The latest from Smith & Hawken

I like a really sharp knife. The model I favor at the moment is an ancient black blade. The history of this knife is fraught with legend. A team of highly trained blind geishas smelted and hand purified the iron ore of an asteroid hurled to the earth by an angry Jimmy Page. The pig iron was then carried overland by seven hard working dwarves to a crater atop an active volcano where mute pituitary cases tended to an open hearth furnace fueled by charcoal pulled from the funeral pyres of a thousand conquering heroes. The iron was hurled into the furnace along with crystallized dragon's blood and limestone wrenched from the ossified remains of primordial narwhales. The resultant bloom of high carbon sky steel was hammered into eleven bars by Thor and John Henry and then returned to the seven dwarves. They carried their charge underground through the orc infested depths of Moria. Of the seven who entered Moria, only Sleepy and Dopey returned to the surface, carrying a scant three bars between them. Four long years they wandered the earth crushed by despair, stupidity, and sloth until finally by mere chance they happened upon a remnant Chalybes tribe who accepted the charge implicit in the three bars.

The greatest smith living among the Chalybes was not of their tribe, but an ancient club-footed wanderer of mysterious origin, his true name was Hephaestus, but the Chalybes knew him simply as “Old Man.” Hephaestus took the rods into the wilderness and meditated long on the work he would do. At last inspiration came to him, he built a fire of lion bone and began heating the first rod. For seven days he heated and hammered the steel into the shape he desired, he quenched the knife in glacial melt, and then carefully tempered what he had wrought before resting. When he woke from his rest he looked to what he had wrought. In the silvery perfection of the blade he saw a reflection of the world as it should be, in its graceful lines he saw an athletic economy that stirred jealousy in his crippled frame. Hephaestus took the blade with reverence and tested it on a joint of meat that he had prepared for just this purpose. It glided effortlessly through the first slice, and the second, and then it caught on bone and shattered. The ancient smith wept at that moment. For days he sat in despondent silence, looking for the flaws in his technique. Finally, with reluctance he took the second rod and began to forge anew. This time he labored fourteen days at his anvil, folding and hammering the steel without rest before quenching the blade in Dom Perignone ’76 and again slowly tempering the blade. If anything, this blade surpassed the perfection of the first, wild animals passing by were stunned into motionlessness by the gleam of the blade, its lines spoke of young lovers and ali-oop passes. With tears of pride, Hephaestus took the blade to the roast. For four translucent slices the meat parted and then on the fifth cut the blade ascended into heaven, it being too delicate to exist on this earth. Hephaestus now turned in rage toward the final rod. For forty days and nights he hammered the steel, the peals of his anvil sounding the rushing staccato of a Rick Allen drum solo. On the fortieth day his hammer shattered, Hephaestus tossed the shattered handle aside, quenched the blade in a vat of dolphin tears, tempered his final effort, and fell into a deep sleep. When Hephaestus awoke he found the fruits of this last labor to be as dark and harsh as its brothers had been graceful and gleaming. With resignation he took his misshapen effort to the joint of meat, hoping in his heart to destroy it. The meat came apart as if afraid of the blackened pitted edge and Hephaestus knew that this grim blade was his finest work.

This is the blade I now bear. The black blade has followed a tortured path to this point, a notch here where it snagged on the shoulder joint of Grendel, the handle split from being put in a dishwasher. But even a legendary edge needs maintenance so I go at it with a wet stone.  The gritty wisk wisk of its passage becomes a sort of mantra and the room around me fades away. I see a man in saffron robes sitting under the bodhi tree. He is tempted by all the devils of creation, turning each away as they arise. After dispatching the last temptation he watches me for a while, looking at that knife slide back and forth before getting bored and leaving with a girl. But that’s okay, because now I’ve got that fucker ready. It’s slicing things on an atomic level, each passage of the blade leaves a trail of nuclear fire, and the only question becomes, what am I going to cut?

If you are the kind of person who knows enough to give a shit then you’ll be happy to know that Smith & Hawken has licensed replicas of this legendary carving knife. Only five hundred will be made so act fast.