I've timed the work, and making a nail from a forged square iron bar of the correct dimensions takes about 30 seconds and 40 to 50 blows with the hammer - per nail - and the metal is still glowing red when the blacksmith finishes and puts the square bar back into the fire, and starts the process over with the next and already heated square bar.

The nail machine is not beautiful or particularly advanced, but it makes a nail about every 1.5 seconds, as the flow of water to the waterwheel affects the rate, and new flat iron bars have to be fed in occasionally which adds time to the average. Then the nails have to be heated, fed into the main tool which is put into the automatic hammer and one blow later the nail have a head and the finished nail is tapped out and allowed to cool. So apart from the heating, that process takes about 3 to 4 seconds. Not counting the time to make the iron plates for the nail machine or the square iron bar for handmade nails, the nail machine plus head making tool is about 6 to 7 times faster, without 40 to 50 hammer blows. Once I have a powerful roller machine that produce flat iron bars, and a cutting roller that makes flat iron bars of the right size, it will be even easier and faster. As the machines can run simultaneously, about 900 nails can be made per hour by fairly unskilled labour, compared to about 120 nails from a skilled blacksmith, without hard hammer work for that blacksmith. Not having to do about 5000 hammer blows per hour should really save that blacksmiths body and health, and cut down on corresponding tinnitus inducing 'ting' sounds.

This is far more nails than we need for our needs, so in the future, nails will be sold. Of course it is an issue that making nails is an important job for blacksmiths to have, but just because I can make nails quicker and cheaper doesn't change the market until I can produce enough nails to make an impact on the huge market. Special sizes and other nail types will also have to be made by hand. Right now I'm aiming for three different nail sizes, but there may be more in the future. And probably more machines. I'm willing to have a small special workshop and one or two workers that just produce nails and selling the nails through my merchant empire. It will feel good to have boxes of finished nails on the shelf.

Another BAAAP is heard from outside, and we've heard those for a while now. The air horn works and is damn loud, and with the very high air pressure the small tanks can have, I have had to restrict the flow a lot for the siren to work well. Which also means that lots of those loud BAAAPs can be made before the tank is empty, so a lot of noise in a compact size. The sound is unlike anything the elves in this world have heard before, and Iselin and Ciara are clearly enjoying letting elves hear it. Over and over again. The air horn will certainly be used indoors later today at least a couple of times. The big horn with a lower tone is however far too loud to be used indoors. That I want to try to build an even bigger and lower tone one to use on our ship the Eagle as a signalling horn, or just test how far it can be heard, is something Iselin or Ciara clearly and loudly support. It might actually be useful as a fog horn for future lighthouses, but making compressed air for that and storing enough will be an issue.

The marble machines mechanism runs almost constantly because when someone walks past, they crank it up, and there is enough traffic on the stairs to mostly keep it going.

Kari has for once taken an interest in mechanics too, not just electricity or radio. She may want to make her own mechanism, but she definitely wants me to build more. She still doesn't like the cannon beside the stairs, but she understands why it's there and respects the power it represents. However, I am allowed to fill our house with kinetic sculptures, but that will not happen as I don't want all that noise all the time. Kari and others would like to see many more such mechanisms with glass marbles or similar, and also more clocks now that they have learnt to appreciate them. Kari and Iselin likes to hear the bell strikes from the pendulum clock in the main hall, and finds it very practical to know how long it is until the next meal, or until we are going to do something, etc. The village clock tower is excellent! Maybe 'unnecessary' and not really needed, but very useful and luxurious.

Most others like Haera, Skirlaug, the staff and the newcomers like the marble machines unique graceful movement, and that it just works. You crank it and the marble repeats its cycle for so long. They think it's magical to see the glass marble rolling around and when it reaches the bottom, it just gets lifted up to start again on the other track. Haera liked the pendulum clock, but she is just as impressed with the marble machine, if not more, because mechanisms that run by themselves are basically non-existent here. Pendulum clocks are practical and art at the same time, and can of course be made extremely luxurious with precious stones and gold etc, but the marble machine is just beautiful in its simplicity. Kari and Haera think that we should sell such creations to the rich along with pendulum clocks.

Caecilia loves how Jane and I fill the mansion with art of various kinds. The mansion is beautiful on its own, with nice light wood surfaces everywhere, big bright windows and stained glass windows. It's airy and pleasant everywhere, and there is a nice balcony, wonderful views outside and although my bedroom followed by her bedroom are her favourites, she loves so many other rooms and places here. The rugs on the floors. The tapestries on the walls. The chandeliers. Jane's paintings that are so different from anything she's ever seen or heard of before, and Caecilia really wants to be that good herself. She's terribly proud of the portrait painting Jane has painted of her seductive half lying on a sofa. She also loves Jane's interesting clothes and modern ordinary Midgård clothes, but Caecilia especially loves my creations.

That I, who can do so much - such terrible weapons and could have taken so much power by force - instead spend so much time and effort making life comfortable for all of them, including the staff. That I build beautiful little works of art that move or do something, in metal, glass and wood. Creations that make a glass marble roll round and round, or create a lightning bolt that travels up between two metal poles with a frightening sound, or something that just calmly and rhythmically tick and show how time passes, or create music. A box on the wall to summon maids or guards, a wooden box with brass to talk to someone so incredibly far away, or small wooden box you can hold in your hand that just magically shines out light when you touch a brass thing on the side, without heat or fire, and goes out just as quickly. Not surprisingly, she also loves my bedside lamps, work lamps, courtyard lights and experiments with electric light.

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Caecilia loves that I'm a man who cares about and sees the appeal in art, and that I don't just make sure they have nice clothes and jewellery for show like most rich people do, but want to make our home beautiful and interesting. That I see the value in plants all year round and built an expensive glazed outdoor room she's never even heard of, and just for plants. She loves tending the greenhouse with the others, and wants there to be more to do. Caecilia likes that Thrymheim is not a boring dark longhouse or stone castle with boring hunting trophies, furs, weapons and armour, although some castles have painted walls and hanging tapestries, and painted furniture in all kinds of colours. She used to think it was impressive and pretty, but says she knows better now, and although there are weapons and trophies here too, they fit in and are hung more like art because the items deserve it and the history is important.

She is so happy I accepted her and it is a wonderful bonus that she gets to live here, in a home that just gets more wonderful every week, full of music and beautiful interesting magical things. Like a church for sejd, art, music and comforts. Everything that Freya would have loved! It's a dream come true, but a dream she never even knew to dreamed about, and Caecilia completely agrees with Alith in her view of me and her life here.

Caecilia is so terribly happy that she is my courtesan, and that I see value in her and think she fits in here. She doesn't even for one heartbeat regret her oath to Freya. Caecilia now knows that I don't believe in any God or Gods, but that doesn't matter - because Freya believes in me and has guided me here to make Alfheimr better. I am so in tune with Freya's teachings, and she knows that I don't deny that there might be a world or place that Freya rules. Caecilia is convinced that Freya has been guiding her throughout her life to reach me, so that she along with the other women in my life can be a reward and apology to me from Freya. She will do her best to be worthy of this important life task, and she sees everything that has happened to me and the others as proof that this is true.

As Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller said; someone who truly Believes is hard to convince otherwise, and I'm not even trying.

Caecilia would however have loved to see and experience Midgård, because there must be so many beautiful things there when both Jane and I go to such lengths to create such things. She saw the painting that 'John' in that movie had, and it was nothing special except maybe it was a famous person who painted it, and she loves that hundreds of people work for years to create an amazing animated fairy tale.

We've talked about a lot of things, and including how when people have a better life, more leisure time, more food security, and don't have to work and struggle all the time, they get time to express their creativity. They invent and create and get involved in things, and technological development gives more opportunities, and the life she and others live here confirms that. As far as everyone of the Elves I've talked with are aware, there are no museums and such in Alfheimr. Everything that exists is privately owned and mostly not open to the public, but I have explained what a museum is and that there are so many and so big in Midgård, that she could spend her whole life just visiting one after the other and still only seen a small part, and most of their collections don't even fit in their huge buildings, and only a part can be shown at a time.

I will try to equip the Academy with a lot of art and books, and hope the Academy in the future tries to collect and preserve things from other cultures, and I plan to create several museums, and document different cultures, lives and other things for the future. This is especially important if we encounter other cultures during colonisations, and I have plans for mountain vaults and brick buildings, and make copies and to try to preserve stuff in as well protected environments as I can arrange, but have to think about moisture, light and possible fire risk etc.

Iselin gets teased during supper because she has been experimenting with carbon rod welding and although she has been wearing eye protection and long sleeves, she didn't wear face protection and has gotten a bit of 'sunburn' on the lower part of her face and really learnt how much UV radiation electric arcs creates, and why we used simple face shields or similar in previous experiments with arc lights. So Iselin has a bit off 'Panda look' with red skin on the lower part of her face that is slightly itchy. But the conversation moves on to other topics like the gifts and such, but there will probably be the occasional comment when we spend the evening playing the role-playing game. I sure don't complain that they enjoy playing that.

Iselin is really interested in light spectrum, and the invisible light on both sides, that clearly is there and have an effect. Iselin of course remembers my description of how an absorption or emission spectrum can indicate what kind of substance something is, and the redshift of a star, and apart from the fact that it involves telescopes and astronomy, she loves seeing little rainbows from a crystal and is fascinated by that and optics, so I will definitely have her help and support in building spectroscopic equipment, and that will be incredibly important technology for the future. Both for astronomy and chemical identification in minerals and substances. It will be a heck of a job to collect data on which substances give which absorption lines or emission lines, although my book has some of the bigger and more important ones, like the Fraunhofer lines and their substance. Iselin have already been able to see darker lines in the sun spectrum with improvised equipment, but of course better equipment gives actually useful data.

Caecilia has told me how she this afternoon saw Hillevi in the attic, sitting on a chair with her arms on the window frame and her head resting on her arms with the window slightly open, just looking at the view without caring about the cold air that was coming in. The glasses were a really good gift, and she's not sad or jealous that she didn't get a black powder gun. I wish I could make full colour spectrum corrected glasses for Hillevi, but the clear glass is not as good as the yellow, and good function tops full spectrum. If I understand correctly, Hillevi sees the glasses as more 'sejdish' because everything looks slightly yellow through them, but it is most noticeable when she takes them off or puts them on. She hardly thinks about it while wearing them.

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