Crafting Primitive Tools from Natural Materials
The cold came harder that night. The smoke from the ridge had vanished by morning, leaving only silence and frost on the grass. Ragnar rose stiffly, his joints heavy with cold, and shouldered his pack. He had enough firewood for the night but not enough for what was coming. He needed more than warmth. He needed tools.
While walking the lower ridge trails in search of dry pine, he spotted movement near a stream bend—low, slow, injured. A deer, thin-legged and limping, staggered through the brush. It did not flee. Ragnar crouched behind the tall grass, watching. The animal's flank was torn—perhaps from a fall, or a failed predator.
He did not enjoy the kill. But hunger, and the old code of the woods, made it necessary.
The spear did not fail him. Nor did his seax. He thanked the animal in a whisper, then knelt to the work. Skinning. Gutting. Splitting the legs.
The meat he packed and salted lightly with ash and herbs. The hide he rolled. But the antlers and long bones—those were for something more.
Ragnar stripped sinew for cordage, set the antlers near the fire to dry, and cleaned the leg bones with careful scrapes. They were dense and strong. He carved one into a chisel-like wedge, another into a slender awl. From the antler crown, he shaped a handle—curved and rough, but balanced.
With stone and fire, he drilled through the base and burned a channel to seat a blade. The laminated steel knife from the satchel—still sharp—fit snugly when wedged and bound. He wrapped the base in sinew and sealed it with tree resin. Crude. Durable. His own.
He tested it by shaving bark from a pine limb. It bit deep. True.
That night, he held the antler-handled knife over the fire, studying the reflection in the polished steel. Old and new, bound together. Not unlike him.
This blade would not replace the ones from home. But it belonged to him now, shaped by hand and fire.
The stars above were cold. The woods, watchful.
