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In the primary story about Weyland, we see that he had been married, and his wife had disappeared. When looking for her he was captured and hamstrung by order of a greedy King who wanted to have him churning out items so the King could get wealthy. But because Weyland was a blacksmith, he had the skills to overcome his captors and when he did so, he got some (slighty grotesque) justice by turning their heads into goblets, their eyes into jewels, and using their teeth to make a brooch. His ingenuity is such that he is able to even capture birds, and use them to \u2018fly\u2019 free of his imprisonment.<\/p>\n
But sometimes the mythological seeming stories we have in our literature contain kernels of truth we may not even realize. Many cultures (including the Greek Hephaistos) depict blacksmith Gods as being lamed or malformed in their legs in someway, and that\u2019s because Their depiction imitated the real-life occupational hazards of the craft. In antiquity blacksmiths used arsenic in part of the process to make bronze, as a result many blacksmiths suffered from lameness and cancer caused by the continual exposure to arsenic. So the reason he was hamstrung, may have something to do with this real life side effect of lameness in the legs that many blacksmiths suffered from.<\/p>\n
In some of the stories we see that Weyland had a valkyrie for a wife (Herv\u00f6r Alvitr). In most of the lore, the valkyries are usually named for elements and tools of war, which would make a great deal of sense to pair a maker of weapons and tools used on the battlefield with a chooser of the slain. The skills required for blacksmithing, to a more refined degree, are also the same skills needed for jewelry-smithing. In other accounts, his wife is described as a swan maiden instead.<\/p>\n
A debate sometimes exist as to whether or not Weyland should be considered a deity, for what remains of his story seems to suggest he was merely a legendary man or hero. But, even in the limited items that survive from antiquity today, there is a sense that He is much more than merely a man.<\/p>\n
In Oxfordshire, England we see a megalithic burial mound (or barrow) that through time was associated by the Saxons to be the site of Weyland\u2019s smithy. According to 13th Century folk tradition associated with the site, if you left a horse and a silver coin there overnight, by morning the horse would be shod with new shoes. Obviously this isn\u2019t a belief that one would associate with a mortal man, but rather with someone more numinous in nature, more extra-special if you will.<\/p>\n
We also have sources that describe Weyland as having non-human ancestry. Weyland\u2019s father was the sea giant Wade (or Vadi)<\/strong>, and his mother was the sea nymph Wac-hilt. To the Angles, Wade was intimately tied to the Fjords, where he acted as both a ferryman, and also in a capacity that protected the local peoples. Danish folkloric tradition describes Wade wading through the waters with his son Weyland on his back. All throughout England there are a variety of folk beliefs pertaining to actual physical places that connect with Weyland or his father Wade. Stories that describe geologic formations as being Wade\u2019s remains, or being caused by Weyland throwing a troublesome and annoying apprentice out of his smithy.<\/p>\n As mentioned previously, while Weyland\u2019s wife is sometimes described as a valkyrie, she is also sometimes described as a swan maiden. Considering Weyland\u2019s water influenced ancestry, it also makes sense that his wife could be a swan maiden. \u00a0While it may seem incongruous to some that a God with such strong connections to the sea and waters is a smith, I don\u2019t feel it\u2019s really all that much of a stretch.<\/p>\n Blacksmiths have to be masters of all the elements. Obviously metal ore is used to craft the tools of his trade, but other elements of the earth from clay, to sand, to dirt, and various minerals are also sometimes also used. Fire is an element used to heat and anneal the components so that they can be shaped. Air must be used to both control the flames and heat, but also used to air cool and quench certain items during the annealing process that you can\u2019t afford to use the more rapid method of water-quenching on. If we look to the natural world, these processes are essentially at a geothermic scale the very elements that drive plate tectonics, which are physically seen in Iceland.<\/p>\n From the stories, we get a sense of him as both a clever and industrious worker, but also the sense of someone who had a temper that could burn hotter than any forge. He is both crafter, and destroyer.<\/p>\n As someone who is an amateur jewelry-smith, I have felt the presence of Weyland as I used ball and cross-peen hammers to drive texture into sheets of metal I later worked into other projects. I have felt Him as I grew frustrated when soldered seams and flux weren\u2019t behaving appropriately. He is a God of cunning, of craft, of patience, cleverness, strength and great fortune. I find that He is an excellent God to approach and ask for blessings in new endeavors and projects. And indeed, there are many heathens who approach them asking for just that around around the time of Charming of the Plough<\/a>.<\/p>\n