Calibans, Mongrelfolk and diability awareness

[Tonguez]

This seems highly speculative. As far as I’m aware, only Hephaestus is a lame smith: Vulcan is a syncretized form with an earlier Etruscan deity, Velchans, about whom little is known. And Volund isn’t attested until the 6th century (and that’s dubious), and may himself be a syncretic deity, incorporating Vulcan.

Which is to say, lameness/deformity is a function of the character of Hephaestus, not of gods of the forge in general. But there might be something I’m missing.

There are a couple of West African traditions that associate entering an Iron smiths forge with legs getting broken too (Ironwork is often considered super natural).

But it could well be that Hephaestus is the origin and that the North Europeans absorbed the tradition via the Romans

 

[Alzrius]

That is true. I did a couple of minutes of admittedly not-very deep research and only found one other smith god that had any sort of disability, and that was Amaterasu, who had one eye, which has several possibilities behind it, only one of which is due to forge accidents.

Can you cite where you read that? Because Amaterasu being a forge deity, and only having one eye, doesn't match any Japanese mythology that I recall reading.

 

[Faolyn]

Can you cite where you read that? Because Amaterasu being a forge deity, and only having one eye, doesn't match any Japanese mythology that I recall reading.

That's because I misspelled the name. It's Amatsumara, not Amaterasu.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

There are a couple of West African traditions that associate entering an Iron smiths forge with legs getting broken too (Ironwork is often considered super natural).

But it could well be that Hephaestus is the origin and that the North Europeans absorbed the tradition via the Romans

That's intriguing - I'd be interested if you could point me in the right direction.

Re: smithing/metalworking as magical process - very much so. Incidentally, there is a very compelling case made by Nissim Amzallag for ancient Yahwism being rooted in a metallurgical tradition: link

But I won't contribute further to any derailment of this thread. My apologies to the OP.