Vox Meditantis

St Keverne, Cornwall – June 1497

The bellows wheezed like an old man’s chest as Michael An Gof worked the leather handles with practiced rhythm, coaxing flame from the charcoal that glowed like scattered rubies in the pre-dawn darkness. Steam rose from the quenching tub beside him, carrying the sharp scent of hot iron meeting cold water—a smell that had marked his mornings for nigh on twenty years. But this morning felt different, weighted with the knowledge that each spark struck might be among his last.

He selected a piece of scrap iron from the carefully sorted pile beside his anvil, turning it in his calloused hands. The fragment had once been part of a ploughshare, worn thin by countless furrows, but there was life in it yet. This was the way of things in St Keverne—nothing was wasted, everything had value if one possessed the wit to see it. The iron would become a horseshoe nail, or perhaps part of a fish hook. Every scrap that passed through his forge was transformed, given new purpose, its essence preserved even as its form changed.

“Waste nothing, want nothing,” he murmured, the words his father had taught him echoing in the forge’s smoky depths. Old Jowan An Gof had understood that iron was precious, that every piece saved was a small victory against scarcity. But the lesson ran deeper than mere economy—it was about respect, about understanding that all things, even the humblest metal, deserved consideration before being cast aside.

The rebellion that brewed in the hearts of Cornwall’s folk sprang from the same principle, Michael reflected as he heated the iron to cherry-red. King Henry’s tax collectors cared nothing for such wisdom. They saw only what could be extracted, taken away to fund wars that brought no benefit to Cornish soil. The tax demanded for the Scottish campaign—fifteen thousand pounds from Cornwall alone—represented countless hours of labour, countless pieces of iron shaped at forges like this one, countless catches hauled from dangerous seas.

As the sun crested the horizon, painting the workshop’s stone walls with golden light, Michael heard the familiar sound of footsteps on the cobbled yard. Young Petroc emerged from the morning mist, his apprentice’s leather apron already tied about his waist, ready for another day’s learning.

“Master An Gof,” the lad called, his breath visible in the cool air. “Shall I tend the charcoal today?”

Michael nodded, watching as Petroc moved with increasing confidence around the forge. The boy had learned well the careful management of fuel—how to bank the fire overnight so it would kindle easily come morning, how to use only what was needed, how to salvage unburnt pieces for the next day’s work. These were not merely practical skills but expressions of a deeper philosophy: that resources, whether iron or charcoal or human effort, were to be husbanded carefully, used wisely, and shared when possible.

“Remember, lad,” Michael said, guiding Petroc’s hands as they adjusted the draught, “a blacksmith who wastes fuel will soon find himself cold. A community that wastes its wealth will soon find itself poor. And a king who wastes his people’s trust…”

He left the sentence unfinished, but Petroc’s quick nod showed he understood. Word of the gathering discontent had spread through Cornwall’s villages like smoke through thatch. The tin miners of Bodmin, the fishermen of Mousehole, the farmers of the moors—all felt the weight of taxes that served distant purposes whilst their own needs went unmet.

The morning’s work proceeded with the steady rhythm that had shaped Michael’s days for decades. A bent ploughshare from Farmer Tremaine required straightening—not replacement, for good iron was too valuable to discard lightly. The village’s communal fishing nets needed new hooks forged from scraps of older ones. Each task represented not just craft but conservation, the transformation of the used into the useful.

As Michael worked, neighbours began to gather in the yard beyond his forge. This too was part of the daily rhythm of sustainable living—the sharing of news, the offering of mutual aid, the coordination of community efforts that made survival possible in a world where waste meant want. Goodwife Pentreath brought eggs still warm from her hens, trading them for nails to repair her chicken coop. Old Margery arrived with a bundle of broken tools, each piece a small treasure of recoverable metal.

“How goes the fishing, Master Trevorrow?” Michael asked as the village’s lead fisherman approached with a damaged gaff hook.

“Well enough, though the king’s tax-gatherers make it hard to mend nets proper,” came the reply, edged with the anger that simmered in every Cornish heart these days. “They take our silver but leave us our storms.”

Michael examined the hook’s twisted point, already envisioning how it might be restored. “Aye, they understand taking but not giving. They see our tin and think of their wars, not our tools. They count our fish but forget our nets.”

The gathering crowd murmured agreement. Here was the heart of their grievance—not mere resistance to taxation but rejection of a philosophy that treated Cornwall as a source to be drained rather than a community to be sustained. The king’s tax collectors embodied everything that ran counter to the values that had sustained these communities for generations: the careful husbanding of resources, the sharing of burdens, the understanding that true wealth lay not in extraction but in preservation and renewal.

By midday, Michael’s forge had become an unofficial meeting place. Men and women from St Keverne and beyond lingered in his yard, their conversations gradually turning from daily concerns to the larger questions that pressed upon them all. Should they continue to bend beneath the weight of royal demands? Could they find the strength to resist? What would be the cost of either choice?

Michael set down his hammer and stepped into the yard, his presence enough to quiet the gathered voices. These were his neighbours, people whose tools he had mended, whose children he had taught the rudiments of metalwork, whose lives were woven together with his own in the intricate pattern of community survival.

“Friends,” he began, his voice carrying the authority earned through years of service, “we gather here as we have gathered every day—to share our burdens, to offer what help we can, to ensure that none among us suffers alone. This has been our way since before memory, the way that has sustained us through harsh winters and poor harvests, through storm and sickness.”

Heads nodded throughout the crowd. This was familiar ground—the principles that governed their daily lives, the practices that made survival possible.

“But now we face a different challenge,” Michael continued. “The king’s collectors would have us believe that our duty lies in giving without receiving, in sending away the fruits of our labour to serve purposes that bring us no benefit. They would make of Cornwall a quarry to be mined, a field to be stripped, a coast to be netted bare.”

The anger in the crowd was palpable now, but Michael raised his hand for continued silence.

“Yet I ask you—what is the difference between a blacksmith who burns his fuel wastefully and a king who spends his people’s wealth carelessly? What separates the farmer who exhausts his soil from the ruler who exhausts his realm? Are they not all guilty of the same folly—taking without giving, using without replacing, consuming without thought for tomorrow?”

Young Petroc stepped forward from the crowd, his face flushed with understanding. “Master, you speak of the king as we would speak of a wasteful craftsman—one who knows not the value of what he squanders.”

“Aye, lad. And what do we do with such a craftsman?”

“We teach him better, or we work without him.”

Michael smiled grimly. “Just so. The king has shown he will not learn. Therefore…”

The word hung in the air like smoke from the forge, heavy with implication. Around the yard, faces reflected the gravity of the moment. They were not rebels by nature, these people—they were conservers, preservers, careful stewards of limited resources. But sometimes preservation required action that appeared destructive, just as sometimes the forge required the complete melting down of old iron to create something new.

As evening approached and the crowd gradually dispersed, Michael returned to his forge for the day’s final tasks. The fire had burned low, but there was still heat enough for small work. He selected a piece of iron—not scrap this time, but good metal from his carefully hoarded supply—and began to shape it with particular care.

The piece that emerged under his hammer was a simple thing: a nail, sturdy and straight, with a head that would hold firm against wind and weather. But as he worked, Michael thought of his father’s words about names and legacy, about the marks that men left upon the world. This nail might hold timbers together for decades, might support a roof that sheltered children not yet born. In its own small way, it would outlast the hand that made it.

Such thoughts brought him inevitably to tomorrow, and the gathering that would make or break the hopes of Cornwall. The rebellion that simmered in their collective heart would either flame into righteous fire or be quenched like hot iron in cold water. Either way, Michael understood that his days of daily practice—the careful conservation, the patient sharing, the respectful transformation of old things into new—were drawing to a close.

He banked the forge fire carefully, ensuring it would kindle easily on the morrow. Whether he would be here to tend it was in God’s hands now, but the habits of stewardship ran too deep to abandon, even at the end. Tomorrow would bring what it would bring, but tonight, the forge was properly tended, the tools were clean and sharp, and the scrap iron was sorted and ready for transformation.

As Michael An Gof walked through the quiet streets of St Keverne toward his modest home, he carried with him the satisfaction of a day’s work well done—iron transformed, community served, resources conserved against future need. These practices that had shaped his daily life were more than mere economy; they were expressions of a philosophy that saw value in preservation, wisdom in restraint, and strength in the patient tending of what mattered most.

Behind him, the forge glowed softly in the darkness, a small beacon of continuity in a world poised for change. The iron would wait, as iron had always waited, ready to be transformed by skilled hands into whatever shape necessity demanded. Whether those hands would be his own remained to be seen, but the work itself would continue, as it had for generations, as it would for generations yet to come.

In the end, Michael reflected as he reached his door, perhaps that was legacy enough—not the grand gestures that men remembered, but the daily practices that sustained life itself, passed like precious metal from hand to hand, generation to generation, each adding something to the whole whilst taking only what was needed for the work ahead.

The End

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.