as a symbol of Iran, is said to be based on the design of Kaveh's apron. Ferdowsi retells the story in The Shahnameh.
• Yoruba mythology (and by extension its American derivatives, such as voodoo) has Ogun, a particularly fiery deity whose favorite libation is burning rum.

Tabletop Games

• Anyone with high Craft (Fire) in Exalted would qualify. This subset of the Craft skill is used for everything from horseshoes to daiklaves. The setting also contains other, weirder smiths, such as the notoriously unreliable and sex-crazed demon-dwarves known as heranhal, or Alveula, Keeper of the Forge of Night, a powerful demon who smelts humans into equipment and carries a hammer about the same size as herself.
  • Also Autochton, a Primordial (godlike being older than gods) also known as the Great Maker or the King of Craftsmen and whose classical representation is a one-eyed smith hammering a daiklaive.
• Anyone in Mage: The Awakening with at least middling skill in Matter can become The Blacksmith, verging on Ultimate Blacksmith at higher proficiency. Materials can be shaped and reinforced; alloys can be formed that would not naturally hold together; and, with other arcana included, alchemically perfected metals can be produced and forged into intrinsically magical alloys. Special mention goes to the Forge Masters legacy^note In Legacies: The Ancient, who make equipment for the Adamantine Arrow shock troops.
  • The Smith kith in Changeling: The Lost are all about this, naturally.
• Games Workshop games:
  • In Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Skullgrinders are the warrior-smiths of the Bloodbound Warhordes, crafting brutal but effective weaponry for Khorne’s chosen warriors. Unlike most fictional blacksmiths, Skullgrinders don’t fight with a hammer, instead attaching their Brazen Anvils to a length of chain and swinging them like a brutal flail.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • Vulkan, the primarch of the Salamanders was raised as a blacksmith on his home planet, and his chapter has kept this tradition alive in the millennia since. In addition to forging and maintaining their own gear, The Salamanders also tend to favor flamethrowers, meltaguns, and energized hammers in combat. This has practical applications to their role as defenders of humanity as well; they are the only chapter able (and willing) to help rebuild essential infrastructure when the fighting is over.
    • Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands was an excellent smith who forwent hammers and used his fists (covered in some sort of living metal) in his forging. For the Heretics there was Fulgrim, who challenged Ferrus to a forging competition to see who could make the better weapon. In the end, they called it a draw, though Fulgrim went on to use the sword Ferrus made to cut off Ferrus' own head in a duel.
• The huge skill list of Burning Wheel means one can learn to be a blacksmith, whitesmith, or coppersmith, as well as an armorer or weaponsmith. Dwarves have special crafts in Black and White Metal Artifice; Elves have the skill-songs of Smithcraft and Riddle of Steel.
• Many versions of Dungeons & Dragons include crafting rules, which naturally leads to this. Many races, including dwarves, azers, and salamanders, are noted to be particularly good smiths, and there are many classes or abilities that make the players better at it, including the Artificer (a magic item craftsman). In 3rd Edition, it was explained that the majority of blacksmiths are Experts, an NPC class that lacks any particular abilities but can pick up all the relevant crafting skills. To commemorate this, Moradin the dwarf god is statted out as having fourteen levels in Expert.
• Golden Age Champions includes a trio of Soviet superheroes known as the Bolshevik Boys. All three were members of a Red Army cavalry unit who were inexplicably given powers by an alien spaceship. Red Hammer was the unit's blacksmith, and he became the team's brick and wields a sledgehammer as his primary weapon.
• The Kaiu Family in Legend of the Five Rings are an entire family of blacksmiths and engineers. The greatest Kaiu smiths can forge weapons that are said to never dull or break, and swords forged using advanced Kaiu techniques are coveted throughout the empire.

Video Games

• 9 Monkeys of Shaolin has the Shaolin Temple's smith, Liu Haibo, a former soldier taking refuge in the temple after losing his family in the past. Preferring to stay out of combat, he will create and upgrade weapons for you at the start of each level instead.
• In the Atelier Series' Arland trilogy, Hagel can make weapons and armor for the protagonist if she brings him the proper metal or cloth.
• Bound by Blades has badger blacksmiths in most areas, from your starting village to Fangsfate City, where you can ask them to build new weapons or upgrade your equipments provided if you have the right materials.
• In Darkest Dungeon, the blacksmith is one of the buildings in the Hamlet that can be upgraded between each quest. This is one of the most essential buildings, as the Blacksmith is the only way to upgrade a hero's base health and damage by purchasing better quality armour and weapons from said smith.
• The Black Hammer of Dark Siders is an immortal who forges weaponry for anyone if he feels up to it. Usually the forces of Heaven or the Horsemen.
• Dark Souls has numerous smiths, from the sorcerer-blacksmith Rickert of Vinheim, to the unnamed Giant Blacksmith of Anor Londo, to the skeleton smith Vamos. The most prominent, however, is Andre of Astora, a good-natured, friendly man who even makes a re-appearance in Dark Souls III, still smithing away.
• In Dicey Dungeons, Ned can use his anvil and forge to upgrade or replicate any item, even when it's an obvious Violation of Common Sense. Unlike the other shopkeepers, who refuse to do business with you if you're transformed into a bear, he'll still upgrade all items exclusive to that form.
• Dragon Age: Origins and the Awakening expansion pack has Wade, who much prefers to be an Ultimate Blacksmith when you can find him the materials he needs to craft exotic equipment. He crafts more normal equipment only grudgingly, much to the distress of his partner, Herren.
• Every fort in Dwarf Fortress values its skilled smiths. There are Blacksmiths, who make large objects and furniture from metal, Metalcrafters, who make smaller trade goods, and most importantly, Weaponsmiths and Armorsmiths. Players tend to cultivate these, letting no other dwarves do any smithing work and producing obscene amounts of weapons from crappy metals in order to train a smith up to Legendary skill, at which point the smith cranks out high-quality items (which do more damage or provide more protection) at an impressive rate. Because it takes so long to train a smith to Legendary, these dwarves are highly valued and protected. Of course, once they're legendary and have made masterwork equipment for all your troops, there's not much more for them to do but make replacement equipment for when your dwarves inevitably dodge an attack and fall off of a bridge into the fortress's lava moat.
  • Also, the "strange moods" of DF cause a dwarf to produce a legendary artifact in some craft that they have skill in, even dabbling skill, and become legendary in that skill. A lot of players exploit this and assign all peasants to make a few weapons or armor so that they'll have dabbling armor- or weaponsmith skill. Then they go back to farming or hauling crap around, skills which do not tap into strange moods, and if they get a mood they'll be guaranteed to make an artifact weapon or armor and become legendary.
• Hewg from Elden Ring acts as the game's primary blacksmith. He's a Misbegotten who was cursed by Queen Marika and bound to the Roundtable Hold, forging weapons for the Tarnished. Though trapped in his post, he doesn't seem to mind the work and grows increasingly focused on his mission of forging a weapon capable of killing a god. Even after burning down the Erdtree and his servitude lifted, he remains in his post smithing. Being bound to the Hold, his mind deteriorates along with it as it burns and he forgets everything other than the fact that he's a blacksmith (and he even briefly forgets that before noticing he's hammering away at an anvil and assuming he must be one based on that). There's also Iji, a Troll blacksmith in service to the Carian royal family, who treats you to the comical sight of him gently tapping away at your dinky weapons with his bus-sized hammer. However, should you complete Ranni's questline, he ends up assassinated by Black Knives, leaving Hewg as the sole remaining blacksmith in the game.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • Throughout the series' lore, Orcs are renowned across Tamriel for the skill as blacksmiths, forging some of the best and most sought-after heavy armors in the land. Young Orcs, male and female alike, are trained from a young age to mine and smith ore, particularly the rare metal Orichalcum.
  • Throughout the series, most major (and some minor) settlements have at least one blacksmith, with many of the larger settlements having several. (Which in this case, they tend to either specialize in different types of weapons/armor or are rivals.)
  • In Skyrim, for the first time in the series, the Player Character can create new weapons and armor out of raw materials (rather than repairing already-made good in past games). As a result, he/she can become a Blacksmith without peer with the ability to create armor out of high-tier dragon bones and scales.
• Archer from Fate/stay night is described as a "blacksmith hero" at one point. His Noble Phantasm, a Reality Marble called Unlimited Blade Works, is essentially a gigantic workshop that eternally cranks out weapons of war he can then manifest in the real world. While it is possible for him to create his own unique weapons, he has never applied himself in this way — all his creations are duplicates of other weapons.
• There are at least a couple of blacksmiths in the Final Fantasy series, starting with the dwarf who forges Excalibur in the first game. Final Fantasy XIV also allows players to become a Blacksmith as one of the many crafting professions they can pursue to create gear and other items.
  • Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings has Cu Sith, perhaps the cutest version of this ever. She's a tiny little Yarhi who works as the party's chief mechanic and Master Artificer to forge weapons on their airship.
  • There are a total of three playable smith classes in Final Fantasy XIV, the blacksmith who specializes in weapons, armorsmiths who create armor, and goldsmith who create various accessories.
• Fire Emblem, from Path Of Radiance onwards, has the Forge game mechanic where some characters can become blacksmiths and forge all kinds of pre-existing weapons (swords, knives, axes, lances, bows, magic tomes, etc.) into stronger versions:
  • Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn have Daniel from the Merchant Convoy.
  • The DS remakes of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light and Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem plus Fire Emblem: Awakening have NPCs (and in Awakening's case, the Merchant Annas who show up randomly) that double as merchants and blacksmiths.
  • In Fire Emblem Fates, anyone in the playable cast save for the Avatar and Lilith can take up the blacksmith role if the Avatar has a Smithy building in My Castle, goes in there and has not only weapons to spare but some specific type of ore. (i.e., a Nohrian sword and some rubies, a Hoshidan katana and pearls, etc.)
  • In Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, some towns have NPCs that will forge weapons in exchange for Silver and Gold marks.
• Every Harvest Moon game is guaranteed to have an old guy (cool or crusty) who will upgrade your farming tools for the right price.
• In Infinity Blade III, Isa rescues Jensen the blacksmith from his tower prison in the third act. Jensen can upgrade mastered equipment, improving their stats and allowing them to be mastered again. He also repairs the Redeemer, which Siris uses to erase the Worker's memories in the final battle.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past has the two dwarven blacksmiths of Kakariko Village.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap has Smith, Link's grandfather. He and King Daltus are good friends.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Mostly offscreen, but Link's mentor, Rusl, is a blacksmith. He forged the Ordon Sword as an offering for the Hyrulean Royal Family.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds has the Blacksmiths of Hyrule and Lorule.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask has a blacksmith and his partner who improve Link's sword twice. The first upgrade, the Razor Sword, is a temporary one that is lost whenever Link travels back in time. The second upgrade, the Gilded Sword, requires valuable Gold Dust, but it is a stronger weapon that remains with Link even if he goes back in time.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass has Zauz, a blacksmith who resides on his own island in the northwestern sea. He helps Link forge a new Phantom Sword after the former lost it in some way.
• Mabinogi and its prequel Vindictus both feature blacksmith Fergus. In the latter, he's the only blacksmith available to craft weapons and armour. In the former, he's one of several; and is the worst, clumsiest, least-reliable of the lot.
  • In both games, the character has the opportunity to learn blacksmithing skills. In Vindictus, the character has to specialize in a particular type of blacksmithing — weapons or armour, not both. In Mabinogi, the character not only learns to craft both weapons and armour, but also everyday tools (including the hammer required to practice the skill).
• Minecraft. As long as you have the right materials and a Crafting Bench, you can basically make any tool or armor the game allows you to.
  • Villagers have three different blacksmithing "professions," armorer, toolsmith, and weaponsmith. They will sell you tools and refresh their stock after working at their respective workstations^note blast furnace, smithing table, and gridstone, respectively. Before the villager revamp, their was just the generic blacksmith who handled all three of the current professions.
• Patapon has a former Dekapon (The Mighty Glacier class) who would help the player turn ore to alloys (useful) or mythical ores to powerful weapons and armour. In the sequel, he demands some kaching to forge nicer items.
• In Persona 5 Tactica, with the Velvet Room having been transformed into an armory, Lavenza is put in charge of the room in order to assist Joker. The room's new state has her become a Blacksmith in order to forge new Sub-Persona gears or weapons for the Phantom Thieves to use in battle. While working, she wears a welding mask, work gloves, and a leather apron in order to handle the machinery, though there are times she needs to whack it in order for it to function properly.
• In Potion Permit, Opalheart and her daughter Runeheart run the smithy in Moonbury Town. You can go there to upgrade your tools.
• Ragnarok Online has its own variety of the Blacksmith as a class, derived from Intrepid Merchants. Blacksmiths are capable of direct combat via Status Buffs, forging weapons, and refining metals. In battle, Blacksmiths can either wield an axe or a mace as their weapon of choice. It also has a few Ultimate Blacksmiths making appearances in quests, especially the famed God Items quests.
  • The transcended class for Blacksmiths is known in the original Korean (and Japanese) versions of RO as "Whitesmith." Because of the obscurity of that term could have lead to unwanted controversy, Gravity LLC changed the class name to "Mastersmith."
• Ragnarok II: Legend of the Second also has Blacksmiths, but they are now part of the Dual Life System, which means they are a crafting class that characters can choose in addition to their combat class.
• In Roots of Pacha, Acre is the resident blacksmith who makes new tools and upgrades them for you. She comes up with the idea to smith tools out of obsidian and copper.
• Every Rune Factory game has a blacksmith, all but one of which is talked about as though they're a master craftsman. The one who isn't praised is more into building golems and does smith work on the side. Only one of the smiths who is praised can actually make decent weapons. He's also the only dwarf smith. It's his only dwarven trait.
  • Also, you can become one yourself after you purchase an extension for your house.
• In Sakura Wars (2019), Tekkan Amamiya is not only the father of the main heroine Sakura Amamiya but is also a skilled blacksmith who has forged her favorite sword, the Amamiya Kunisada. He's also friends with the main protagonist Seijuro Kamiyama.
• In Shop Heroes, some of the employees you can hire for your shop fall under this archetype — most obviously the Blacksmith, of course, but also the Armorer and the Master.
• The Sims Medieval: One of the ten available Hero Sims is The Blacksmith, whose duties are to craft weapons, armor, magic staves, and help the kingdom fend off occasional dance-crazed Golems.
• Sophitia's off-screen husband Rothion, in Soulcalibur. Sophie's god and mentor Hephestus explicitly asked him to forge sacred weapons for his warrior girlfriend/later wife, which he promptly did. Twice.
• Recruiting at least one blacksmith happens in every Suikoden game, and is vital to getting your weapons to their highest potential.
• Thief's Hammerite faction are very enamored of The Blacksmith. The guards may not smith on a daily basis but several religious texts found in-game make it clear that someone cannot progress from being a novice of the order without proving their skill in blacksmithing and stonemasonry.
• Dojima the blacksmith from Way of the Samurai 1 and 2. He also fights with his hammer and tongs, which you can take from him if you kill him.
• In Weapon Shop De Omasse, you are the blacksmith who makes the weapons used by heroes on their quests.
• World of Warcraft features Blacksmithing as a learnable profession for Player Characters, as well as a wealth of Blacksmith NPCs in every major city, many towns, and even randomly in the wilderness, some of whom will offer to teach Blacksmith PCs exclusive recipes as quest rewards. Characters who learn Blacksmithing produce metal weapons and armor, various metal items used by other professions, and various weapon and armor enhancing items. At higher levels, Blacksmiths have the option to undergo quest chains to specialize in weapon or armor smithing.
  • As of the Burning Crusade expansion, the Weaponsmith and Armorsmith specializations can only be used to create specialty weapons and armor for yourself. The specialty items a weaponsmith or armorsmith makes cannot be given to any other character. Ironic, considering that the dwarf in Ironforge who offers the Weaponsmith quest tells you about how lucrative it is to sell your weaponsmithing products.
• Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished – The Final Chapter features a blacksmith who is initially out of work because he is out of iron ore. The mine that has some iron ore is full of demons, so the miners require good armor and weapons to kill the demons in order to mine. Unfortunately, the armor and weapons shop has only weak armor that is too weak for the miners who are not master swordsmen to survive due to the lack of iron ore needed to make the iron that the armor requires to be made. Furthermore, Velagunder, a giant demon, guards the iron ore in the mine. This demon is vulnerable only to fire magic and is invulnerable to physical attacks in this game. Adol has to go into the mine with a sword, a shield, the ability to use Ys's magic, and weak armor to kill Velagunder and to get the iron ore to break this cycle.

Web Animation

• Homestar Runner has a blacksmith character- The Poopsmith originated as a joke where they met him right after the blacksmith. The blacksmith has shown up once or twice since then.
• Trick Moon: Tarot runs a blacksmith shop called "Tarot's Arrows"; she's the one who crafts the magical arrows Trickshot uses.

Webcomics

• Pella from Looking for Group left blacksmithing behind when she came through time to join the heroes. When she later decided that she had no choice but to assault a heavily fortified prison she chose to go with a set of custom made weapons from a smith of ancient times, namely herself. Working at the forge also made time for some Back Story.
• In Next Town Over, the town of Sun Prairie has one. Vane Black takes the smithy from him after shooting off his fingers.
• Wayward Sons: Phastus has taken this role since developing the ability to manipulate metal.
• Ashul Edwaru is the master blacksmith from Tower of God. Not only did he create the Thirteen Months, he was also the first to realize that the weapons that came from outside the tower would eventually become utterly useless in the higher levels (especially swords and axes). He promptly redesigned them and became a legend.
• In The Order of the Stick, a blacksmith in Azure City reforges Roy Greenhilt's broken sword with some starmetal as part of a Forging Scene.
• In Champions of Far'aus, Skye's father, Arthur Glorious, is a weapon Smith, and through Skye gives Daryl one of his "hobby swords" to use.
• Vápnthjófr saga: Hillevi, a Nordic bear blacksmith. She's also a retired warrior and married to a priestess of Freya, with three cubs.

Web Video

• Man at Arms is more or less this trope brought to life. The cast makes fully functional versions of various items from many, many different media covering anime, video games, comic books, and movies. Mostly swords but also other weapons and armour as well. As has been noted that Ilya from the Reforged second season has become something of an expert at making massive, oversized blades (read BFS) thanks to the many, many ones they've made over the course of the show.
• Noob is set in a fantasy Fictional Video Game and has a character named Ardacos that is You All Look Familiar handwaved as New Job as the Plot Demands. Blacksmith is one of the jobs he's mentioned to have.

Western Animation

• Fantaghirò: Daniel Hammer is a blacksmith who prides himself on the fine quality of the weapons he produces. However, the end of the Forever War makes his weaponcraft unnecessary, and his rage at this allows Darken to turn him into a Villain-Possessed Bystander.
• A Simpsons episode with Bart and a girl as fugitives from prison, features a blacksmith that frees them from their cuffs. (By forging a fitting key!) And it's a very stereotypical blacksmith, his character design would probably fit for any of the guys in this article's folklore section: Muscular, with thick grey beard, and even rousing music accompanying his scene!
• Bengali from ThunderCats was a blacksmith, and one of the few people who could fix the Sword of Omens. He also made his own magic hammer. Bengali is also regarded as one of the physically strongest Thundercats next to Panthro.
• Hephaestus appeared in an episode of Justice League Unlimited, making Ares a suit of living armor. He also reveals he's the one to build Wonder Woman's equipment.

Real Life

• Masamune Goro, the Japanese blacksmith who was famed for the "spiritual quality" of his work. He supposedly spent 100 days Meditating Under a Waterfall to purify his spirit before forging a katana.
  • Interestingly enough, according to this site, Masamune's descendant Masamune XXIV now runs a sword and cutlery shop in Kamakura. Sadly, it looks like he'll be the last generation to be taking on the family craft, as his son is in Italy studying opera.
• Muramasa is said to have infused every sword he made with his violent rage. Although Muramasa is often portrayed as Goro's pupil, the two lived about two centuries apart.
• The Javanese keris usually have it in their myths about how their blacksmith must perform a spiritual act (usually involve fasting and meditating in remote places) before they can begin forging. It only strengthened folk beliefs about how the keris are magic blades (of the "possessed by a powerful entity" variety).
• Many modern artisans from all over the world make armors and weapons for ornation purposes. Their skills are invaluable for small scale production of weaponry or machinery of utmost quality and a price to match, like some modern hunting firearms and bladed weapons. It's simply impossible to manufacture in an industrial environment a device that needs months or years of careful fitting and finishing.
• Filippo Negroli of Milan was one of the most famous and respected armorers of the 16th century, making parade armor for rulers such as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Francis I of France. He was a master of embossing plates in high relief with acanthus leaves, mermaids, gorgons, and other fanciful decoration.
• Andrew Ferrara may have been a sword-maker in Scotland in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Whether he actually existed is debatable, but it is known that extremely well-made Scottish broadswords have his name inscribed on their blades.
• Blacksmiths in Scotland actually performed marriage ceremonies for couples, especially younger couples who fled from England against their parent's wishes. When the smith struck two interlocking bands on his anvil, the couple was married, often to the consternation of their respective parent sets. (Ancient Scottish law said that a marriage was valid if the vows were recited before a reliable witness and both parties were over 14; this was for communities in the Highlands and Islands that were too small to have a full-time clergyman and to assure that couples didn't have to wait until the circuit rider came around. The blacksmith, although not a gentleman, was considered a 'reliable witness' because he was a skilled craftsman. In England the requirements were more strict—the parties had to be older and/or have parent's permission, the 'bans' had to be announced three Sundays running, and the ceremony had to be performed by a clergyman. English eloping couples would go to Gretna Green, a village just on the Scottish border, and exchange their vows before the blacksmith.)
• Modern blacksmithing took a huge leap in popularity with The Lord of the Rings, where the DVD Bonus Material showed how detailed and authentic the production went into recreating the weaponry of the movie. The heroes' swords, the villains' weapons, the hand made chainmail — all influenced many fans into going into the craft.
• One theory to explain why some Cyclopes of Greek myth were smiths is that actual blacksmiths would wear an eyepatch while working to protect from sparks.

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