BLACKSMITHS AND MAGIC IN SERBIAN TRADITION

The invention of the blacksmith’s trade is one of the most important discoveries in the whole history of humanity. Without it, life was unimaginable, in the city or in the country as well. It is very hard to imagine how important the discovery was back then from our modern perspective. It can hardly be compared with any other invention of recent times. Only as an illustration of its importance, we should mention that people who possessed these skills could rapidly develop their civilisations and also conquer others in the way that had never been seen before. Maybe the best equivalent to the blacksmith’s trade is the discovery of electrical energy that enabled humans to advance further and head off to the atomic age and the era of communication.

Because of all this, people (especially from Europe and Middle East) made the blacksmith’s trade very significant through a number of myths and legends. In pagan times, the inventions weren’t assigned to people, but to divinities. In other words, this knowledge was given to people by higher forces for faster progression of the people who where in the mercy of that divinity.

If we are talking about the blacksmith trade, the divinities that bestowed it were undoubtedly of a chthonic character. Even if we talk about archangel Azazel from the Book of Enoch I, who passed the blacksmith’s trade to mankind, we can consider him to be a chthonic divinity, because after this, he was punished by God and thrown into the pit, which we can symbolically interpret as the underground world. It is not hard to explain why the blacksmith’s trade was associated with chthonic divinities. People would get metal from earth’s shell, digging and pulling it out, to be transformed, by some secret alchemical skill, into the most amazing items.

Everything that came from the earth and its depths, in pagan time, was thought to have belonged to chthonic divinities, which is why the blacksmith’s trade was under their protection. However, the process of metal manufacturing was more like a secret magical operation, then only later a common trade. So, when we put these two things together, it is not hard to understand why blacksmiths were thought to be magicians, alchemists and witches. They were often identified with these underworld divinities, which were, by the rule, not only protectors of the blacksmith’s trade, but in charge of magic and often fertility. Chthonic forces, represented as the supernatural beings of all kinds of classes, and also, their master, the divinity of the underworld, were found to be common visitors of forges. The blacksmith, who is always in the touch with them, become their representative in the people’s society. That’s why it is not a surprise that in many traditions the basic witches’ divinity is the one that is also the protector of the blacksmith’s trade. That was also the situation in old Serbia.

By Serbian folk tales, the forge was given to Serbs by the Devil himself. This belief amongst people didn’t surprise Serbian ethnologists from the end of 19^th and the beginning of 20th century. Even though it sounded strange-to believe that the main evil force in Christianity gave people what was most important to them in their everyday life and for their progress, ethnologists were aware of the fact that the most important pagan divinities during Christianization were in fact identified with the Devil. Some become Christian saints, and those of the underworld become evil demons, while the main Divinity of the underworld almost always becomes the Devil. But, the folk accepted the situation as it was, transferring all old myths and the character of the chthonic divinity on to the Devil. Because of this, many peasants will avoid giving their sons to learn the blacksmith’s trade, and it will mostly be embraced by the Gypsies.

A large number of tales about the blacksmith and the Devil were saved in Serbia. Sometimes they were even identified as the same person. For example, in one version of the story, the character seen on the Moon (of the mountains) was the blacksmith, and by the other version, it was the Devil. How the blacksmith finished on the Moon was explained by this funny story:

“The Devil came to the blacksmith and asked him to teach him the trade. When they started talking about the pay, the blacksmith suggested that the Devil should work for him for a year without pay, and if he accomplished all the tasks that the blacksmith gives him, after that deadline, the blacksmith will serve the Devil forever. The Devil agreed to that, so the blacksmith gave him more and more difficult tasks, that no human could possible accomplish, but the Devil always did. As the deadline came closer, the blacksmith started to think of the way to trick the Devil. So, he decided to make the Devil go into the forge furnace and clean it from inside. When the Devil agreed to that and went inside, the blacksmith turned on the fire and the Devil withered. Afraid that he might burn to death, the Devil agreed to forget the agreement and go back home without a prize. When the blacksmith died, they wouldn’t let him in Heaven, and they made him go to Hell. However, there he was recognized by the Devil that served him, so the Devil went running and told other Devils to run away too, so that the blacksmith wouldn’t kill them. When God saw this, not knowing where to put the blacksmith, he sent Saint Peter to lead him to the Moon. From that day on, people could see the face of the blacksmith on the Moon.”

This story is very interesting, although here the Devil is the one learning the blacksmith’s trade. But, it is most probably a lower class demon, while the blacksmith is the representative of chthonic Divinity, the protector of the trade. But what is really interesting here is the point-that all the blacksmiths are, because of their relations with the impure forces, impure, cursed or tabooed; which is in fact what people think of them. The people were afraid of them. But, beside that, we also learn that blacksmiths neither go to Heaven nor to Hell, after death, but to the Moon, which bonds them additionally to the chthonic forces and probably to the representative of the Chthonic Divinity himself, who is the protector of the blacksmith’s trade and magic, placed in the night sky.

In real life, blacksmiths did actually work with magic and gave to their community, services of that kind. Their every job was associated with performing an adequate ritual, while the forge itself was turned into the magic temple.

TheAnvil was the most sacred of all. It was made on Saturdays, on the full Moon, after midnight. The job was run by the one that would keep it, and he had eight helpers, also blacksmiths. The blacksmithing was performed while being naked and talking was strongly forbidden, as was the presence of women. The job had to be finished by dawn. This tells us that the illuminated blacksmiths were probably part of some guild and that they kept secrets of the trade and magic strictly for themselves. The anvils made this way would be considered most sacred and were a focus of admiration and regarded as an altar. Everything made on them would gain magical qualities.

Petar Z. Petrovic, the ethnologist, presents to us in what extent this altar was sacred by retelling us an anecdote where one young man walked in blacksmith shop and sat down on an anvil. When he saw the astounded face of the blacksmith he realized then what he had just done. He jumped up, worshiped the anvil, kissed it and asked forgiveness from the owner. This means that groups of people were aware of the anvil’s “sanctity”. The anvil also was equated with the bible.

The blacksmiths prayed next to it, they lit wax candles on it and burned incense around it. On the other hand, people would swear on it. They would put bread and salt on it and then say:

“I swear on the anvil, bread, and salt, that I’m telling the truth”

It was believed that if anyone would lie to the anvil, he would die by hammer or fire, these probably the attributes of the divinity who is the protector of the blacksmith’s trade. In some parts of the land, they would bring sacrifices to the anvil, most often wine which they would spill on it, as at Christmas.

Blacksmiths would also heal the sick ones on it. That was often done using the water spilled on it, by which it was believed to have gained magical powers. Blacksmiths would also, naked, late at night, make a metal belt to be worn by pregnant women, who would, by wearing this belt, protect themselves and their children. There were also small metal charms, made the same way, in the shape of knife, snake, moon, agricultural tools, etc. all these charms would be made out of a dead mare’s horseshoe.

The fact that the anvil was the object of the cult was firmly proven by ethnologist Cajkanovic, in the time before of World War Two. In fact, he realised that the holiday of the anvil is the Day before Christmas day, when all the blacksmiths would burn incense around it, spill wine on it and light wax candles on it or next to it. On that day, all of them had to strike it with their hammers; the best would be at the same time. The real reason of this striking is either unknown or kept as a secret by the blacksmiths. According to some tales, by the act of striking they would remake the chain by which the Devil is bound; by others make the evil demons go away etc. This was practised from the Alps to Bohemia, over the Balkan, all the way to Caucasus.

From all this, it is very clear that the old Serbian forge, together with the anvil represented ritual space, one of a closed type, in which the which’s rituals were performed. Also, we learn that the anvil itself could represent the object of the cult, or idol, which, if we would look a little more carefully, does remind one of a horned head. That’s how, by anthropological rules, we get a clearly defined, cult of chthonic type. If we add to this, that the most important ritual, in this case, making the anvil, was performed in the group, by nine naked blacksmiths, after midnight, on the night of the full moon; we realize that this was a coven organisation, of the union character, which in many ways reminds us of those strictly made by witches. All the other rituals done by blacksmiths in this space would also be performed at night, they would follow changes of the moon, and the roles were completely identical with those in classical Balkan traditional witchcraft. Amongst these rules are the times of performing a ritual, following changes of the moon, ritual nudity, and the rule of ritual silence etc. Considering all this, the blacksmith’s magical tradition would be included in witch’s traditions, but the difference was that the blacksmith’s one would take only male members and from the same guild.

Radomir Ristic