There is a story told in LeGrand Cannon's Look to the Mountain in which the master blacksmith makes a scythe blade of Damascus steel for a young mower in 1769. In the high heat of his forge he pounds bars of iron and steel together, folding them over each other again and again. After tempering, the effect of the mingled metals in the blade is much like fudge ripple. The iron gives the blade flexibility as an antidote to the steel's brittleness; the steel holds the edge razor sharp, and gives the enduring shape of the blade. The price? Twenty-one cords of rock maple, cut, split, and stacked. The master smith assures the young man that there will be at least one blow of the hammer for every strike of the ax.