Phew. Long time, no post. I won´t bore you out with all the details, but the meantime has been both a huge pile of shite and a "what a ball" experience, a rollercoaster ride of feelings up and down. I reaalized what an insane pile of shite humanity actually is in general and learned to love some few chosen people even more for it. The shitty fuckers will be shitty fucker no less, if I rant about them or not. So let´s just say there´s a reason why I did not post this long. Then there were these privacy law novelties I had to adapt to... and I had better things to do than sit in front of a screen and write. Ride my bike, and get my soul back from the swamp others put me in. Fly again. "Scream with force into the driving wind and listen to the echoes in your mind" (VVA). And invent myself anew.
As a result, I forged again some new stuff. I forged it for myself, and myself alone. This, for instance, is ÌsentandR (iron tooth), which I forged from a bit of crucible steel I found in the woods and which was loosely inspired by a knife by Petr Florianek, I hope, with my own spice and style on it.
The inscription says Ìsentandr on one side and "Ubilowari" (I fend off Evil, or so it is commonly read. It is loosely inspired by a runic inscription from the migration era of European history. Consequentially, the runes are written in the elder Futhark, also from that period). The knife is a bit anachronistic in style, taking early modern age and late medieval all - steel peasant utility knives and adorning it with a rather syncretistic mishmash of Celtic and Mammen style and late medieval ornamentation. There is a dragon´s head on it to add fierceness against Evil and a fox´head which stands for stealth, hunting by night, cunning and the killing out of lust (Don´t blame me for this violence, it is what a fox is-a hound with a cat´s software... :-) ) Also, the fox is the psychopomp in a local legend, the legend of the giant´s causeway.
Foraging for steel is sort of a high quest for me. People tend to make fun of me because I keep finding steel and make knives out of "crap". It is not efficient in their mindset. But it is not about the steel. It is about the other world made flesh. This is a steel that had legendary qualities even in its time. People have died in making it. It is the Valyrian steel of reality. I found it by following a story. I hunted it down. It hid in the woods, until I came and found it. No, it is not out of efficiency calculations that I made this knife. Best not try to understand the story behind it- it might drive you insane.
An altogether different thing is this one: A bushcraft knife that I built to the limit from some mystery stainless steel with a hardness of about 58 HRC and a very fine grain. I assume it might be either 440C or Niolox (1.4153.03), but fact is, I just cannot tell. Pardon me? A stainless steel which this madman does not know, selectively quenched and tempered with an open coal forge?
Yes, you CAN do it.
THis is what foraging for steel and hunting down stories can teach you: It can teach you to FEEL what is right.
The handle is birchwood burr with mosaic pins. Nothing fancy, and a lot of room for improvement... and I will actually even use it (I do use all of my knives)
But the culprit is not about the knives. It is about feeling what is right, what is the graceful way to move amongst the tides ad flow of the law of the universe. It can be addictive, but this is just right. It is not about what people want to make you think, or do, or believe. Most people these days are raptuoulsy mad. This might sound a bit mad in itself, but don´t make too much contact with people. Most of them do things in a rabid manner. Do not commune with them, or you will lose the integrity and the peace of your soul. Their soul is black, and ill, and infectuous. They will want to corrupt you for no reason but that they want to.
Solution:
Just a snack in the woods gives me back what "they" have laboured to take from me in arduous months. Just half an hour in the sun, sipping good tea, having a slice of good cheese and some tasty dark fruit bread and a sausage, using the knife from steel I foraged for amd my trusty kuksa will render all of their schemes and hatred futile. Breathing slowly, intently, and savouring each drop of milk in the cheese and each second of life in the meat, and the sun in the barley and the fruit gives me back what they think I had lost for good.
And I laugh at the prospect of them screaming in the black void where they are emprisoned for good-that once was their soul.
As long as there are woods, and the red merlin crying, as long as there is life...
...and death...
The well will spring up and renew itself as long as I live.
For the wicked there can be no victory, only the silent and painful rotting of their flesh and soul. For the one who tries to walk the path along the tides and flow of the universe, there can be no defeat. No triumph, either, for a wind feels no triumph, nor does the fox... or the dragon who spans the void on iron wings... ;-)
Thanks for turning in again!
