Origins: The Raven Pendant

When we first started we used to have a workshop in an old fortification on the side of a cliff by the sea. The two units we rented where built into the earthwall and constantly damp, but the view at break time was fantastic. It was an isolated location and most of our visitors where sea gulls, but there where also ravens and occasionally the two half feral goats owned by a smallholding near by would visit. 

 
I always liked our time in the Freshwater Re-Doubt as our origin story... We had an underground forge, watched over by the electric transformer box above us, with the brand name Wotan. Its was as if we were living in a parallel universe of the very myths that inspired us.

Years later, after my skills as a blacksmith had improved I created my very own Raven design. If you have read my past Origin blog posts, you will have noticed that I don't really use sketches as part of my design process. It is all more of an evolution from one pendant design to another. In that way the act of creating, sparks inspiration that results in something new. This way of creating a design is both organic  and requires experience behind it. Sometimes it feels like certain designs just want to start existing.

This is also true with the raven. It started with a Mjolnir, that then became a Ukonvasara, That then became a ship. The ship became a barbed arrowhead and the barbed arrowhead became a heart. The heart then became a Raven. 

Because of the way the raven design evolved it is perhaps the most unique of my forged iron designs and one day when I publish my book of patterns it can be my legacy and contribution to the artist blacksmithing community. 

Raven Image credits: Photography by Paula Churcher 2025, All rights reserved.

All other images: Taitaya Forge. All rights reserved.