Máandevvos es báren!

 This is a project that has taken quite some time and energy to make-and was great fun to accomplish. It is a kind of talisman to me, for there is another unlikely Fimbulmyrk tale involved. Some of my faithful readers already know that some years ago I was strolling home through a moonlit forest, when I came across a fox on its prowl, and this fox was quite certainly not acting as a fox should do. Seeing my headlamp, he actually came over to me. At first I thought he was being rabid, and was very cautious, of course, but he did not show any symptoms apart from that and after a closer scrutiny appeared cautious himself. He approached me with some kind of cautious interest. So I went into a crouch and greeted him. He sniffed at my hand, and when I got up again, he looked up and walked beside me. And then I saw an old chisel embedded in the trail. Of course I took it home.

The fox left me at the edge of the woods and went back on its merry way. And the moon shone bright.

So, after quite a while, I decided to make a knife from the piece of scrap.

Let me refer to that talisman thing. It´s far more simple, of course, and I am not quite sure if I should call it that name in the first. For there is a weird and wonderful thing that had happened to me, a plain wonder, and I cherish the memory, even the imminent danger in it. I am full aware of the fact that the fox COULD have had rabies and that I might be dead by now. I might also have been dead after riding through a lightning storm and lightning strike, but, fact is, I am still alive. And do not get me wrong, I am not fond of danger at all, but fact is also, life is a constant imminent lethal danger we face. And I am not seeking the brush of death. It is always there, that´s the one certainity we all have.

As is, it is a weird, wonderful and fond memory of sharing in with a wild, wild animal, an animal known for its stealth and cautiousness. And that chisel just was a piece of scrap metal.

I made a knife from it. Period. Nothing more... but nothing less.

There is this local legend about a wanderer who was given a fox as a guide through the darkness of the underground dwarven realms. It is a story. Nothing more... but nothing less.

The chisel and the knife are of no significance.

But they make a wonderful kind of sense to me. The knife is a story, my life is a story, and I live it. Nothing more, and nothing less. Life is sometimes a shitty mess. A good knife can help you out of a lot of fixes (and I am talking cutting cord, preparing meals, whittling little helpful things and opening boxes :-)) And when I look at this knife, I know that life actually has a stronger, deeper sense than a world of significance and matter wants to sell to you. When I remember the story, I am full of hope, because I do not have to have to make-believe (no offence meant), for I KNOW. When I look at the "talisman", therefore I hope. And it helps me out in a very concrete manner. The blade cuts like a razor, being a high carbon crucible steel with tungsten and a carbon content of roundabout 0,9%.

 Keeping the story of the dwarven guide in mind, I choose bog oak for a handle, that lay submerged in iron oxide water for some 100 years in an old coal mine in the Muttental.

 I already made a dangler sheath for it with a handforged swan´s neck dangler.

 Lousy picture, I freely admit ;-)...

Overall, it is a new story in my life that helps me keeping up my work... I like it.