The Japanese smith-god is named “ The One-Eyed God of the Sky ” ( Eliade 104 ). The first Cyclopes in Greek mythology , credited ( as was Hephaestos ) with building Zeus ’ s thunderbolts , were also one eyed . These injuries may hearken to an initiation rite into the vocation of the smith ( 105 ). In ancient Greece , an early guild of smiths may have had concentric rings tattooed on their foreheads , and many smiths wore a patch over an eye to protect it from sparks ( Graves , Greek 32 ). Smithcraft may also be linked to the lame or bull-footed king — Jacob , Talus , Dionysus , Hephaestos , Vulcan , Weyland — who is in turn a consort of the Great Goddess ( Graves , White 330-31 ). Hence , it is totally in character that Tony Stark must use the arc reactor to keep shrapnel from damaging his heart ( the reactor , placed in his chest , looks like a giant eye ), that Lady Eboshi loses an arm in her final confrontation with the forest gods , and that Hiccup ends his story with an artificial leg , just like his mentor , the blacksmith Gobber .
To conclude , the archetype of the Blacksmith doesn ’ t appear solely in our literature . Scientists such as Madame Curie and inventors such as Steve Jobs have enriched our knowledge of the world around us or transformed our lifestyles with their creations . However , while these real-life Blacksmiths are often celebrated , their achievements offer reason for concern . As Shira Ovide of the Bloomberg View writes concerning the influence of the iPhone , “[ W ] e ’ re over the initial wonder of it all and are beginning to grapple with how smartphones affect our communities , our personal safety and basic human interaction ” ( E1 ). Further , in its most extreme manifestation , humankind ’ s power to alter natural forces has brought us to the brink of self-annihilation . Perhaps no story brings this point home more poignantly than Akira Kurosawa ’ s “ Mount Fuji in Red ,” where a nuclear meltdown dissolves the famous mountain and poisons the survivors with radioactive gasses . In the end , the lesson we might take away from the Blacksmith ’ s stories is that we must be careful of selling our souls to our tools and gadgets , for as our capacity for widespread innovation increases , so must our ability to consider the consequences of what we create .
Works Cited American Indian Myths and Legends . Ed . Richard Erdoes and
Alfonzo Ortiz . New York : Pantheon-Random , 1984 . Print .
Baring , Anne , and Jules Cashford . The Myth of the Goddess : Evolution of an Image . London : Arkana-Penguin , 1993 . Print .
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