Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Tides of History add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.

The wind howled through the open doorway of the building carrying its icy edge and occasional snowflakes under the patched roof.

Both the chill and the snowflakes melted away when they came near the fire at the heart of the room.

The flames were small, in fact barely visible at all, but the coals were a deep blazing red.

The long piece of iron resting on top of the coals nearly as long as the Smith's arm had almost taken on that red color itself.

The Smith pulled the iron from the fire and placed it on the end.

He hammered the glowing metal with surprisingly gentle controlled strokes slowly flattening the iron as a cooled.

Back into the fire the iron went, then out for more hammering, then back in, over and over again until darkness had fallen outside the forge.

No more light streamed in through the doorway though that didn't mean much. Night came early this far north in the winter.

Grabbing a skin, the Smith took a deep swig of water and then returned to work.

The sword was almost done.

He would finish it before he slept, the Smith decided no matter how deep into the night it took him.

That was his way and had been since he first learned to shape iron decades ago.

A kind of manic energy took him when he in was near.

In those minutes and hours when the exhaustion had taken hold but his mind was clear, the Smith felt as if the gods of the forge were with him, looking at his work with approval, filling him with their wisdom and power.

His finest work came in those moments, little strokes of genius and innovation that could only come from the gods.

The Smith had shaped the tang carefully and slid it into a grip of smooth horn.

Now it was time to sharpen the blade to test his idea.

He had combined layers of three different kinds of iron into this sword, making the edges out of a harder material than the core, carefully welding the red hot pieces together into a single hole.

He had done it by accident once before and now he wanted to repeat it.

This he was sure would be a masterwork.

Swords shaped by the Smith's hands had traveled far and wide, he knew.

...