Sixth Son: Villager in Another World 23

I could not afford salt, so ash it was. Similar to the way that lime could bring down the melting point of glass, I figured that the ash would act the same way. By mixing some ash with clay, it would melt more readily and seal the surface of the clay.

I also examined the failed pots. Two of them had a very small pebbles, only a little larger than grains of coarse sand at the crack, along the path of the crack. To sort out the coarser grains, I would have to make a watertight container first. Instead, it made more sense to keep the containers small and fire up a quantity of ceramic and hoped that enough would survive.

Meanwhile, I gathered the material for my ink: walnut fruit. Not the hard shell and the edible meat within, but the husks that contained nut. I sorted through the fallen fruit to find the least bug eaten and the right level of aging. The dark brown fruit was rich in tannic acid and would etch nicely into the birch bark.

I just needed to burn enough wood to create the ash, glaze the pottery, then boil down the fruit to make ink.

In the meantime, I would need something to do. There was a creek right there, which lent itself to fishing. To fish, I would need a hook, line, and a stick. Man's wants were truly endless.

Sixth Son: Villager in Another World 22

Helen led me past a row of overgrown hedges and through a fallen section of fence. The lawn was overgrown. The potter's home had holes in the thatching.

We approached the kiln. The red brick enclosure was a little larger than an outhouse. The exterior was in good repair, but there looked to be a nest inside.

Helen circled the workshop and found a shutter that had been forced open at some point, which had been wedged into place with a splinter of wood. Once the wedge was removed, the shutter swung open.

She agilely climbed in & held her hand out to me. I took it and followed into the darkened workshop. A pair of spinning wheels dominated the space. Helen gave a wheel a spin. Several bins sat against the walls.

A pair held a small quantity of earth. One was wet. The roof had a hole over it. The other had a withered plant growing out it. A third bins held traces of dark dust, which could have held ash. A fourth still had traces granular salt. We had found two candidates for glazing.

Sixth Son: Villager in Another World 21

Once Ma caught sight of the earthenware pot, she asked me where I got it. I pointed at myself and mimed shaping it. She examined the intact one closer and saw that the shape was somewhat crude. Once she glanced at my hands, she seemed to be satisfied and let the matter drop.

It rained heavily overnight, and the next day was hot. I checked out the clay ovens. The makeshift kiln had survived largely intact. The side of the charcoal oven that faced the creek had fallen in on itself. The next one needed further away from the water.

While I was at the creek, I decided to test the the two good vessels by dipping them into the water. They initially held the water, but started dribbled.

Helen caught me as I sat and pondered the bowl. Her cheeks were flushed with heat. She set aside her bow, took the bowl out of my hand poured the creek water over he still short hair. She filled the bowl back up.

"It looks like your bowl is leaking?"

I nodded.

"The bowls that Mum has are shiny."

Glazing! I forgot that earthenware needed to be glazed before they could hold water. The rough, unglazed surface was porous and let liquids through. The next step was to figure out what could glaze it.

The glazing material could be clay-based as well. The trick was to lower the melting temperature to end up with a smoother surface. Glass making included carbonates to accomplish that. Pottery should have an similar analog.

Whosever memories I had come across certainly wasn't a potter.

"Can't figure out what makes it shiny?" Helen asked.

I shook my head.

"Why don't we go to the potter's place?"

I gave her a questioning look. I hadn't heard about a potter in our village. Even if she did make introductions, would a potter show us the secrets of his techniques. Medieval craftsmen were jealous with their knowledge.

"Come on, let's go take a look," Helen said.

We dropped off our things at her place and headed to the village.

Sixth Son: Villager in Another World 20

I broke out a part of the mud dome to pull out the charcoal. Most of the wood blackened properly into irregular shards of charcoal. The bottom was still a bit sodden and not very well burned, since it was close to the damp ground. That was not a problem, since I could dry it out and heat it into charcoal or burn it. Seeing that there was nowhere else to store it, I ended up stacking the charcoal back into the oven.

Since both the raw materials and fuel were already near the stream, I picked the same area for the kiln. The next afternoon, I built another mud oven. The day after that, I dug clay from underneath crumbly stone and shaped it into some bowls. After letting it dried overnight, I lit another fire and fired the clay.

While tending to the fire, I occupied my hands by making cordage. It was necessary for tying the head onto a hatchet or other tools, lashing together poles, bundling together sticks, used for fishing, or any other other number of things. I could never have enough cordage.

I let the fire burn out on it's own. The bowls seemed to have firmed up, so I left them in the oven to cool down naturally and lessen the thermal shock. I managed to finish my project just in time to avoid the burgeoning storm clouds. 

Out of the six bowls that I had prepared, two cracked in the kiln. One more broke as I tried to remove them. A fourth was had melted like a model for a famous Dali painting, but made it out of the kiln. The fifth and sixth were intact. However, number five broke when I tried to fill it with water. Number six dribbled water, but it washed out to the characteristic orange red of earthenware. One out of six wasn't good, but I could still call it a success.

I kept the shards to number five as well as fourth and sixth ones in a hand basket. I put leaves between the ceramic and tied them to the basket with the cordage. See, I told you that I couldn't have enough of the stuff. The remaining usable charcoal went into a back basket, and I carried the lot back home.