Tinsmith's hammer

Located in the North exhibit room of the River's Rest Museum, this hammer’s song reveals that history can be kind and that one’s intelligence does not always equal one’s wisdom.

Description

The tinsmith's hammer is a smallish tool, more useful for delicate tapping than for dedicated pounding or banging.  The wooden handle is dark with age and use.

The small tag attached to the hammer states, "This is the Gavel of Walga.  Although no legal records survive from the River's Rest Smuggling Wars era (5018-5020 M.E.) it is widely believed the death toll would be significantly higher but for the jurisprudence and legal wisdom displayed by Walga in resolving conflicts.  Little is known of Walga's background.  His many admirers affectionately called him Walga Lackwit for his insistence that other jurists were better equipped to pass judgment on his fellow citizens.  He is said to have used a tinsmith's hammer for a gavel to remind him that his decisions affected the common folk."

Loresong

As you begin your song you feel a momentary disorientation and close your eyes.  Voices cry out in your ear, shouts of triumph and moans of defeat.  When you open your eyes, you find yourself in a lowly waterfront tavern, surrounded by villainous-looking men and women who shout and curse and laugh as they watch a pair of stevedores tossing darts at a bristleboard.  A great deal of wagering takes place between turns at the toe line.

The noise dies down as one of the stevedores steps up to the line.  It becomes nearly silent after he tosses his first dart.  After the second dart, the tavern is as hushed as a temple.  You can hear the pot girl whisper to the barman, "A treble seven and it be all over."  The third dart smacks into the bristleboard and the tavern erupts in a cataclysm of noise.

The uproar is deafening as you continue your song.  Half of the tavern is enraged.  The other half is convulsed with hilarity.  Gathered around the two stevedores in front of the dartboard is a mob, shouting and threatening each other.  "It's a treble seven!"  "Is not!  It's a single seven!"  "It's on the line!  Do it again!"  One of the stevedores shouts, "Any fool can see it's a single seven!"  A tinsmith stands on a chair and shouts, "Then let a fool decide!"

In the quiet that follows the remark all the heads turn toward the back of the tavern, where a slouch-shouldered simpleton idly pushes a broom.  The tinsmith calls out, "Walga Lackwit, come look at the board.  Is this a single seven or a treble?"  The laughter of the tavern patrons makes Walga wince, but he steps forward as requested.  He examines the bristleboard with care, peering at the dart from several angles.  Finally he steps back and says, "Why, it be both."

Laughter, shouts of disgust and cries of anger fill the tavern.  "It can't be both," laughs the tinsmith.  "But it is," says Walga.  "If you look at it from below it's a treble seven and if you look at it from above it's a single seven.  It be both!"  The tinsmith holds up his hands to quell the laughter.  "Our Walga is right!" he shouts.  "So everybody line up!  If the dart is above the eye level of the majority of the drunks in here, it's a treble seven.  If not, it's a single!"

Even the stevedores laugh as the bar patrons line up and check their eye level against the dart.  The number of halflings in the bar decide the matter.  It's a treble seven.  The tinsmith presents Walga with the small hammer hanging from his belt.  "All hail Walga the Wise, magistrate of river rats!" he cries out, and the tavern rings with laughter and applause.

The melody of your song takes on the rhythms of a merchant's street.  Colors and moving shapes obscure your vision for a moment, then the colors and shapes gradually arrange themselves into the image of townsfolk moving along a busy street.  Shuffling disconsolately among the townsfolk is Walga, carrying his tinsmith's hammer.  Everywhere he goes he is greeted by cheerful passers-by.  They call out "Greetings, Judge Walga!"  "Walga the Wise!"  "Make way for the magistrate!"

With a heavy-hearted expression Walga makes his way to a small shelter on the river.  He superstitiously touches the head of a statue of a dancing turtle, then sits dejectedly on a bench.  "They shouldn't ought to have made me a judge," he says to himself.  "They should have picked somebody smarter.  I'm sure to make a muck of things."

As you continue to sing, your nose is assaulted by the brown smell of spilt ale.  Noise strikes you almost like a physical presence.  Once again you find yourself in the lowly waterfront tavern.  Once again there are shouts of anger and defiance.  As your vision clears you become aware that this is not the excitement of competition, but true hostility and enmity.

The tavern patrons are divided into two groups separated from each other by a few feet of open space.  Each group glares at the other and in both groups men hold their hands near the daggers on their belts.  More men rush into the tavern, drawn by the noise.  One trips over a small dog and nearly falls.  The dog stands and moves away from the door, curling up beneath a window.  A man leaning against the wall by the window kicks at the dog, who turns and snaps viciously at the man.  The man dances back out of the way.

Two men step forward into the clear space between the two groups.  One says to the other, "Ye moved contraband tea and coffee into River's Rest, I hear.  Yer a-poaching on my turf.  Tea and coffee, they be ours to smuggle, by right and tradition."  The other man replies, "We din't know they were your'n.  We's just tryin' to earn a silver best we can.  And had ye come to me, man to man, we coulda worked sumpin' out.  But ye weasel 'round, bad-mouthin' me an mine like whiny girls.  Now I'm thinkin' tea and coffee suits us jes fine!"

The two men threaten and insult each other, backed up by their respective supporters.  The tension in the tavern is palpable.  The barman begins to hide his bottles and glasses.

The furious noise grows louder still as you continue to sing to the hammer.  You can almost feel the heat of the crowded tavern and smell the stink of angry, sweating men crowding toward each other.  Into the thick of the crowd walks Walga, carrying a brass spittoon and banging on it with his tinsmith's hammer!

The two groups of smugglers are shocked into silence at Walga's suicidal boldness.  As the tavern goes quiet, Walga speaks.  "It were you lot what made a judge o' me.  I ain't smart 'nough to be no judge, but I ain't so stupid I'd make water on me own boots.  And that's what you be doing."  He speaks to one man and points to the other.  "You all riled and red-faced on account of he smuggled tea he didn't know he weren't to be smuggling."  He speaks to the other man and points to the first.  "And you angry at him cause he angry at you."

Walga points to the dog beneath the window.  "That dog, he's smarter than the both of ye.  He knows the difference 'tween being kicked and being tripped over.  You two, ye been tripped over and yer acting like ye been kicked."  Walga looks around at the tavern full of men, staring at him.  "I don't want to be judge no more.  It's too hard.  Kin I stop now?"  He hands the hammer back to the tinsmith and, taking his old broom, begins to sweep up.