Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/372

 sword found with the anvil of steel, he afterwards wielded with terrible effect against his enemies; it was named 'caledvwlch' (the hard cleft), or 'caliburn' (well-tempered or massive). This weapon was no doubt fabricated by Weland.

In the metres composed by King Alfred on the 'Consolations of Boethius,' the learned monarch asks,

A direct testimony to the great age of this tradition. And in the Anglo-Saxon poem on Beowulf, that chief, before going to battle, requests that there should be sent to Higelac

In some fragments of an old Anglo-Saxon manuscript, published by Professor Stephens, we find this ancient worker in metals and shoer of horses mentioned in a complimentary manner as a maker of sharp swords. This, we may be sure, was another of his celebrated blades.

In a French poem, conjectured to be of the 7th century, Weyland is supposed to be mentioned for the first time, when it is said that the cuirass made by Veland could not defend the hero Randolph from death.