These barbarous peoples were sometimes confounded with the Dactyls, Corybantes, Cabiri, and Curetes, traditional metallurgists endowed with supernatural skill, and therefore popularly reckoned as magicians, or even as divinities. For a long period they were supposed to be vested with the exclusive knowledge of metal-working, a knowledge shrouded in mystery. In the “Kalevalla,” or ancient epic poem of Finland, the blacksmith Ilmarinen is represented as the pioneer and most skilled of artisans, who fashioned both the implements of warfare and domestic utensils. This hero Came to earth to work the metal; He was born upon the coal-mount, Skilled and nurtured in the coal-fields; In one hand a copper hammer, In the other tongs of iron; In the night was born the blacksmith, In the morn he built his smithy; Sought with care a favored hillock, Where the winds might fill his bellows; Found a hillock in the swamp-land, Where the iron hid abundant, There he built his smelting-furnace.[97] In the Teutonic mythology, blacksmiths were magical craftsmen; and even in the Middle Ages they were looked upon as superior to other artisans, owing to their faculty of seemingly toying with fire, rendering the dangerous element subservient to their will, and by its aid manipulating iron with ease and dexterity. In Germany their workshops were known as “Wieland’s houses,” in remembrance of the most cunning of smiths in the mythical lore of the North. As in early ages the origin of metal-working was imputed to divine beings, it was natural that in popular tradition blacksmiths acquired their wondrous technical skill through the assistance of such beings, and hence were exalted above the plane of ordinary mortals because they had received supernatural instruction.…