Thus, being grown from youth to manhood, for that a man must needs live, Beltane builded him a hut beside the brook, and set up an anvil thereby whereon he beat out bill-hooks and axe-heads and such implements as the charcoal-burners and they that lived within the green had need of.

He brought the anvil, the hammer, and bellows into the pulpit, and he pounded and blew, for he was in earnest.

He seemed to be making good, and they gradually increased the size of his load until on the last trip he was carrying a 300-pound anvil under each arm.

How all the ancient North was alive in its Troll-haunted hillocks, where clanged the anvil of the faery hill-smith, and danced and banqueted the Gnome and Troll,and in its streams and springs, musical with the harps of moist-haired Elle-women and mermaids, who, ethnic daemons though they were, yet cherished a hope of salvation!

The heavy guns were pushed forward on the sward, to prevent the loud metallic clangor that penetrated the still air like clashing anvils.

There are several other fine paintings hereone of them said to be the best performance of Quintin Matsys, who, under the inspiration of love, deserted the anvil for the pallet; and another by his father-in-law, Flors, supposed to be the identical picture upon which the ci devant blacksmith painted a bee, with such skill as to obtain the old artist's cordial consent to the marriage of Matsys with his daughter.

My strong defense was that I had not charged any of them anything, and had given them a marriage certificate with a seal on it, made out of a Mexican dollar; and had given a treat and fired off the anvil.

When the people came forth from the service there was seen in the churchyard a great marble stone, four square, and having in the midst of it a steel anvil a foot high.

Then in went the punch again, and again the huge hammering commenced, with such bangs and blows, that the smith was wise to have no floor to his smithy, for they would surely have knocked a hole in that, though they were not able to knock the anvil down halfway into the earth, as the giant smith in the story did.

Urged then by anxiety, he left his anvil, approached the woman, and stood awhile gazing at the child, though unable for some minutes to satisfy himself, or to put away the horrible fear that he might perchance be looking at a body without life.

While courts are disturbed with intestine competitions, and ambassadours are negotiating in foreign countries, the smith still plies his anvil, and the husbandman drives his plough forward; the necessaries of life are required and obtained; and the successive business of the seasons continues to make its wonted revolutions.

Nay, an infinitude, an endless number of beings, which Nature in secula seculorum unceasingly sends bubbling forth from her inexhaustible source; as generous with them as the smith with the dross that flies round his anvil.

There I read the following words: 'They helped everyone his neighbor, and every one said to his brother, be of good courage; so the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, it is ready for the sodering, and he fastened it with nails.'

Pray, whom should we write for, in this age which makes its own epic upon sounding anvils, and whose lyric is yelled from the locomotive running a muck through forest and field and beside the waters no longer still?

Then the youth took up an axe, and, splitting the anvil at one blow, wedged the old man's beard in it.

These, from the flaming furnace, strong and bold Pour the red steel into the sandy mould; On tinkling anvils (with Vulcanian art), 160 Turn with hot tongs, and forge the dreadful dart; The barbed head on whirling jaspers grind, And dip the point in poison for the mind; Each polish'd shaft with snow-white plumage wing, Or strain the bow reluctant to its string.

The sportsman and the man of dress have their heads filled with a fox or a horse-race, a feather or a ball; and live in ignorance of every thing beside, with as much content as he that heaps up gold, or solicits preferment, digs the field, or beats the anvil; and some yet lower in the ranks of intellect, dream out their days without pleasure or business, without joy or sorrow, nor ever rouse from their lethargy to hear or think.

Like the third Alexander of Russia of later years, he could, with his powerful arms, convert a thick iron bar into a necklace, crush a pewter tankard by the pressure of a mighty hand, toss a heavy anvil into the air and catch it as another man would catch a ball, or with a wrench straighten out the stoutest horse-shoe ever forged.

The blacksmith put the hammer into his hands, and the first blow he struck was given with such force, that he broke the anvil to pieces.