Viking Age Tools and the Mighty Mästermyr Tool Chest

[@tylersdog]

One of the aspects of humans that most delights me is their continuity: as you noted, these tools still exist and are still used. They rarely need tweaking: they've had all their design flaws worked out and eliminated long, long ago. Terrific video, and a lovely cat too.

[@musewinter9369]

Honestly, I recognize and have used some of these. It was really cool.

[@lenabreijer1311]

Back in the 50s in the small village in the Netherlands there was a guy who came around every few months to repair pots. I believe he was Romi , I was a little kid at the time. Mom liked them and we had bits of children's furniture and baskets from them too. The thing with beauty is that people decorated their personal space and belongings, there were the long winter evenings to get through. Folk art may be a bit simpler but it was lovingly done to create joy in the home.

[@lindastrout695]

I suspect the modern people who don't think everyday people in the past had nice stuff just forget there wasn't a lot of other things to do for fun. You aren't reading, gaming, scrolling etc. After you have gotten food, made some alcohol, had some adult fun time, took care of kids, you might as well decorate the stuff you own.

[@emom358]

I grew up in the 1960s in suburban Chicago. There was a lovely man who came around periodically to sharpen and repair knives. He just walked the neighbourhood, pushing his cart, and ringing a bell.

[@foxruneec]

Glad you are the kind of person that makes friends with cats 🐈‍⬛

[@TheWelshViking]

I live to serve my feline betters

[@tinmanbrigade7304]

People always tend to focus on finds related to weaponry from the past because they find it cool. I find the everyday items that tell us how people in the past lived and worked cool because they can show that in many ways the only thing that separates us from them is time.

[@canucknancy4257]

A blacksmith, a carpenter, and a locksmith walk into a bar...or was that a bog? It's amazing how little many of the tools have changed over the centuries. That was a fascinating video. Thanks again, Jimmy.

[@Siansonea]

I'm impressed by your ability to focus on presenting things so well in the presence of cat friends. I would be too distracted. 😁

[@linr8260]

Horn combs are amazing. I own a couple of modern ones and they're just a delight to use.

[@marcusdire8057]

"Green spaces combined with pints" sounds like my description of heaven. 😃

[@Bildgesmythe]

I was going to say the same thing!

[@Bluebelle51]

I have a friend who is a blacksmith, he has a sign in his shop that says, "Don't sweat the petty stuff, pet the sweaty stuff" I am so gonna embroider that on something

[@Poohze01]

Swords & bling are all very well, but tools are really exciting!

[@gloriaash7511]

I lpve your appreciation of cats. “That’s someone’s pet, don’t be daft.” 😆 As a lover of cats I 100% immediately understood that you had no intention of stealing someone’s cat.

[@michellecornum5856]

WOW! okay, the firs thing that got me was the files and rasps, and then the tin snips. The antler clamp -- we use those all the time in jewelry making -- AND THEY STILL LOOK THE SAME!!! Best to you and all your cat friends!

[@TheWelshViking]

Thanks Michelle! I know, it’s uncanny, isn’t it? Love it so much!

[@michellecornum5856]

@@TheWelshViking It would be so cool to find the absolute origin of these tools. When and where did the first prototype appear. 🤔I wonder the same thing about scissors, to be honest. I know that a lot of peoples have had scissors for a very, very long time.

[@EmilReiko]

Still, even here in Denmark, on a quiet night - if you listen carefully in the direction of Sweden you can hear the dude who lost the chest scream profanities and curses

[@HosCreates]

🤣

[@vincentbriggs1780]

That was fascinating, and I'm delighted by the expression "It puts to bed - it puts a pillow over the head and smothers to death the idea that..".

[@GilTheDragon]

Something worth noting is that when one makes things by hand one adds little flairs whenever one can (if only to not be bored; but also bc ppl take pride in their work) Like the reason why no two gargoyles are alike is because it's the same effort to make them all different & it is less monotonous. It's where the work is unavoidably monotonous (like in mosaics, like in ring mail, like in lots of tiny uniformly shaped garnets, like in book copying) that we see the HUGE WEALTH It's expensive not just because of the skill but because ppl Will charge a premium for their boredom (often enough to hire apprentices to do the boring bit)

[@sharonkaczorowski8690]

I am now in my 70s. When I was a very young child living in East Texas there was a man who came around door to door to sharpen scissors and knives. I was fascinated by the process and he was happy to have me watch. Wonderful video…I had completely forgotten about him. There a knife and scissor store in S Delaware which has beautiful, fine knives, some hand decorated, as well. The owner does some of that himself and has taught his now adult daughter to do the same. Their knowledge of knives and knife making is astonishing. One of his very useful, beautifully made knives is next to me as as I write this, which I still use . It was, to his amusement, a Mother’s Day gift decades ago. He made some alterations to make it more useful for gardening. They are few and far between, but there are still master craftspeople here and there. Japan has a national treasure approach to its great craftspeople; I wish every country had that.

[@SaszaDerRoyt]

There's something you mentioned that really resonated with something I've noticed as an occasional amateur smith and a regular watcher of blacksmithing videos online, that the basic setup of a smithy is basically unchanging through the millennia. I've seen reconstructed Roman, Viking age and Victorian smithing workshops that a modern smith could instinctively walk into and know the lay of the land, and I reckon if you brought a medieval smith into a modern blacksmith's shop, they'd get the gist of it pretty quickly, though they'd definitely take some time to process how a modern trip hammer doesn't even need a water wheel to work it

[@TheWelshViking]

100%. I love it so much. This is a very good and well made point

[@pamarnold9378]

I was able to see and handle part of a project to recreate the Mastermyr tools. It was amazing. Especially after we found out what it had been insured for (yeek!)

[@Chifaire]

It's wild how the toolbox and everthing in it looks just like the toolboxes I saw growing up, made in the late 19th, early 20th century, and many of the tools still being used not even 25 years ago. I grew up in a rural area here in Sweden and a lot of older relatives and friends of the family had this type of toolboxes. And like you said, many of the tools look just like the ones we use today. I guess if it's not broken, don't fix it.

[@euansmith3699]

The fact that every farm now has a tool chest, rather than having to wait for the Travelling Artisans, is a sign of our great material wealth. Thanks, I hadn't thought of that before. 😄👍

[@WantedVisual]

Normal people not having nice things historically feels especially weird when we have some of those nice things. Forget the viking age, we have the grave goods of children who died, as far as we could tell, very quiet and unremarkable deaths, to very average parents in the neolithic, in Ba'Ja. Infants buried with mother-of-pearl objects--in the middle of a desert. An 8-yo girl, no one's wife, at best just starting to crawl up from the lowest ranks if she worked in a trade, buried with literally thousands of handmade beads on a multi-tiered necklace. Beautiful, intricate, expensive objects were available enough, before we even had writing, that ordinary people could regularly afford to include them in the burials of individuals who had probably contributed little to their acquisition.

[@hive_indicator318]

Editing Jimmy really did a good job with this one! You gotta buy that guy a pint

[@TheWelshViking]

He’ll get basic food and like it

[@judithlashbrook4684]

@@TheWelshViking how very cruel of you! Buy him a pint (even if it's just lime and soda!)!

[@goblincavecrafting]

At a recent gathering of lots of artist blacksmiths, we were chatting about this chest and its contents! And how the tools have hardly changed! I also recently demonstrated mail making to the general public, and the number of people who looked at my pliers and said ‘yeah but they wouldn’t have had tools ‘back in the day’ would they?” Admittedly I was using modern sprung pliers because I value my hands, but basic pliers are just small tongs… Also also, I’d not seen that antler clamp before, and it looks just like a modern jeweller’s hand or ring clamp that’s often used for holding fine objects steady to put details on or file or polish, so that could also be another potential use? Anyway, long comment short, great video, as ever. It’s always a delight to sit down and watch your content - it’s like a seminar with a friendly postgrad at Uni or something :)

[@Lulu-qp4jm]

Yeah, saw the image of the clamp and went, "a jeweler's clamp"

[@eken81]

This really interested me as someone being born and living on Gotland. I feel that skilled craftsmen had a lot to do in the late viking age. Especially as Gotland is known as the island of the hundred churches. Churches built in circa 1200 something, some of which have been found to have been built on the same sites as older wooden churches. The 1200 something churches were built in limestone and wood, still stands, and are still used. Filled with ornamental wood works and wall paintings. Something interesting with the churches are that they stopped in different stages of updating for what was the style at the time, given at what time the parishes money for renovation ran out.

[@beatriceotter8718]

I've been to Scandinavian living history villages with preserved centuries-old houses. The insides tend to be *very* intensely decorated. And granted, that's later than the Viking era; but the environmental and social pressures that led to such highly decorated interiors would have been roughly the same. Winter days are short and cold, and there's only so much work you can do outside, and only so much work you can do inside, and only so long you can sleep. So there's a lot of time to do stuff like "carve cool shapes into the wood" and "paint pictures and designs on the wood." Also, being in pretty surroundings helps your mental health, and the long dark winters are bad for mental health (especially without electric lights), which highly incentivizes people to decorate their walls. So I would be willing to bet quite a lot that even simple peasant huts in the Viking era often were highly carved and/or painted.

[@flyfin108]

look at wwii wood and metal works done in finnish trenches, should give you an idea edit: google "Trench art - handicrafts from the war"

[@Falconeer55]

Video request: Vikings and cats!

[@AmAppleton]

Wasn't the goddess Freya's chariot supposedly pulled by cats?

[@lucienfortner841]

​@@AmAppletonYes, and I've heard that they also gave cats as wedding gifts because of their association with Freya. (Someone please lmk if this is incorrect.)

[@bigbucketlist]

That would be amazing! I periodically go down the rabbit hole of animals having relationships with other animals, and often wonder about the beginnings of the human/dog relationships that shaped both us and them into what we are today. Would love a video on what information exists about human/cat relationships apart from vermin control in settlements!

[@theresaanndiaz3179]

Absolutely fascinating stuff. Low tech isn't necessarily unsophisticated. Why are modern people so invested in thinking ancient people were unskilled? Seriously, there has always been a range of skill levels.

One of my dad's uncles was a blacksmith and his tools looked like this, just better condition because they were in active use. I always find fascinating learning about this more... daily life side of history. The tools people used, the furniture, the toys... Also, not all art is museum worthy, not all decoration is of the highest standard. Plenty of people have small prints and vases in their homes, or some geometrical figures on their cookware. It doesn't mean it's not beautiful or that people doesn't appreciate beauty, it's just that everything has a place & a cost. Plates made of gold might be beautiful and end up in the museum but as plates to serve hot food, they're rather rubbish. I like to think that, just as it happens now, people had the "special item" (cups, dishes, whatever) and the daily stuff. And some people could afford to have super luxurious special items, and some couldn't, but they all appreciated something nice in their homes.

[@FrankStormcatcher]

A good friend of mine is a blacksmith, and one of his most popular items are his hand forged nails. At a Norse-themed event he was vending at, a fella who was participating in the battles walked over, stating that he was told my friend had nails. After being directed to them, he picked one up, looked at it, and then proceeded to empty the bowl into his hand, paid, and went off to repair his shield! Nails have been a standard item ever since.

[@SonsOfLorgar]

Wall hooks with leaf shaped bases are also very easy to sell, especially if you have picked out hand forged nails of a size that fits the hole in the bases of the wall hooks😊 And those hooks are just as fast and cheap to make as the nails!

[@inregionecaecorum]

My great grandfather was a blacksmith in the late Victorian, early twentieth century period, he had a chest (I still use it) and he too made his own tools, it was what you did as a blacksmith back then. He would have recognised a lot of the Viking gear though he did not make the same sort of things himself as Vikings didn't invent the motor car so far as I know and he worked in the early motor trade, making the carbide lamps for the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, or so he told me.

[@TheWelshViking]

Ooh there’s a claim to fame!

[@anieth]

Jimmy, your beard looks so marvelous. You look very happy and healthy. Makes my little heart glad to see you smile at the cats. I love these information videos. In my Bronze Age books, I have sidebars with all the crafts made at the time, like different kind of horse bits, or how to make charcoal, or dyeing plants and carding tools. I wanted to make exciting graphic novels for kids where they could explore a REAL world and learn more about ancient tech. You're doing something similar in your vids--I approve!

[@roxiepoe9586]

When you meow, my cat looks at the computer with an inquiring expression. :)

[@jasminv8653]

Looking like a very cool professor on a college park bench, yet sharing your research with us for free, thank you once again! This is amazing to hear about.

[@keephurn1159]

Talented craftspeople were valued in history! Sure you could buy a thing really well made from a talented craftsman and enjoy that one thing for the rest of your life, or you could coax that same craftsman to come work for you and have really well made goods for years. Not quite the parallel of giving a man a fish vs teaching him to fish I was hoping to make, but I think the point is valid. I'm also fascinated by how the tools that make things are made. Leveling a draw knife so it creates a flat plane, figuring out the ideal angle of the metal for a box plane, adding the diagonal grooves to a rasp, different depth and density on each side... hoo. The experimentation and heritage of knowledge in the best method is amazing.

[@joytee4967]

And let’s not forget the spinners and weavers and embroiderers and felters and such. Yes these were commonplace at the home level, but there were definitely high craftswomen who provided luxury clothes and fabrics and bedding and baby ensembles. The ordinary turned into the extraordinary, no matter when in time humans exist. Excellent video, as always, ❤ from Canada

[@TheCorgiWoman]

Thanks for reminding everyone about fiber workers.We still use the tablet weaving patterns from those old fragments of cloth belts found in burials.

[@emilyrobinson6080]

I love what you said about using like materials to avoid damage in clamping. I do a lot of work with bone and antler as an offshoot to finishing some of what I make as a blacksmith, and one of the things I do is scrimshaw/kohlrosing where designs (like the ring and dot) are cut into bone and a mix of powdered charcoal and wax is applied. To remove the excess, I have a sort of narrow bladed tool made from a horse rib that I use to scrape the surface to remove excess wax and burnish the surface, my logic being its got a rather sharp knife edge on the thin side of the rib but being itself bone, its not going to scratch into the workpiece which by that stage is already nearly complete. The little hand vise is also identical to ones used today except of wood and not antler. A small wedge is driven into the back to tighten the jaws and this produces a very strong but gentle hold without the need for any sort of screw mechanism, and can quickly be undone unlike tightening a strap. I get a certain joy from looking at ancient tools and being able to see exactly what they are and how theyre used despite the massive divide od centuries between myself and the hands that originally used a tool.

[@TheWelshViking]

This is a fascinating insight, thank you very much for sharing it with us :)

[@AndrewHecker85]

@@TheWelshViking for more historical work holding insights, check out Clickspring's period tools for building the antikythera device, it's the same principle. Such a clamp could also be faced with leather or wool for holding easily deformed metals like silver, especially when you had to hold it by an area that has already been shaped or decorated.

[@Shahrezad1]

I work as a Tinsmith/Potter/Blacksmith as a Historical Interpreter, and it was really cool seeing that the tools we use essentially haven't changed over time. Absolutely brilliant information, thank you!

[@jindlespog8045]

Greetings from Splortofax the Unmitigated.

[@SarahGreen523]

It never occurred to me that there might be a band of itinerant craftsmen, but of course it makes sense, especially if you live on an island. That was an incredibly valuable chest for those men. I wonder how it ended up in the lake. As for the kitty, I never thought you would actually steal it, but I do hope you brought him a little snack. Cats are very social and when they meet a cool human, they tell their friends.

[@sonipitts]

Someone upthread suggested it might be a shipwright's chest and that would make a ton of sense given the range of wood and metal-working tools (and how it ended up at the bottom of a lake).

[@barbararowley6077]

Friendly neighbourhood cats are the best! My old neighbour’s cat liked hanging out with me so much I called him TSK (time-share kitty).

[@HosCreates]

Agreed! In my second apartment I had as a newlywed we had a local time share kitty - a lean Grey Tom with white feet. I would feed him and stroke his soft fur . He was a comfort while heavily pregnant. After I delivered my son he disappeared, I miss him. 😢

[@SAOS451316]

I know a thing or two about blacksmithing and would like to make a little correction if you don't mind. The nail plate as you call it, I'd call it a nail header, doesn't make multiple nails at once. If you look closely at the picture each hole is a different size; they're used for differently sized nails. Modern nails are made with wire that has a disk welded to one end and the other end sharpened, but you wouldn't bother using wire to make a nail in the old days for two reasons. One, it's extra work because you already have to hammer your stock material into a elongated pyramid to start the wire-making process. Two, a square nail holds better because it has more perimeter for a given size, thus more gription. You make yourself a long thin shape to make a nail with, and then you cut it off the stock material. You then put it into a hole on your heading tool such that only a bit of it sticks up, and you peen that end over and flip it out of the tool. Ta-da! One nail. In the viking age of course labor was cheap and materials like fuel were expensive. A blacksmith would be making at least one nail a minute and in one heating. Smaller nails cool down faster so they're just as much work as a big nail. When you get to nails smaller than about 2mm in diameter then it starts to become more efficient to use wire. Some of the objects in the chest are still of uncertain purpose as I recall. Blacksmiths do make their own tools usually so the weird objects would have been repurposed from other tasks or made for something specific. The same is true of a modern blacksmith's shop, though of course the tools are all steel now instead of wrought iron with precious proto-steel forge-welded on.

[@AndrewHecker85]

I was also going to comment on the nail header. Incidentally, square nails are also more resistant to backing out, because the tapered profile and chisel shaped tip cuts the wood fibres before bending them, making them hold the nail like a featherboard.

[@SonsOfLorgar]

Correction, modern nails does not have the heads welded on, the head ends are heated to just short of melting, the nails gripped in a machine vice anvil and then pressed flat.

[@SAOS451316]

@@SonsOfLorgar Interesting. I've seen machines that weld the heads on and upon further research it appears there are both hot and cold forging machines to make the heads as well. Perhaps some alloys suit one method over the others or maybe it's to do with the quality of the nails. I would guess that the hot forging method you describe makes the strongest nail heads. Thanks for the little research rabbit hole! :)

[@SAOS451316]

@@AndrewHecker85 That's very true. It's only nails but still it's a shame that the modern manufacturing is a downgrade in functionality.

[@KamikazeKatze666]

When is the video on Viking cats coming out?^^

[@NicholasKonradsen]

i'm an instrument maker, and people seem to have this attitude, even in reenactment communities (in my experience) that people didn't have nicely made instruments in history until like, violins and stuff. Sure, instrument would have been less technically developed in SOME cases but finds like this and other lovelyly made things from EG the viking age shows that there's no reason that nicely made nice-sounding instruments wouldn't have existed back then! I mean we HAVE the trossingen lyre from germany from way before, and ancient mesopotamian bits and bobs as well. I think a lot of it comes down to history = old stuff = yucky

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

Well put! Irrigation systems from the past are a bit like that too - some really sophisticated techniques both in engineering & in community collaboration towards shared goals, and yet a surprising number of people seem to think we have nothing useful to learn from the past when it comes to modern agriculture, and particularly changing climactic conditions...?

[@master_illitrix]

Holy shit, those tongs are amazingly well preserved

[@repeat_defender]

Your cat friends are very cute!

[@jennbeammakes]

Great video. On a similar "thread", also a shout out to the yarnies of history, from the weavers, embroiderers and nalbinders to the handspinners making thread for all of these things (plus the shearers fullers dyers etc of course) I must admit I'd not considered the making of nails, but every one of the crafts we celebrate, whether hard crafts or fabrics etc took so much more effort in the past.

[@chrish2277]

I find cats are good judges of character.

[@anonymousperson4214]

I had the delightful realization near the end of this video that this man/men who had this chest was basically the viking age equivalent of my dad! A versatile craftsman who comes to you to repair stuff, build new stuff, and maybe decorate your existing stuff, all with the tools he brings with him. Sometimes it's decks or installing air conditioners, and sometimes it's incredibly beautiful and intricate decorative woodworking. And that just made me very happy :)

[@gadgetgirl02]

Some of those tools look nigh-identical to the hand tools my grandfather had. He was a finishing carpenter. When he went to trade school, power tools existed, but his out-of-the-way, rural school didn't have them yet, so he learned how to do things the 19th century (and earlier?) way. He picked up how to use power tools on his first jobs, and found being able to use the old hand tools eventually became a skill advantage.

[@robintheparttimesewer6798]

It always surprises me how much is being lost from common knowledge! I don’t feel that old but I remember the milkman coming by. I actually had milk delivery until 1999. Took me a long time to remember to actually buy milk at the store!! I also remember when we were up north the guy who came by to sharpen knives and things ringing his bell. Of course enterprising people did traveling work to all the small places to people who appreciated them. I’m sure that they got news of the world as well as the service or wears

[@theriverspath]

This made me feel like I just took a course with a professor who likes to hold class outside on nice days. Enjoyable as always!

[@crescentwalker]

I'm appreciating the synchronicity as I listen to this video while I sit at my shaving horse, sharpening my spoon gouge on an oiled stone. From a Viking reenactor who portrays a spoon carver, thank you for this! Wolf, at Half-Axed Spoons

[@euansmith3699]

Half-Axe Spoons? So if a combined knife and fork is a spork; is a combined axe and fork a axork? 😄

[@coreygilles847]

I am from a family that has MANY hobbies. From quilting to oil painting. It is rare that any of us sell anything…but we gift to our family and friends. And I therefore have always believed that humans decorate and add beauty to anything that sits still long enough. In my experience…it is just part of us (of course there many other creatures who also decorate (I love the bower birds…such fun decorations!) I always thought it was ridiculous to assume that beauty and nice things don’t exist for any but the very rich in the past

[@HosCreates]

Then there's people who aren't crafty who will pay others for it 🤣 . I am good at interior design, others aren't so they pay me

[@anjateagle6020]

“It’s somebody’s pet. Don’t be daft.” Perfect.

[@alexmaier5228]

while I haven't come across a single video of yours that I didn't like, this is by far my favourite. People are so quick to assume that they're better, more sophisticated, more intelligent or whatever it my be than people from the past and it annoys me so much every single time. There's a lovely quote by Newton: 'If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.'

[@karladenton5034]

In a way, I expect to see that the tools of MY trade (fiber crafts) have not really changed since the stone age - after all a needle is a needle is a pointy bit with a hole for fiber to go through. It's fascinating to see the same thing in other crafts!

[@michaelmichael8406]

I will say that forging a needle is a *pain*. The slender shaft and point aren't bad, but the eye is a challenge.

[@karladenton5034]

@@michaelmichael8406 I have some very precious hand made pins, but all my needles are modern.

[@Eloraurora]

Fun variation on this theme: boar's-hair needles, used in shoemaking.

[@michaelmichael8406]

@@Eloraurora Neat idea! How do you get the hole in them for the thread?

[@Eloraurora]

@@michaelmichael8406 It was in one of Nicole Rudolph's historical shoemaking videos! IIRC, she split the blunt end of the hair, then spliced it onto a length of thread, so the eye of the needle wouldn't stretch the leather to a wider diameter than the thread itself.

[@cliffordbaldwin9157]

If there’s somebody in here that works for one of those places that give people TV shows they seriously need to give this guy a TV show and he seriously doesn’t have enough subscribers you should be 34 times this at least

[@TheWelshViking]

Aw shucks

[@cameronshackelford5551]

Cheers Jimmy! Thanks for your hard work and videos! Always a good day when you post!

[@danaray8401]

That antler clamp is very, very similar to a jeweler's ring clamp. It's cool to see something that I use quite often, may have had it's origins in the viking age.

[@caitthegreat2102]

Lmao dude you were literally “the man pf my dreams” last night😅 you were at my latin professor’s house party and then we solved a mystery regarding a goose( spoilers it had gone to the store) and then you came over to eat pizza with my family.😂 the human brain sure is wack as hell sometimes,,,, anyway lovely video keep up the good work

[@TheWelshViking]

Class night, glad we sorted out the goose thing! All the best to the fam!

[@dianekassmann8821]

Loved the cat distractions. Oh, and the information was pretty fascinating too, thank you!

[@kerriemckinstry-jett8625]

I watched this while putting some hand sewing in on my Tudor-style kirtle, appreciating the design of the needle I'm using (while stabbing myself with it a few times, of course)... 😂 Since I sew & knit, I get people going, "Whoa, you're talented" but seriously, a lot of people could do these things back when? I think we've lost the habit of everyday crafting, although fortunately not the ability to appreciate the skills. Those Viking age items are quite lovely! To be fair, I'm sure plenty of people back when had the equivalent of the duct-taped bumper because it was "good enough". They might not have been able to afford something nicer, didn't have the time to deal with it, or just plain didn't care. It happens. Edited: In case anyone gets the wrong idea, no! I do not hand sew everything. I'm not a masochist. I very much appreciate my sewing machine, thank you. I just do the fiddly bits by hand. 😂

[@master_illitrix]

Yet another excellent and informative video. Jimmy delivers!

[@Leo-ye1pc]

Blacksmith apprentice here Much love for the appreciating words ❤ Great to hear after a long day of work

[@TheWelshViking]

Get you a well deserved pint and a sit down!

[@pennobrien6735]

I love the respect and reverence you talk about these artefacts and these peoples with

[@phillipallen3259]

As a person who has the ability to use most hand tools and the skills to use them to effect, I envy the craftsman of the past who had the time to get really good with those tools. I am gone from my home fifteen hours a day give or take, five days a week and have upkeep on my home on the weekends so I don't have much time to be a craftsman.

[@MichaelBerthelsen]

And now I FINALLY learnt the English word for the couple of hundred year old scales I have. Steelyard. Thank you!😊 Although I'm pretty sure mine is made from brass or something.😅

[@TheWelshViking]

It comes from stâlhof, so they can be made from other things :) Cool thing to own!

[@lukedaniel7669]

Thank you for a brilliant video. This is the stuff I'm really interested in, not the sexy weapons of war but the things that people used every day. I love that the tools they used then are the same as the tools we use now, and a competent crafter from any period between could be dropped into any time and probably do a very decent job of their trade with the tools they found. I join your salute to the people keeping these crafts alive today.

[@darriendastar3941]

Cat: "Lots of talking but no food. Harrumph. Just can't get the staff these days..."

[@ivanheffner2587]

You got genuine lol out me at that “some guys that just pick up and axe and try to make something” visual.

[@teresagabriela5806]

Ooo I need to get that book for my husband!

[@keithagn]

Lucky man...😊

[@hjalmarolethorchristensen9761]

18:45 thanks brother, blacksmith, woodworker here,....

[@TheWelshViking]

You’re a hero and you should be proud of your skills

[@hjalmarolethorchristensen9761]

@@TheWelshViking thank you i am 🤗, i play guitar too 😮.... Greetings from Skandinavia Denmark 🇩🇰..

[@gordonkennygordon]

Kind sir! Somehow after I followed Rex Kreuger and Jackson Crawford those streams intersected and led me here to the perfect video I didn't know I needed. A scattershot binge of your channel over the week, and now I am back here where I started with a message of gratitude and good cheer. Thank you for your delightful presentation of such scholarly robust content. Thank you for your genteel humanity and also for not taking any shit from anybody. Thank you for the Welsh! I'm a 'Murrican, mostly, but legend has it that my Scottish great-grandfather had a little Gaelic. I don't have any more than "Slainte" but hearing your language (I know, it's a different branch of Celtic, but still) something about the sound of the words gets me right in the brain stem. Well done! Peace! Slainte! Kenny

[@Sally4th_]

I remember my Dad (carpenter/joiner) getting all misty-eyed about this tool set when he first came across it and I think it played a large part in his taking up Dark Ages reenactment in his late 50's :)

[@jwolfe1209]

It bugged me even as a schoolkid the assumptions that people in the past were stupid. They were perhaps uneducated at times, but by and large they required a greater number of skills just to survive and thrive on a daily basis.

[@catherinerw1]

Travelling farriers were a thing when I was a child too, remember them coming up to my grandparents' farm to shoe the horses! (1970s, North Wales). Definitely a case of "We're not so different"! £70 Boden pumps... 7 year old Toyota hybrid! Very much middling sort!

[@georgiarn3915]

There is a public reenactment museum, I believe Europeans call them Open Air Museums, in Saint Augustine, Florida. They have a working blacksmith and give tours and educate groups on how the Spanish colonizers lived in the 1500-1600's. They are also building a Clinker ship by hand using ancient tools and techniques. It is really cool, we went in 2013 and just revisited in December 2023, it is only halfway completed over 10 years. They were amazing craftsmen.

[@CJ-ec3ds]

I love the amount of passion Jimmy puts into every video! It always makes me feel very connected to people of the past, even though I’m definitely an amateur and mostly make things just for fun :) Thanks for spreading some joy!!

[@ThePixiixiq]

Mmmm tools

[@CleoHarperReturns]

So lovely there! A pint and a greenspace, count me in. Because I'm weird I watch a lot of bushcraft, especially from the Scandinavian countries. Many of them use ancient (basic) tools, sleep on furs, take ice baths, etc. They also use a lot of these tools (again, basic) to build small viking-style huts. It's fascinating -- almost as fascinating as Jimmy's videos. Speaking of better kit I love his jacket. Jimmy if you're out there, thanks for the links as well.

[@TheWelshViking]

No worries! Thank you! The cardigan is an ancient charity shop find :)

[@Pinguinpullover]

i got hooked on green spaces and pints. And then my mind got boggled by beauty and craftsmanship. We are spoiled stupid for being able to just go and buy a two pound box of nails for the equivalent of a loaf of bread. Thank you for reminding us that we are not the first to know and enjoy beauty.

[@penihavir1777]

Great points! I completely agree! People seem to forget that humans had the same brain capacity, same manual dexterity, same ability to learn, same ability to appreciate beauty then as now. I went to an ancestor’s house up above the arctic circle - they were not wealthy and had only 2 rooms. But the trim above the front door was shaped and decorated, and the support beams inside had carved edges. So even in more recent history, poverty didn’t necessarily mean hovel. That was in the 1700’s, but still, why would people think that antiquity meant lack of appreciation for detail. 🙂

[@sangarora1216]

The antler clamp at 12:50 is almost exactly the same as a jeweller's ring clamp --- I used one when I took a jewellery-making course a few years ago, they're useful for holding anything small, fiddly or delicate.

[@azteclady]

Lovely to see you, Jimmy! I am imagining an itinerant master blacksmith, with an established circuit of hamlets to visit year after year. On beauty: one of my hobbies is making miniatures. There are people in the hobby who have enough disposable income to use laser cutters and various 3D printers to make gorgeous, 100% accurate miniatures--and then, there are people making gorgeous, 100% accurate miniatures with paper, scissors, glue and talent. It's beyond hubris to assume that poor people in the past didn't find joy in adding a bit of decoration to the objects in their daily lives.

[@SonsOfLorgar]

A history interested amateur blacksmith and table top miniature wargamer myself, I can definitely second your testimony. And one thing I really enjoy that was nacent from my scale and game piece modeling work and my surface level blacksmith studies really cemented is the mental perspective to see *every* inanimate object around me as either source materials or potential tools to shape into something new and different.

[@MiffoKarin]

I took a blacksmithing course a few years ago and I recognise a few of the tools I used then in the tools from Mästermyr. 😄

[@slinky.blackcat9965]

So, the chest was probably owned by a Jack of All Trades, rather than a Mäster of One? 😁 (I've already seen myself out, and am currently wayyy down the road 😂)

[@maudline]

I’m chasing you out of town 😂😂

[@slinky.blackcat9965]

@@maudline *runs faster* 😂

[@Sarafimm2]

Cat over his right shoulder at 5:20 and he showcases the cat at 20:25. Probably the one he mentioned was "on the hunt" earlier. LOL This was an awesome video. I've always been interested in history. I might be an "older" female gamer at 50+, but I love playing survival video games and going from stone/flint tools up to the iron age is just one of the goals in my favorite game. You literally become your own carpenter and blacksmith and hearing about the REAL people these games are based upon is ALWAYS interesting to me.

[@euansmith3699]

I think that the cats are attracted by Jimmy's Welsh brogue, and his furry lapel mic.

[@eireanncarter]

I volunteer at a local living history place when I can, and despite having a low tolerance for loud/hard sounds I love being nearby when the blacksmiths are working because it is ever so fun to listen in as they explain what they are working on to the guests. Listening to the kids learn about how a project requires making a separate tool first is oddly fun.

[@HosCreates]

Blacksmiths have a rhythm to them unlike other noises maybe that why you aren't startled by it...🤔

[@SirFrederick]

I was a blacksmith apprentice at Old Sturbridge Village when I was 14. I pretty much made "s" hooks and nails.

[@EchoCharlie1361]

Thank you for a video about subjects close to my heart. Tools, crafts and Gotland. I'm not a cat person though.

[@mattutt2888]

Milled edges and stamps can cover minor errors as well.

[@robertguildford4793]

Oh you get free books do ya? Lucky lucky lucky lucky lucky bastard! Good vid as always

[@elizabethmcglothlin5406]

Not just a wide selection but so varied! I dare you to say our ancestors were crude.

[@Lochtain]

I've been considering taking up some old school crafts the last few days - nålbindning and whittling, and I think this video has pushed me over the edge. :)

[@Rayne_Storms]

I'm dying from the historical accuracy of "If you want tools like I've got, there's a chap called Dennis..." 🤣

[@opinionatedknitter]

Watching this video I realise that I saw the Mästermyr chest just a couple of days ago. It is part of an exhibition in the historical museum in Stockholm. The exhibition ("Vikingarnas värld", meaning "The world of the vikings") is a permanent one (meaning that for now there is no end date for it) and contains around 2500 items according to Historiska museet. The information in the exhibition is in both swedish and english (the information on Historiska museets homepage, however, is not), so if you are interested and in the area you might consider paying it a visit.

[@SonsOfLorgar]

I grew up about 50km from Mästermyr, and if you haven't visited the anual medieval week of Visby yet (Week32 each year), I'd suggest you do so at soonest convenience. Though I'm frustrated to say that they have started to charge entry fees to the market area...🤬

[@nixhixx]

Have you read Tamora Pierce? Her more famous books are the Alana/Tortall books, but she also has another series, The Circle of Magic and the Circle Opens quartets... The latter are about craft magic, there's a Smith Mage, a Weather Witch, a Stitch Witch and a Plant Mage... They are soooo good, and you speaking of making nails and drawing wire and such took me right back to Daja's book. Tammy is also an epic human who supports queer and trans rights, writes about non-binary and non-straight people with loving dignity. She's my second favorite author, the other being Terry Pratchett. TP twice!

[@stefflus08]

I recommend "Klassiskt Järnsmide" by Norén and Enander I think the authors were. In it they forge one of the Mästermyr hammers using underlay 77 and the punch 104 (which is classified as unknown). It works to use a blunt punch when you work the iron at near white heat as one should when making such a large hole in bloom or wrought iron.

[@vanuaturly]

The nail iron (nail header) isn't for making a half dozen at once, it's for a half dozen different sizes. You still have to make them one at a time.