Forge @museum.de

Eulalia, did you used to be in here? I mean, when they were still working. We foxes always stayed away from the forge. It was so loud. And there was always a fire blazing. We had great respect for that.

The forge, yes, I was careful there too. When the hot iron is struck, sparks fly. How quickly you can burn your feathers. I was only in there once at night, when they had forgotten to close the sliding door. But everything smelled so burnt and there were no mice. I quickly got out again. A great aunt of mine from the eagle owl family must have built a nest here. Fortunately, nothing happened to her, but the door has been closed at night ever since.

The animals are smart not to go into a smithy when work is going on. Because it's quite dangerous, and as the fox said, quite noisy too. Why was the forge so important up here? Well, you couldn't just buy tools at the hardware store back then. They had to be ordered and delivered from far away, and if one broke, you didn't just buy a new one - tools were far too expensive. They were repaired. The blacksmiths up here made hammers and axes themselves anyway. To do this, they first needed what was known as a forge: the fireplace. The pieces of metal to be worked on were heated over the fire until they glowed. Then the blacksmith could work them on a massive metal block, the anvil. He struck the hot metal with full force to shape it. He hit it hard, but also very precisely, so that a usable piece was created in the end. Not everyone could become a blacksmith. You had to be very strong and - like an athlete - perform the striking movements very precisely and purposefully. Incidentally, old forges can still be found throughout the Königshain Hills. They were an integral part of every quarry.