Wayland's Smithy

   This megalithic chamber tomb in Oxfordshire (formerly Berkshire) was identified in a charter of ad 855 as Welandes smidde; the spelling 'Wayland', popularized by Scott and Kipling, is now the usual one. Way-land was a master-craftsman in Germanic legends, sometimes described as an elf or a giant, more often as human; he was lamed and held captive by a king, but avenged himself by killing the king's young sons and raping his daughter, and then escaped by magic flight.

   In folklore Wayland lost his individuality and was remembered merely as a fairy blacksmith, of a type known in several European countries. The antiquary Francis Wise wrote in 1738: 'At this place lived formerly an invisible Smith, and if a traveller's Horse had lost a Shoe upon the road, he had no more to do than to bring the Horse to this place with a piece of money, and leaving both there for some little time, he might come again and find the money gone, but the Horse new shod.' In the 19th century, local children used to visit the Smithy and try to hear the clink of his hammer.

   ■ Hilda R. E. Davidson, Folklore 69 (1958), 145-59.