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Speaker 1: Good evening and welcome to night. We'll spend a quiet

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hour in the forge of a Japanese master sortsmith, in

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the days when a single blade might take months to make,

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and its maker was counted among the most honored craftsmen

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in the land. Where somewhere in the countryside of old Japan,

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several centuries ago, in the soft light of early evening,

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the fire has been tended since morning, the steel folded

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and folded again, and the forge itself is treated as

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a sacred place. A rope of straw hung above the hearth,

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white paper streamers stirring gently in the warm air. And

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by the way, if you'd like more stories like this one,

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you might want to check out our app. It's called

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to Night, and it has fresh stories for you every day,

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so there's always something new to fall asleep to. Plus

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you can hear them in your your favorite voice. It's

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a free download the links just below this video. Before

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we begin, take a moment to settle in, get comfortable,

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however that looks for you tonight. When you're ready, close

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your eyes, take a slow, deep breath in through your nose,

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and a long, slow breath out. One more in and out.

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The katana is the legendary curved sword of Japan throughout

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the nation's history. It was made very slowly by a

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small number of master smiths using forging techniques that changed

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very little over the centuries. The blade was long and

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gently curved, single edged, with a pale, rippling line running

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just below the cutting edge. That line was slightly different

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on every sword, marking each one as a unique piece.

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To forge a katana was part craft, part ritual. There

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were prayers at the forge. There were ropes of straw

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hung above the fire with white paper streamers folded into them.

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There were rules about who could enter the workshop and

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when and what they were to wear. This is the

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story of how those swords were made, and of the

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smiths who refined their forging into a subtle and revered art.

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The sword has a long history in Japan. Straight double

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edged blades came first brought in from the mainland, copied

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at home, set into shrines as treasures of the early courts.

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For several hundred years, these straight swords were the swords

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of Japan. The curved blade came later. It seems to

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have settled into its mature form somewhere in the late

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tenth and eleventh centuries, in the hands of smiths working

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for the rising warrior class. Whether the curve came from

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the way the steel cooled, or from the wishes of

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the riders who used it, or from both, is not known.

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But once it had appeared, it stayed. From that time on,

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the sword had a recognizable shape, a gentle arc, a

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single cutting edge, a long grip wrapped for two hands.

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Schools of smiths grew up around it. Some worked in

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the old province of Bizen on the inland sea. Others

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worked in Yamato, near the ancient capital. Still others worked

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in Sociu on the coast east of where the city

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of Tokyo now stands. Each school had its own ways,

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passed down master to apprentice for generations. The sword was

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not only a weapon. It was, in time a treasure,

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a gift between lords, an heirloom passed through families, an

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object kept on a stand in the alcove of a

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quiet room. The best blades were given names. Some of

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those names are still known to day. But the making

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was the heart of it, and the making began long

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before any hammer touched any steel. The first thing the

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smith needed was the right kind of iron. In most

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of the world, iron was smelted from rock like ore

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dug from mines, broken up heated with charcoal in tall furnaces.

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Japan had little of that kind of oree. What Japan

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had in many of its rivers was a fine black sand.

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The sand was heavy, it was rich in iron. The

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old smelters had learned over a very long time how

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to turn it into steel. They did it in a

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low clay furnace called a tatara. The furnace was a

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long box of clay, built fresh for each smelt, with

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bellows along its sides. Into it went layer after layer

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of the black sand and charcoal all night. For three

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days and three nights. Men worked the bellows in shifts.

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The fire was kept burning. The master smelter watched the

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color of the flame and the sound of the air,

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and added more sand or more charcoal as he judged.

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At the end of the smelt, the clay furnace was

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broken open. Inside lay a great rough lump of bloom,

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part slag, part iron, part steel, of different qualities, all

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fused together. This lump was called the bloom. It might

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weigh two tons. It was dragged out, cooled and broken

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up with hammers. The pieces were then sorted by eye

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by the master. Some pieces were too soft, others were

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brittle and full of trapped slag, and a few the

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precious ones were a clean, dense, high carbon steel with

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a bright crystalline brake. When snapped. That steel was called tamahaganeh,

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which means roughly jewel steel. The jewel steel was what

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the swordsmith wanted. It was sold to him in small,

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flat pieces, like broken biscuit, each piece smaller than a hand.

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The whole long process of the smelt had been done

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so that he could begin his own very different work.

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A single sword would use only a few pounds of

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this steel. Only a small part of what entered the

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smelter reached the smith. The smith chose his pieces carefully,

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weighed them, set them aside, and waited for a clear

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day to begin. The forge itself was usually a small

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wooden building set a little apart from the smith's home.

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Inside was a low floor of beaten earth. In the

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center was the hearth, a shallow clay basin sunk into

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the floor with bellows on one side, worked by hand

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or by foot. Above the hearth. At the start of

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the work, the smith would hang a fresh straw rope.

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From the rope hung folded white paper streamers cut into

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a clean stepped shape. The rope and the streamers marked

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the forge as a place of ris ritual set aside

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from ordinary use. The smith and his apprentices, before beginning

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the most important stages of the work, would bathe and

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put on clean white clothes, and offer salt and rice

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at a small shelf shrine in the corner of the building.

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It is easy from a distance to imagine this as

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solemn or grand. It was not. It was ordinary for them.

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It was the way one began a piece of work

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whose outcome could not be hurried, and which depended on

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many small things going right in order. The rituals were

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part of the working day, like the sweeping of the

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floor and the setting out of the tools, and the

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long heating of the charcoal until it had the right glow.

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The smith was called the khajie. He was usually a

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man working in a family tradition, often the son of

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the last master or the adopted son of a smith

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who had no son of his own around him. Worked

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two or three apprentices. The senior apprentice might have been

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with him for ten years. The youngest might be a

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boy of fourteen, just learning to keep the fire. Even

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the apprentices did most of the heavy hammering. The master

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held the tongs, set the angle, judged the heat. He

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was nearly silent while working. A nod was enough to

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bring the next blow. A small movement of the tongs

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told the apprentice where to strike. Visitors who watched the

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forge from the doorway often said the work seemed slow,

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and then realized that every blow was placed. The charcoal

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was pine charcoal, made specially. The water in the slack

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tub was river water. The anvil was a heavy block

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of iron set into a section of tree trunk buried

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in the floor. The hammers were of several weights. Tongs

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of many sizes hung on the wall. There were small chisels, files,

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and a long flat block where the cooling blade could

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be set down. Along the back wall, dust collected on

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a low shelf where last season's chisels still waited to

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be sharpened. A broom of bound twigs leaned in the corner.

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A square of cotton cloth, stained and folded, sat on

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a stool by the door. These were the tools. The

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rest of it lived in the smith's hands and in

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his eye. Now we come to the long, slow, central work,

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the folding. This is the part for which the Japanese

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sword is best known, and the part that is most

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often misunderstood. It's worth going through slowly in the order

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it happened. The smith began by gathering his small flat

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pieces of jewel steel. He laid them out on a

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flat plate of iron. He stacked them piece on piece

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into a small block about the size of a thick

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paperback book. He wrapped this block in a thin sheet

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of soft iron, like a packet. He coated the whole

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thing with wet clay and sprinkled it with rice straw ash,

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which would help the steel weld and protect it from

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the air. The packet went into the fire. The bellows

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worked steadily. The packet glowed dull red, then bright red,

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then orange, then a clean, pale yellow white. The smith

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watched the color with great care. Too cool and the

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pieces inside would not fuse. Too hot and the steel

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would burn and good carbon would be lost to the air.

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When the color was right, the packet was lifted out

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and set on the anvil. The apprentices struck it fast

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and firm, with measured blows. The loose pieces of steel

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inside welded together under the hammer into a single dense bar.

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This was the first welld The bar went back into

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the fire. When it was ready again, the smith set

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a small cold chisel along its center and made a notch.

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The apprentices struck. The bar folded back on itself like

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a piece of warm clay, one half over the other.

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The two halves were welded together with more blows. Where

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there had been one layer, there were now two. This

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was the fold. Then the bar was heated again and

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folded again. Two layers became four, Four became eight, eight

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became sixteen. It sometimes said that the Japanese smith folded

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his steel a thousand times. A thousand folds would have

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left him with only a thin film. The number of

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folds was usually somewhere between ten and sixteen, but because

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each fold doubled the layers, the count rose very quickly.

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Ten folds made over one thousand layers, fifteen folds made

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over thirty thousand, sixteen made more than sixty thousand. The

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famous number many thousands of layers was real. The way

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it was reached was simpler than the legend y fold.

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At all two reasons. The first was to spread out

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and slowly remove the impurities that had come through from

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the smelter. Each weld squeezed a little more slag out

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at the edges. Each fold gave the smith another chance

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to set right anything uneven. Step by step, the steel

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grew cleaner, finer, and more us uniform. The second reason

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was the grain. The folding gave the finished steel a

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layered structure, very fine, almost invisible to the naked eye,

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that would later show once the blade was polished and

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treated as a faint pattern in the metal. That pattern

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was called the harder the skin. Different schools of smiths

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folded in different directions and so produced different skins. Some

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looked like running water, others like the grain of pine,

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others like small clouds. A trained eye could read the

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skin and tell from across a room which province a

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blade had come from. The folding took most of a

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day for a single bar, sometimes longer. The fire had

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to be tended through every heat. The bellows worked at

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a steady pace, never rushed between welds. The smith might

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pause to wipe his face, to take a sip of

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cold water, to look at his apprentices, to listen to

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the fire. After the folding was complete on one bar,

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the smith would set it aside and begin another, for

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he wanted in the end two pieces of folded steel.

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The two pieces were of different kinds. The first piece

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was folded many times until it was very hard. This

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would become the outer skin and the cutting edge of

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the sword. It was called the hard steel. The second

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piece was folded fewer times and was kept softer with

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less carbon. This would become the inner core of the sword.

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It was called the soft core. A sword made only

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of hard steel would have a beautiful edge, but it

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would also be brittle. It could shatter on a strong blow.

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A sword made only of soft steel would be tough,

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but its edge would dull quickly. The old Japanese answer

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was to use both in layers, so that the finished

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blade had a hard outside that could be sharpened to

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a razor and a soft inside that could bend a

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little and absorb a blow without breaking. The smith took

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his bar of hard steel, heated it, and worked it

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into a long, flat u shape, like a folded sandwich,

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open at one long edge. Into the open edge, he

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slid his bar of soft core. He welded the assembly

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together with more heats and more blows. Now there was

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a single long bar, soft inside, hard outside. This bar,

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still short and thick, was the unborn sword. From here

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the work changed. Now the smith began to draw the out.

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With every heat, the apprentices struck along its length, lengthening it,

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slowly narrowing it, shaping it. The thick block became a

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long bar. The long bar became thinner and longer. Still

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at one end, the smith left more metal that would

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become the tang, the part hidden inside the handle. Along

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the length, he began to suggest the line of the

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back and the line of the edge, and the long

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flat plane between them. This stage took several days. Heat hammer, look,

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00:17:37,839 --> 00:17:43,480
heat hammer, look again. The shape grew under the hands slowly.

240
00:17:44,079 --> 00:17:46,680
By the end there was something that could be called

241
00:17:46,720 --> 00:17:51,319
a sword, although it was still rough, still gray, still

242
00:17:51,400 --> 00:17:56,279
without its final curve, still without its temper. The smith

243
00:17:56,440 --> 00:18:01,079
then took up small chisels and files, cleaned the surfaces,

244
00:18:01,599 --> 00:18:05,599
even the edges, set the long shallow ridge that runs

245
00:18:05,640 --> 00:18:09,119
down each side of a finished blade. He cut the

246
00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:12,480
slot for the future handle. He filed the back to

247
00:18:12,519 --> 00:18:16,720
its proper shape. He worked often alone, now by lamp light,

248
00:18:17,279 --> 00:18:21,480
sometimes for many evenings in a row. When this was done,

249
00:18:21,559 --> 00:18:24,759
he had a finished blade in every way but one.

250
00:18:25,319 --> 00:18:29,440
It still had no curve and no hard edge. Both

251
00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:32,400
of those came together in a single moment at the

252
00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:38,240
next stage. The voice rests for now. The next stage

253
00:18:38,400 --> 00:18:42,319
was the tempering. It was the most uncertain part of

254
00:18:42,359 --> 00:18:45,440
the whole process, and the part the smith feared most

255
00:18:47,079 --> 00:18:49,519
years of work could be lost in a few seconds.

256
00:18:49,519 --> 00:18:54,480
At the quench, the smith began by preparing a special clay.

257
00:18:55,519 --> 00:18:58,880
The recipe was different in every workshop and was usually

258
00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:04,039
kept private. It was a mix of clay, charcoal, powder,

259
00:19:04,359 --> 00:19:08,440
and sometimes a little crushed stone, blended with water to

260
00:19:08,480 --> 00:19:13,240
the thickness of soft butter. The smith painted this clay

261
00:19:13,279 --> 00:19:16,720
over the whole blade with a small brush, but he

262
00:19:16,799 --> 00:19:20,319
did not paint it evenly. Along the back of the

263
00:19:20,359 --> 00:19:23,240
blade and over most of its width. He laid the

264
00:19:23,279 --> 00:19:28,599
clay thickly along the cutting edge in a long, thin strip.

265
00:19:29,119 --> 00:19:34,000
He laid only a very thin film. In places he

266
00:19:34,119 --> 00:19:37,960
might leave the very edge bare. The pattern of the

267
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:43,160
clay was the smith's signature. Some smiths painted a long,

268
00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:49,559
even line, Others painted soft waves. Others still painted small

269
00:19:49,599 --> 00:19:55,200
islands or shapes like distant mountains. The clay was left

270
00:19:55,240 --> 00:20:00,160
to dry. The blade now looked strange, like a long,

271
00:20:00,319 --> 00:20:04,240
pale gray leaf, with one slim line of dark metal

272
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:09,279
showing along its edge. While the clay dried, the smith

273
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:14,160
made his fire ready. He used fresh charcoal, well burned

274
00:20:14,200 --> 00:20:19,640
down to give a clean, even heat. The forge was darkened,

275
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:25,000
with shutters drawn or lamps put out. This was on purpose.

276
00:20:26,160 --> 00:20:28,559
The smith needed to see the color of the steel

277
00:20:28,599 --> 00:20:32,039
as it heated, and the smallest light from outside would

278
00:20:32,079 --> 00:20:36,920
confuse his eye in the dim forge. The blade was

279
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:40,559
set into the bed of coals, edged down, and turned

280
00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:46,799
slowly along its length. The smith watched. He was looking

281
00:20:46,839 --> 00:20:51,759
for one particular color, a warm, even glow that the

282
00:20:51,799 --> 00:20:55,319
old smiths described as the color of the moon in February,

283
00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:59,920
or the color of a young leaf in spring. Eat

284
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:04,680
smith had his own description. The color was not very bright.

285
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:10,319
Brighter would mean too hot, duller would mean too cool.

286
00:21:12,039 --> 00:21:15,160
When the color was right along the entire length of

287
00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:17,960
the blade, the smith lifted it from the fire in

288
00:21:18,039 --> 00:21:22,720
a single smooth movement and plunged it edge first into

289
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:26,240
the long wooden trough of water that waited beside the hearth.

290
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:33,680
The water hissed, steam rose. The blade was held under

291
00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:38,440
for a few seconds, and then drawn out. Two things

292
00:21:38,519 --> 00:21:42,759
happened in that moment. The first was that the thin edge,

293
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:46,680
with only a film of clay over it, cooled almost instantly.

294
00:21:48,119 --> 00:21:52,079
The steel there was locked into a very hard form.

295
00:21:52,519 --> 00:21:56,000
The thick back, under its heavy coat of clay, cooled

296
00:21:56,119 --> 00:22:01,640
much more slowly and stayed in a softer, tougher form.

297
00:22:01,839 --> 00:22:04,920
So the sword was now hard along its cutting edge

298
00:22:05,279 --> 00:22:09,559
and soft along its back, in a single unbroken piece

299
00:22:09,599 --> 00:22:14,480
of steel. The second was that the sudden cooling pulled

300
00:22:14,519 --> 00:22:19,559
the blade. The hard edge contracted differently from the soft back.

301
00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:24,799
The whole long blade bent in a single, quiet motion

302
00:22:25,279 --> 00:22:28,519
into the gentle curve that a katana has always had.

303
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:34,039
The curve was not hammered in. It was made by

304
00:22:34,039 --> 00:22:37,839
the steel itself in the moment of the quench, as

305
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:40,680
the difference between the two halves of its own body

306
00:22:40,839 --> 00:22:45,680
set the curve. If all had gone well, the smith

307
00:22:45,799 --> 00:22:50,440
now held a curved, hardened blade in his hand. If

308
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:53,200
it had not gone well, he held a cracked blade,

309
00:22:53,839 --> 00:22:56,119
or a blade that had warped in the wrong direction,

310
00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:59,559
or a blade with a small floor along its edge

311
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:04,079
that no later work could remove. In that case, the

312
00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:07,359
blade would be set aside and the smith would begin

313
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:11,559
again with new steel. It is said that even the

314
00:23:11,599 --> 00:23:15,440
great masters lost perhaps one blade in three at the quench,

315
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:18,599
and that the loss was simply part of the cost

316
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:22,640
of the work. Where the painted clay had been thick

317
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:26,000
and where it had been thin was now visible in

318
00:23:26,039 --> 00:23:30,119
the metal itself as a soft, wavering line running along

319
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:34,599
the blade, just above the edge. That line was the

320
00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:40,200
harm on the temper line. It was the visible boundary

321
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:44,640
between the hard edge and the soft back. It was,

322
00:23:44,759 --> 00:23:48,079
for many lovers of the sword, the single most beautiful

323
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:52,720
feature of any blade. The smith would look at his

324
00:23:52,839 --> 00:23:55,880
cooling blade for a long moment before setting it down.

325
00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:01,720
He would not say much. Rentices would clean up around

326
00:24:01,799 --> 00:24:09,519
him quietly. From here, the smith's main work was almost done.

327
00:24:09,759 --> 00:24:13,559
There were still small things to do, final filing, a

328
00:24:13,599 --> 00:24:17,000
final straightening with gentle blows on a hard wood block,

329
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:21,599
cutting the slot through which the handlepin would later pass,

330
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:27,240
and carving his name into the tang. The tang was

331
00:24:27,279 --> 00:24:30,599
the part that would be hidden forever inside the wooden handle.

332
00:24:32,559 --> 00:24:35,799
The signature went there because the smith did not need

333
00:24:35,839 --> 00:24:38,400
any one but the maker of the next handle to

334
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:44,680
see it. That was the old habit. When the smith's

335
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:47,960
work was finished, the blade was wrapped in soft paper

336
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:52,680
and taken away. It did not come back to him polished.

337
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:59,240
A Japanese sword was polished by another craftsman. Entirely. The

338
00:24:59,279 --> 00:25:02,400
polisher's tr raid was as old and as exacting as

339
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:07,319
the smith's. He had his own workshop, his own stones,

340
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:11,960
his own apprentices, and his own long training, which was

341
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:16,160
not the same as the smith's training. He began with

342
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:20,799
the roughest stone and ended with the finest. There might

343
00:25:20,839 --> 00:25:24,440
be a dozen stones in the sequence, each one finer

344
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:28,400
than the last. The last stones were not really for

345
00:25:28,519 --> 00:25:32,599
grinding at all, but for bringing out the surface, for

346
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:37,079
revealing what the smith had hidden in the steel. The

347
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:41,200
polisher worked seated on a low stool, with the blade

348
00:25:41,279 --> 00:25:44,359
clamped at one end and supported by his feet at

349
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,559
the other, and a small pad held in one hand.

350
00:25:49,319 --> 00:25:52,319
He drew the blade slowly down the wet face of

351
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:58,599
the stone, again and again, in long, even strokes. The

352
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:04,039
water on the stone clouded gray, then pale. He stopped

353
00:26:04,039 --> 00:26:07,960
often to look. He held the blade up to a

354
00:26:08,039 --> 00:26:11,440
lamp and tilted it and turned it and looked along

355
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:15,799
its length. He could see things in the metal that

356
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:20,839
nobody who had not been trained could see. The final

357
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:25,039
stones were small, They were no larger than a finger nail.

358
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:29,799
He held them between thumb and finger and rubbed them

359
00:26:29,799 --> 00:26:32,599
along the surface of the blade with a slurry of

360
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:38,920
water and powdered stone by hand for many hours. As

361
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:41,920
he worked, the layered skin of the steel began to

362
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:47,160
appear like a faint cloud pattern in the surface. The

363
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:51,160
hard temper line began to glow softly against the darker

364
00:26:51,279 --> 00:26:55,680
back the blade, which had come from the forge a

365
00:26:55,799 --> 00:27:03,039
long gray leaf slowly became a cut tana. A full

366
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:07,160
polish on a single blade might take a polisher three weeks,

367
00:27:07,279 --> 00:27:12,799
working every day. For very fine blades, it might take longer.

368
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:19,680
The polisher charged accordingly. The smith and the polisher together

369
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:23,000
had spent between them the best part of two or

370
00:27:23,079 --> 00:27:28,480
three months on a single sword. When the polish was finished,

371
00:27:28,759 --> 00:27:32,000
the blade was passed on again, this time to the

372
00:27:32,039 --> 00:27:36,599
fittings makers. The fittings were the parts that turned a

373
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:41,920
bare blade into a usable, wearable sword. There was the

374
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:45,599
handle of wood, wrapped first in the rough skin of

375
00:27:45,599 --> 00:27:48,880
a sting ray, and then bound with silk or cotton,

376
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:54,160
cord in a careful crossing pattern. There was the small

377
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:57,599
disk that sat between the handle and the blade, that

378
00:27:57,839 --> 00:28:03,640
suba the guard. It was usually of iron, sometimes of

379
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:08,680
softer metal, often decorated with small pierced and chiseled designs.

380
00:28:10,599 --> 00:28:14,839
There was the scabbard of light wood, lacquered in plain

381
00:28:15,039 --> 00:28:18,559
black or in deep red, and fitted closely to the

382
00:28:18,559 --> 00:28:21,400
blade so that it slid in and out with a

383
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:27,160
soft sound and stayed in place by friction. These parts

384
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:31,759
were made by separate craftsmen in separate workshops, all of

385
00:28:31,799 --> 00:28:34,880
them as serious about their trade as the smith and

386
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:41,160
the polisher were about theirs. The handlebinder, the guard maker,

387
00:28:41,799 --> 00:28:47,240
the scabbard maker, the lacquer worker, the metal fittings man

388
00:28:47,519 --> 00:28:50,759
who cast and chiseled the small caps at each end

389
00:28:50,799 --> 00:28:57,559
of the handle. None touched the steel. None was a smith.

390
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:04,319
Each did one thing, and did it for his whole life.

391
00:29:04,599 --> 00:29:08,440
When all of this was finished, the sword was complete.

392
00:29:08,839 --> 00:29:11,480
It had been the work of perhaps a dozen people

393
00:29:11,799 --> 00:29:16,720
across many weeks. It had begun as a furnace full

394
00:29:16,799 --> 00:29:21,079
of black river sand, and ended as a single curved

395
00:29:21,119 --> 00:29:25,720
blade resting on a stand of dark wood, the temper

396
00:29:25,839 --> 00:29:28,839
line softly visible along its edge in the light of

397
00:29:28,839 --> 00:29:33,319
a lamp. The history of the great smiths is long.

398
00:29:34,839 --> 00:29:41,960
Most are forgotten, a few are still known. The most

399
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,839
famous of all is the smith who worked under the

400
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:51,400
name Massa Mune in the province of Soshu in the

401
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:56,319
late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The dates of his

402
00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:00,440
life are not certain. The sword tradition gives him a

403
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:05,759
long life and many pupils. He was probably a real man,

404
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:09,519
but more swords are attributed to him than one man

405
00:30:09,559 --> 00:30:13,400
could have made, and the legend has grown around the work.

406
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,839
His blades were famous for the quality of their steel.

407
00:30:19,079 --> 00:30:22,920
The pattern in the metal was said to be especially fine.

408
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,839
Many small bright dots scattered through the body of the blade,

409
00:30:27,039 --> 00:30:30,680
like stars set against the soft cloud of the skin.

410
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:36,240
Several of his swords have survived. A small number are

411
00:30:36,319 --> 00:30:39,960
kept to day in shrines and museums, and are taken

412
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:42,640
out only a few times a year to be examined

413
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:48,920
and aired. Long after Masamuney's death, a story grew up

414
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:53,480
that compared him to another famous smith called Mura Masa.

415
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,960
The story said that Massa Mune's blades were peaceful blades,

416
00:30:59,759 --> 00:31:04,400
and that Mura Masas were restless ones, and that one

417
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:07,039
could tell which was which by placing them in a

418
00:31:07,079 --> 00:31:13,000
stream and watching how leaves drifted past. It's a good story.

419
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:18,839
It's almost certainly a later invention. The two smiths probably

420
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:22,599
lived in different eras, but the story was told and

421
00:31:22,759 --> 00:31:28,160
retold for centuries, and is still told today because people

422
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:31,319
who love the sword like to think of the smith's

423
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:36,119
character living on in his work. Other names from the

424
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:40,400
long history of the craft are still remembered too. The

425
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:45,519
smiths of Bizen on the Inland Sea produced more swords

426
00:31:45,559 --> 00:31:49,359
across the centuries than any other school, and many of

427
00:31:49,359 --> 00:31:55,079
them are kept in collections today. The smiths of Yamato,

428
00:31:55,319 --> 00:31:58,559
near the old capital of Nara, worked for the great

429
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:04,640
Buddhist temples. The smiths of Soshu were known for boldness

430
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:09,799
and a strong temper line. Each school had its own habits,

431
00:32:10,359 --> 00:32:15,920
its own family lines, its own students, its own quiet rivalries.

432
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:20,160
A great smith might take in only one or two

433
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:25,039
new pupils in his lifetime. Those pupils might wait ten

434
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,799
years before being allowed to forge a finished blade under

435
00:32:28,839 --> 00:32:34,480
their own name. The trade moved slowly from one generation

436
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:38,400
to the next. A pupil might in turn pass it

437
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,240
on to his own son, or to a pupil of

438
00:32:41,279 --> 00:32:46,119
his own. In this way the knowledge crossed many centuries,

439
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:50,960
passed by hand rather than by writing. Much of it

440
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:56,319
lived only in the hands. The craft reached its high

441
00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:00,759
point in the medieval centuries. After the long Wars of

442
00:33:00,799 --> 00:33:04,880
the sixteenth century, the country settled into a long peace.

443
00:33:06,079 --> 00:33:10,160
Swords were still made and still worn, but they were

444
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:14,559
worn more as a sign of rank than as working weapons.

445
00:33:14,599 --> 00:33:20,119
The smiths continued their work, the polishers continued theirs, the

446
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:25,240
fittings became more decorative. Some of the most beautiful guards

447
00:33:25,279 --> 00:33:27,759
in the collections of the world were made in this

448
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:33,680
long quiet time. Then, in the late nineteenth century, the

449
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:39,079
world of the smiths changed almost overnight. The old warrior

450
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:45,079
class was abolished. Wearing swords in public was forbidden. The

451
00:33:45,119 --> 00:33:50,359
market for new swords collapsed, Most of the workshops closed.

452
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:55,079
Many of the old smiths laid down their hammers and

453
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:58,960
turned to other work, to the making of kitchen knives

454
00:33:59,119 --> 00:34:04,640
or farm tools, or simple iron work for daily life.

455
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:07,319
For a generation or two it looked as though the

456
00:34:07,359 --> 00:34:13,119
craft might be lost. It survived. A small number of

457
00:34:13,159 --> 00:34:17,480
families kept making swords through the lean years. More out

458
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:22,199
of stubbornness than out of need. In the twentieth century,

459
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:26,400
the government and a small group of collectors helped set

460
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,199
up training programs and rules for the use of the

461
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:34,760
old jewel steel, and ways of teaching young smiths the

462
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:40,320
older techniques. A few of the great smelters were rebuilt,

463
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:45,039
the long furnaces of the Tatara were lit again on

464
00:34:45,119 --> 00:34:50,079
a small scale in the mountains. To day, a small

465
00:34:50,199 --> 00:34:54,519
number of smiths, perhaps two hundred or so, still make

466
00:34:54,679 --> 00:34:59,079
swords in the old way. They are licensed, and the

467
00:34:59,159 --> 00:35:01,840
number of blades each may make in a year is

468
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:06,559
limited by law. The work is much as it ever was.

469
00:35:07,599 --> 00:35:11,280
There is the same kind of clay forge, the same

470
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:15,599
kind of pine charcoal, the same kind of jewel steel,

471
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:21,199
the same long days of folding, the same careful painting

472
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:26,159
of the clay, the same dark, quiet evening of the quench.

473
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:33,360
The straw rope still hangs above the fire, the paper

474
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:37,519
streamers hang from it. The bellows work in steady time.

475
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:42,360
The senior apprentice strikes when the master holds the tongs

476
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:46,519
in a certain way, And a boy of fourteen somewhere

477
00:35:47,159 --> 00:35:51,400
is still learning to keep the fire. Even when the

478
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:55,760
day's work is done. The forge is swept, the tools

479
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:59,199
are set back on their hooks. The unfinished blade is

480
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:02,519
wrapped in soft paper and placed on the long shelf

481
00:36:02,559 --> 00:36:05,840
at the back of the workshop. The fire is banked

482
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:10,199
down to a low, even glow. The lamps are turned down.

483
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:15,320
The master pauses at the door, looks once around the room,

484
00:36:15,679 --> 00:36:20,519
and slides the door closed. Outside, the evening has come.

485
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:25,840
The mountains stand quiet inside the forge. In the dark,

486
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:31,320
the embers settle, soft and orange and slow.