It was such a long time ago since Wayland Smith came into this country that even the most learned men are uncertain as to his origin. He came, they think, as Weland, a heathen god, kinsman of Thor, the Scandinavian God of Thunder; and for many years he was a being of great importance in Pagan England. But he fell upon bad times.
Weland seems to have been a hard-working and humble deity, and when men would no longer work for him, he had to work for them. And very good work he did, too, it seems. Perhaps, in his better days, he made Thor’s hammers for him; anyhow, when he came down in the world, he took to the blacksmith’s trade.
You will come across traces of poor Weland in many parts of the country, but nowhere will you find a stranger relic of his working days than in his smithy—Wayland Smith’s cave they call it now—quite close to the side of that ancient track-way that skirts the summit of the Berkshire Downs above the White Horse Vale.
The road, the Ridgeway, was old when the Romans came. And perhaps it was because of its popularity that Wayland Smith started his business near at hand. Anyhow there is his cave to this day, a strange erection of two great upright stones surmounted by a third, and there, the old story tells, he shod the horses of any who would employ him, at less than market rate, so long as they carried out a perfectly simple arrangement.
Naturally enough, since once he had been a god and had had men and horses sacrificed to him, Weland’s pride would not permit him to come out and tout for trade; so it was well understood that should you wish his services you placed a silver penny upon a flat stone near the cave, left your horse by it, then went away and sat down out of sight for ten minutes.
Soon you would hear the sound of hammer and anvil, and presently, when you returned, you would find your horse well shod—and your penny gone. Weland was very particular about that penny; he would take neither more nor less for his work, and unless that actual sum was placed upon the stone you might wait in vain. He would have no dealings with you.
Nowadays silver pennies are out of fashion and a sixpenny piece is the proper fee. And, though few travellers use the old Ridgeway in these times, there are some who believe that, if you have faith, you may still have your horse shod for sixpence, high up there on the lonely downs, if you carry out the proper procedure.
You come to the cave from Shrivenham station, a few miles east of Swindon; thence the Lambourn road will lead you straight up on to the downs. On the summit you will find the soft-turfed Ridgeway, which you must follow to the left and you will come in a short time to Wayland Smith’s lonely abode.
If you continue still further along the old way, you find yourself at mysterious Uffington Castle, the gaunt earthwork from which Alfred the Great routed the Danish invaders over a thousand years ago. Here you are eight hundred odd feet above the sea, and on camp-crowned Whitehorse Hill, on the side of which is the famous White Horse that names both the hill and the vale beneath. Alfred caused this horse to be cut in the close turf, they say, to commemorate his great victory over the invading Danes; for this, historians will tell you, is Aeschendune, the scene of Alfred’s mighty and triumphant battle.
East, south and west, the bare downs stretch, away from you for miles, hiding in their folds little lonely villages, fertile and sheltered, and bearing on their summits a thousand memorials of the early peoples that went to make up our English race.
Here is a holiday country of which few tourists know; a wide open upland district of keen fresh winds, and sweet soft turf, where you may wander for hours with nothing but the grazing sheep, or perhaps a gipsy encampment, to remind you of civilization.
There is a charm about this solitude that makes it easy to realize why poor dethroned Weland chose this land in which to hide his wounded pride.
