The First Smith.
Once long ago, in the days before the metal sleeping in the ground had exhausted its curses, the people were happy and content. There was strife, but the grannies were full and every house had a shrine and the people were secure in their knowledge that they had the blessings of the spirits. Even as the men of thunder came to pillage and raid, the people were content, even as greed and war festered in the hearts of our neighbors the people were content, and each day was much like the one before it.
Until one day, something unusual happened. Somehow the greatest artisan of the age had won a great boon from the spirts. How he had done so a mystery to all, some say he crafted a great gift in a show of piety, others that he solved an intractable riddle in a show of wisdom, or perhaps he never earned it at all, and Crow sought to teach the people a lesson. How it came to but is known only to the spirts, but somehow the greatest of the craftsman was gifted a single Spark of brilliance taken from the forge of the gods and a cryptic warning from its giver.
"The Spark, like all flames must be fed."
At first, the craftsman was overjoyed. Gleefully he burned his wealth, stoking the spark to a brilliant red glow, driving him to create masterpiece after masterpiece, until he was lauded among the people as truly without peer. But every time the pile of food needed to be higher, and the Spark would cool more quickly. Soon the craftsman was offering the very masterpieces he created to the flame, stoking it to still greater heights but rendering it ever hungrier.
Soon the man began to fear that the spark would gutter and die, leaving him with naught but ashes and memories of lost glory. Every day he would create a dozen and one great works, and feed a dozen to his spark. Until one night, staring at the fading glow of the divine he spoke of his doubts. Airing his fears where none but the spark could hear them, and as he spoke he could feel his fears vanish into nothing with bursts of heat, as the Spark began to burn with a greater intensity than he had ever seen. Stoked to still greater heights by the doubts he had fed it.
Again the man was delighted, and without doubt or hesitation, he moved to embrace this new fuel. Feeding the Spark his every ounce of hesitation and fear. Without hesitance to hold him back, and with his spark stoked to a yellow heat, his works became both far greater and far stranger. Ever more bizarre materials would he throw into his works, embracing every whim with no hesitation. Until one day, he used a strange red stone and was inspired. Imbued as he was with a fragment of the divine he could recognize it for what it was, the faded remnants of divine wrath locked away within the earth. This he declared, would be his legacy.
forsaking lesser works he focused the entirety of his brilliance on the red stone but for the first time his divine gift failed. No mere skill could awaken the power, and the man was enraged. Heedless of the cost he stole the sacred dead from their resting place, and fed their bodies to his flame, firing it to a baleful yellow glow. using forbidden secrets and the ash's of their bones he compelled their spirits to tell him all they could have land of the gods. The man grew powerful, and the people grow fearful as the omens spoke of the spirits outrage. but still it was not enough, still, the weapons of the gods slept. But he had ripped form the spirts the nature of the might sleeping within the earth, for it was the star metal itself that he sought to awaken.
stealing into the scared rainbow bridge, passed the sleeping and content guards the man stole from the people the sacred fragments of a fallen star, and fleeing unseen into the wilderness. Fleeing deep into the earth, into a grand and unknown cave in the red cliffs the man set to work. Calling to the sleeping power in the red stones, seeking to rouse it to wakefulness with the divine might of his boon and the power of the still waking star. feeding half the star metal to work his flame to a terrible white furry, and crafting the other half into the first smiths hammer he set about his task. The stone groaned , and wept and stirred but would not wake. With his goal so close the man forsake what few crumbs of sense he had left. Bit by bit he fed all that he was to the flame, His mind his heart, his very name and face joined all of his wealth and works on the divine pyre he had stoked the spark to. Until at that he had left was his mad purpose and the spark burned with an unearthly blue flame, then with a terrible wailing and darkening of the sky he succeeded. Burning away the divine wrath of the sleeping metal it was born anew, and the first mortal iron was forged. The first smith held up his masterpiece, and the people wailed as the last dyeing ebbs of it's curse wrought havoc upon them, ripping away the blessings of the sprits and leaving them naked before the greed and bloodlust of there neighbors.
Driven by the cooling embers of his purpose the man fled from the cave, to show the people what he had wrought, but all who beheld him fled in terror For after burning so much of himself the Smith was far more a sprit than a man and none could stand before his terrible continuance. Again and again he sought to find someone to pass on the knowledge, to fulfill the purpose that was all he had left. Until at last he came to the king of the people. The king alone stood fast before the strange sprit with a face like a forges mouth and a glowing staff in it's charred skeletal hand. The First Smith with his dying breath, thrust the staff of iron into the kings hand, and whispered the secret of iron into the kings ear, crumbling to ash as he spoke the final word.
To this day the shamans still argue over what become of the First Smith after that. Some say his soul was poorly received, punished harshly by the dead he had transgressed against, others say that nothing of him was left, that his very soul had been consumed leaving naught but hot ash to arrive in the land of the dead, and still others say his very mortality was consumed and he arrived in the realm of the spirits as the mad and faceless god of the forge, the truth of the matter is known only to crow. But what is known is that the people where no longer content. Without the blessings of the spirits the evils of the world sought to overwhelm them, and they faced them alone, but they faced them with iron in hand.
