volundrwands

[volundrwands]

I apologise for my tardiness this week. I do have an interesting little text about dragon heart string and their properties prepared, but it is not quite finished as I have been distracted by worrying over Hakon. The last thing I heard, he was travelling up into the mountains, and I expected him to be back in touch by now. Hopefully nothing serious has happened, but there are some dangerous things to be found up in the mountain and I can't help myself. Meanwhile, I tend the shop and work on preparing the spring harvest for carving, I might write more about it if insights into the daily life of a wandmaker would interest you. Next week, you'll get to read all about dragons!

[volundrwands]

Our wand materials: Älva mist

At first glance, this might seem like one of the most harmless and easy to acquire core materials we work with. Compared to a mighty dragon och mountain troll, or the unreliable huldra, the tiny älva seems rather harmless. Looks are decieving, however. The älva wield their very own kind of magic, and much like the distantly related elves, it is very powerful. They are also more or less impossible to negotiate with, so we end up relying on stealth instead.

Luckily, what we need is not a part of the älva herself, but samples of the mist that gathers during their ritual dawn dances. There are spells that will suck it into a jar or bottle and prevent it from dissipating, but the range of those spells are very short. But with some careful stealth and the occasional invisibility trinket, it is possible to sneak close enough.

Once the mist is gathered and delivered to the workshop, it is a very delicate task to prepare it for work. Using the same spell that originally caught it, I transfer it into a jar with a specially brewed potion. It then needs to rest for about two weeks, during which the mist solidifies partially, to the point where it can be touched and manipulated more easily. Even then it is still incredibly fragile however, and many samples are ruined long before they can even be put into a wand. The picture above shows mist that is halfways through this process.

The process with the mist isn’t done once it is in the wand however. It will continue to mature over time for several years, even decades. Initially the wand will be incredibly feeble, but it will grow steadily in strength over the years to come. For this reason all of Volundr’s älva mist wands have been in storage for at least a decade before they are being offered up for sale. This aging process means that the wand you buy might be slightly below the performance of, say, a huldra wand, but not so much that it will be challenging to use. With time, it will have the potentional to surpass them all. For this reason, it is not uncommon that älva wands turn into heirlooms, passed on to the descendants of the original owner. However, one shouldn’t be decieved into thinking that a centuries old älva wand will be vastly more powerful than any other wand. The maturing process will peak and stop eventually, but that can take anything between twenty years to a hundred depending on the wand. Älva wands seem to be particularily well suited towards healing magic as well as curses, but exhibits no problems or issues with other types of spells. All in all, you will find an älva wand to be a faithful and reliable companion that will grow and develop along with you over the years.

[volundrwands]

Our wand materials: Huldra bark

This is a very fascinating material to work with, both in the crafting of the wand and when using the finished wand. I have personally been using a huldra wand for many years now, and I wouldn’t even consider changing it for any other.

The huldra are a fairly common creature in these parts of the world. There are different types, but in this case I am referring solely to the forest dwelling ones. They are for the most part human in appearance, and very intelligent albeit mischievous and occasionally dangerous. As you know, one of the main visible differences from humans is that their back resembles a log, sometimes hollow and sometimes simply covered in bark. Pieces of this bark can be removed without harm to the huldra, and will grow back in time. Experiments have been made with using fur from their tail or hair from their head instead, but those will nearly always produce wands that are both weak and unstable, and of no use to any witch or wizard.

Historically, huldra bark was often gathered using less than ethical methods. Poor huldras captured and kept in cages, frequently being stripped of their bark to the point where it barely grew back at all and finally killed or left to die when they couldn’t produce enough any more. While these systematic torture is no longer allowed, it is still not unheard of that some wizards hunt down the huldra and after stunning them with magic taking the bark from them by force.

This is a vile practise that must be stopped. It is nothing less than assault and abuse of intelligent and sensitive magical beings. When you buy a huldra wand from Volundr Wands, you can always be sure that the bark was acquired in a humane and ethical way. Albeit dangerous on occasion, we get ours by trading with a number of friendly huldra. Careful negotiation and building of trust has allowed us to create a network of huldra that donate bark to our workshop in exchange for various items and gifts.

Should you buy your wand elsewhere, be wary of huldra wands. You never know how the huldra it came from was treated.

But on to the wands themselves. What is a huldra wand like? They can be a difficult wand for a beginner caster, they require a steady hand and spells pronounced with care. Should you mispronounce a spell, or perform the gesture sloppily, the wand is prone to misfiring. More often than not it will do nothing but shoot some sparks, but there have been incidents of more severe misfires that caused fires and injured onlookers. However, in the hand of a well taught and disciplined witch or wizard, a huldra wand is a wonderful thing to work with. Because of their sensitivity to the pronounciation of spells, huldra wands are ill suited for practising non-verbal magic with.

Another peculiarity with the huldra wands is that they rarely if ever form strong bonds to their owner. They will perform to their full capability, but can easily be sold or given to a new owner. Perhaps this is a reflection of the fickle nature of the creature the core came from, who knows. All in all, a huldra wand is a marvellous tool to work with, if you are ready to work hard enough to work up the needed skill for it.

[volundrwands]

Wand materials: Mountain troll lichen cores

This particular core material tends to be somewhat seasonal, it can be hard to gather at some times of the year and especially during winters with heavy snow. Many of you probably already know about the various kinds of trolls that live in the scandinavian wilderness. Many of them have decreased in numbers during the past few centuries due to increased muggle activity in the areas where they used to live, but many others have simply learned to hide better or received wizard help to hide their dwellings from the muggles.

Mountain trolls have some advantages when it comes to hiding, if they are resting most muggles simply mistake them for a pile of rocks and nothing more. Unless outright provoked they are in general rather peaceful, but we usually prefer to sneak up and harvest what we need from sleeping trolls rather than risk an unnecessary confrontation. Due to their close similarity to rocks both in shape and texture, as well as their tendency to stay inactive for prolonged periods, it is common for older mountain trolls to have lichen and moss and even small plants growing on their backs. Trolls have their own kind of magic, and over the years some of this magic seeps into the plants growing on them. The smaller plants usually wither long before turning into anything useful, but lichen grows slowly and can live for a very long time. After enough time has passed, it will be infused with magic and ready to be harvested. It is not as simple as merely plucking it off the troll, but I will leave it up to Hakon to describe that more in detail.

Once it gets handed to me in the shop, it needs to be prepared by resting in several different solutions and potions for about five months in total. Once that is done, it is ready to be worked into a suitable wood and turned into a brand new wand.

Once finished you will have a strong wand, both as far as capabilities goes but also in the sense that they tend to be a little bit stubborn in nature. Lichen wands tend to resist any new owner, even one they have chosen and bonded with. Almost all wizards and witches find that this resistance decreases over time however, the more they use the wand the more it bonds with them and in the end you will have a powerful and loyal wand. Most lichen wands tend to favour one type of magic over others and before this bonding period is over they can act a little fickle when used for other types of spells than the ones they favour. This is however temporary and nothing to worry about.

Sadly, lichen wands carry an undeservedly bad reputation. Less experienced wandmakers sometimes try working with lichen without knowing how much care must be taken when harvesting and preparing it. If the wrong lichen is cut, if it is too young or too thin or otherwise flawed, it will make a terrible wand. The same goes for the preparations, if it isn’t soaked in the correct solutions for the right amount of time, an otherwise perfect sample can be spoiled beyond recognition. We here at Volundr Wands will however only use the very best pieces of lichen and all our wands are tested thoroughly before put up for sale to make certain they all live up to our demands for quality and reliability!

(Photo provided with the aid of Gretchen Byers)

[volundrwands]

Hair from the tail of a forest troll

When I was just starting out as Arni’s apprentice, I set my mind to trying out new materials both in cores and the wands themselves. I was just out of school, I think it was my first summer as an adult wizard. Young and stupid as Arni called me.

I was out in the forest when I first laid eyes on a forest troll. I had only seen them in books before but I was sure. I took out my harvesting knife and approached the troll, quiet and sneaky. When I got close enough I pulled out a hair instead of cutting it with the knife. That was a bad move. The troll swung around and looked at me with deep green eyes and then cursed at me in their own language and set off into the forest. There I laid, surrounded by leaves and with a single troll hair in my hand. I was so proud that I had collected my first own core, not one of the ones that Arni had decided beforehand. Proud and cocky, I headed back to the shop.

Once there Arni just shook his head at me. But I was determined to try it out and made him make me a wand with a forest troll hair core. At first the wand looked very good. Just that, it looked good. But Arni made me try it out, since it was my stupid idea to try something new. I tried to cast a spell at the ceiling fan to make it start spinning.

At first nothing happened. Then in a flash of light the ceiling fan started spinning like crazy. But that was not all. One of the workbench chairs went missing, instead there was a young hippopotamus. A very upset young hippopotamus. I dropped the wand, but it didn’t stop shooting spells. One of the instrument for finetuning wands sprouted legs and then ran away in fear of the hippo. The beautiful painting of Arni that came from a wandmakers convention got a hideous dress. A puke-ish green with big magenta dots and puffy sleeves. The memory of the dress still makes me laugh! To top it off, the painting got a little hat in the shape of a bat, also in the puke-ish green and magenta dot pattern. The wand spun around like crazy on the floor and shot spells all over the place. Even I got me a dose of forest troll wand magic. I got a moustache. A big, purple, curly one with two giant loops on either side. I tried to shaved it off later but it grew out again and again. It didn’t disappear for four month. Arni said I only had myself to blame. What happened to the wand, you might ask. I can tell you that it’s locked inside a magically sealed box and still kept in the workshop. To remind me of my foolishness, as Arni put it. Wisdom to take with you from this story; never ever in any way use tail hair from forest troll for anything magical. Hakon.

[volundrwands]

Wand materials: Introduction

I have spent quite some time thinking about what I should write about first. There are so many interesting things I want to share with you! I have decided that a good place to start would be to provide some in-depth information about the different materials we use in our wands, both the types of wood as well as the magical cores. All wand makers have their own favourites, and I want to help you get familiar with the ones you’ll find in a wand from Volundr.

The selection is still the same as it was during uncle Arni’s time, but in the future there might also be interesting new experimental materials cropping up, assuming they pass our testing.

We use a plethora of different wood types, all of them providing their own special touch and personality to the wand that they are made from. For example, you will see wands made of such woods as; apple, ash, fir, hazel, mountain birch, oak, pine, willow and many others.

The cores are a bit different and not as varied. We currently employ only four different core materials for our wands. Inside a Volundr wand you might find either the bark of a huldra, lichen from a mountain troll, dragon heart string or älva mist.

Of course, all wand makers will stubbornly claim that they use only the very best of core materials, and that alternative ones found in other shops are less reliable or less powerful. In the end it all comes down to what materials that particular wand maker can create the best wands out of, the hand that makes it is as important as the material used. While one wand maker might create marvellous things out of phoenix feathers, another might not get any good results at all from the same feather, but instead create something truly brilliant with a couple of unicorn hairs.

We here at Volundr Wands also believe that there is a bigger picture to take into account when it comes to materials used. By gathering all of our materials personally and by hand, we ensure that they are always collected in a way that is ethical and eco-friendly. We want the very best not only for our customers but also for the environment and creatures that provide the materials from which the wands are crafted!

-Eydís

[volundrwands]

Introduction by Hakon

I’m the wand material expert who spends most of the time out in the wilderness, collecting the materials for the wands. I’m really happy to combine my passion and my work in this wonderful way. I wish that all the wands that comes out of the shop during the time I'm in charge of the supplies will tell their own story. I have been in most parts of Scandinavia and have seen a lot of really awesome things that I will try to tell you about. As the materials expert I will try to find new ways to make even more splendid wands. Not that Arni's wands aren’t good, but some of his methods were a bit old fashioned.

I have always been a bit of an explorer, even at an early age. I always found cool things about in the wilderness in the groves behind our house. In a way nature has always been a part of who I am. I’m only in the shop if i have to, in some ways. But I love telling my stories about a wand and the adventure it was to collect the supplies for it to the new owner, or anybody who wants to listen.

[volundrwands]

Introduction by Eydís

It is a great honour to be entrusted with running the shop, it is something I have looked forward to for many years. I can only hope that my wands will become as treasured by their owners as those uncle Arni made.

I have always had a great interest in wands and their peculiarities, something that led me to both joining the dueling club as well as take extra classes in wand lore during my school years. I was still in school when I started my apprenticeship with uncle Arni, spending my summers and other school holidays either with him in the shop or accompwnying him on trips to procure new materials. In the end, my greatest talents turned out to be in carving wands and that is where I focused my studies.

I always strive towards combining the traditional and trusted techniques for wandmaking with new innovations, often have I been handed strange new core materials with Hakon to experiment with. Most end up discarded, of course, only the very best makes its way to the shop itself, but that does not mean we should stop looking for new ideas and new ways to do things!

I look forward to writing about my work and my experiences, as well as interacting with people with an interest in wand making and other fascinating things. This is the first step of what I am sure will become an exciting journey.

[volundrwands]

Volundr Wands are happy to announce that new owners are taking over. Arni Silvferlod, the old owner, has decided to retire and leave the shop in the capable hands of his niece and nephew, Eydís and Hakon Silfverlod.

The two cousins have served under Arni as students and apprentices for several years already, and he is happy to see the younger generation take over the family business. While both cousins are fully trained in the skills required for making wands, they have divided the work between themselves so that they are responsible for different parts of the process.

The one most often greeting you in the shop will be Eydís, as she is the one primarily in charge of carving the wands, while Hakon has a talent for finding the very best quality raw materials, and because of this goes on frequent journeys through the wilderness in search for the very finest woods and cores that have always been the trademark of a wand from Volundr.

There are currently no plans for any big changes in how the shop is run, they are planning to keep things he way they have traditionally worked. There is one difference however. In the modern wizarding world, keeping in touch with the community and clients have become increasingly important, which is why you find us here today. Next time you hear from us, you will be treated to personal introductions written by the two new owners!