For Steve: Cold Iron

[DShomshak]

Steve: In your urban fantasy, are you giving the Fae a special weakness against iron? After all, it's a common trope nowadays (though I wouldn't call it a necessary one).

 

In case you do, you might be interested in this bit I wrote some years back for White Wolf's Mage: The Awakening. I created a group of magical blacksmiths called the Forge Masters, AKA the Powersmiths. This section dealt with the magic and mythology of iron. You may find it inspirational.

 

(NB: As I read the old ms. I thought of one or two new details to add, so it isn't exactly as published.)

 

The Power of Iron

 

For centuries, Western scientists doubted that stones and metal fell from the sky, but ancient peoples knew this perfectly well. The Sumerian word for iron loosely translates as “star-stone,” and the Greek name “siderite” has the same meaning. The metal from the sky obviously came from the gods and so was used for sacred blades; bits of iron were set in gold like jewels. Even after the Hittites learned to smelt iron, meteoric iron retained special value because of its celestial origin — plus, it didn’t rust, a property now ascribed to its nickel content.

 

For thousands of years, mortal blacksmiths could not liquefy iron. They charged their furnaces with ore and charcoal. Weeks later, they pulled out a spongy mass of iron still mixed with sand, slag and other bits of mineral that wouldn’t burn away. The smith had to hammer these impurities out of the hot metal.

 

Blacksmiths thought the spongy iron looked like a plant, and so they called it a “bloom.” Every iron-working culture in the world developed the same conceit: Iron, and other metals, slowly grew in the earth as a refinement or perfection of common stone. The heat of the furnace accelerated this growth into a higher and purer form; the furnace itself was a man-made womb where the generation of life took place. By speeding the work of nature, surely the smelter had worked magic — or maybe even seized the fire of divinity itself.

 

Iron’s new birth within the furnace did little to reduce the awe attached to the metal from the stars. Even though Homer contrasted “democratic iron” to the bronze of aristocrats’ weapons and armor, no one ever imagined that bronze would kill spirits or bring luck. Iron retains its mythic role as a symbol of strength and power: No soldier ever received the Titanium Cross.

 

Indeed, modern Powersmiths say that science reveals greater depths to iron’s mythic power. Iron is the death of suns: The fusion process that powers stars ends when it reaches iron. Building heavier elements consumes energy instead of releasing it. That is the cold of iron, the cold that quenched a star. Every element heavier than iron (including the other six mystic metals gold, silver, copper, tin, lead and mercury) is generated when a massive star dies in a supernova explosion, building heavier atoms from the iron in its dead core. One such supernova sparked the creation of the Solar system, though. Iron from that dead star enables blood to carry oxygen, and the iron at the Earth’s core creates the magnetic field that shields the atmosphere from blowing away in the solar wind.

 

Some Forge Masters give iron a different primacy. Iron nails held Christ to the Cross. Through the iron of Calvary, a single death led to life eternal. These mages would not deny the stellar significance of iron; seeing connections between theology and astrophysics is just part of being Awakened, at least in the Free Council.

 

Whatever their faith, Forge Masters see iron as the greatest of metals. It is the metal of life and death conjoined. Iron tools give humanity dominion over nature, and iron weapons enslave them to other men. It is power itself.

----------------------

 

Dean Shomshak

[Steve]

Thanks!

 

Iron will have an effect on the Fae, but its effect will be somewhat limited.

 

Glamour can be dispelled by the touch of cold iron, so stores that deal in precious gems and metals will keep a small stock on hand to tap on anything they are thinking of purchasing.

 

As far as damaging Fae goes, any Fae that allowed themselves to be rendered down into more mortal forms are not harmed by it. At worst, some Fae have an allergy to it, causing generally non-fatal reactions. Those of mixed race are even less affected, and it would be very rare for a half-Fae to have such an allergy.

 

As a group, Unseelie are more affected by it, causing them burns and pain to come into contact with it. However, it has to be cold iron, and most forms of modern steel don't qualify. Meteoric iron always works, but it is difficult to come by.

[Christopher]

The Power of Iron

 

For centuries, Western scientists doubted that stones and metal fell from the sky, but ancient peoples knew this perfectly well. The Sumerian word for iron loosely translates as “star-stone,” and the Greek name “siderite” has the same meaning. The metal from the sky obviously came from the gods and so was used for sacred blades; bits of iron were set in gold like jewels. Even after the Hittites learned to smelt iron, meteoric iron retained special value because of its celestial origin — plus, it didn’t rust, a property now ascribed to its nickel content.

If I rememebr it right I once saw a Docmentation about one of the "barbaric" Civilsiations of Roman times that used Meteoric Iron for thier Weaponry. The result were metal works on par with modern Ironworks.

 

For thousands of years, mortal blacksmiths could not liquefy iron. They charged their furnaces with ore and charcoal. Weeks later, they pulled out a spongy mass of iron still mixed with sand, slag and other bits of mineral that wouldn’t burn away. The smith had to hammer these impurities out of the hot metal.

 

Blacksmiths thought the spongy iron looked like a plant, and so they called it a “bloom.” Every iron-working culture in the world developed the same conceit: Iron, and other metals, slowly grew in the earth as a refinement or perfection of common stone. The heat of the furnace accelerated this growth into a higher and purer form; the furnace itself was a man-made womb where the generation of life took place. By speeding the work of nature, surely the smelter had worked magic — or maybe even seized the fire of divinity itself.

There is a much stronger tie between lifeforce and and iron: Human Blood Smells of iron. This lead to peopel think of it as the "life force" or "blood" of the earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_in_folklore

 

Iron’s new birth within the furnace did little to reduce the awe attached to the metal from the stars. Even though Homer contrasted “democratic iron” to the bronze of aristocrats’ weapons and armor, no one ever imagined that bronze would kill spirits or bring luck. Iron retains its mythic role as a symbol of strength and power: No soldier ever received the Titanium Cross.

 

Indeed, modern Powersmiths say that science reveals greater depths to iron’s mythic power. Iron is the death of suns: The fusion process that powers stars ends when it reaches iron. Building heavier elements consumes energy instead of releasing it. That is the cold of iron, the cold that quenched a star. Every element heavier than iron (including the other six mystic metals gold, silver, copper, tin, lead and mercury) is generated when a massive star dies in a supernova explosion, building heavier atoms from the iron in its dead core. One such supernova sparked the creation of the Solar system, though. Iron from that dead star enables blood to carry oxygen, and the iron at the Earth’s core creates the magnetic field that shields the atmosphere from blowing away in the solar wind.

Actually the more common dead cores (White Dwarfs, what our sun will end up as; 97% of all knows stars) are not made up of iron. The initial star was to light to ever get for fuse to iron, so it instead leaves a Carbon-Oxygen Corpse. The upper limit white dwarfs (enough starting mass to fuse that carbon away) will leave oxygen-neon-magnesium Corpses. There might still be some of it formed in the nova, but the bulk doesn't comes from them.

To actually get iron you need a star heavy enough become a Neutron Star or Black Hole (but in those cases a Supernova is almost guaranteed too):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_Star#Formation

 

But yes, Iron is the end product of those bigs stars. (And carbon/oxygen/neon/magnesium of the lighter ones). You cannot fuse iron without loosing energy, so they literally run out of stuff to burn.

When Stars run out of stuff to burn, they have nothing to support thier wieght and colapse - to White Dwarf (light enough to sustain on electron degenrancy pressure alone) a neutron star (wich is light enough that Pauli's exclusion principle suppports them) or a singularity (Black Hole.

[Lord Liaden]

Trust Dean Shomshak to add layers to the riddle of steel.

[Markdoc]

For thousands of years, mortal blacksmiths could not liquefy iron. They charged their furnaces with ore and charcoal. Weeks later, they pulled out a spongy mass of iron still mixed with sand, slag and other bits of mineral that wouldn’t burn away. The smith had to hammer these impurities out of the hot metal.

 

This part, at least, in inaccurate: the earliest primitive blast furnaces (in the southern chinese state of Wu) were built in the first half of the millennium before Christ and there are many cast-iron artifacts dating from the second half of that millennium. We have tomb goods accurately dated to around the time of Christ from China, where the metal was not only cast, but then afterwards partially decarburised by heating in air and reworked to give blades with a high-carbon cutting edge and a low carbon, steel-like core.

 

It's also inaccurate that making a bloom takes weeks - typically a primitive furnace (European, early-mid iron-age style) takes several weeks to make. It's made out of clay over a wooden frame, which takes several hours, and the rest of that time is drying. Typically a team of three can make a half dozen furnaces in one day (I've actually watched this being done). Then each furnace is fired once to harden (that takes a day) and then fired a second time with the charge (partially burned iron ore, which you just cook in a big bonfire). The creation of the bloom takes 6-7 hours, and then you smash up the furnace (that's why you build them in sets: they are usable once only!) and extract the cooled bloom the next day or so.

 

cheers, Mark

[Steve]

It seems like there is a certain "break point" where cold iron crosses over into steel. Perhaps it is the carbon content? Something more mystical?

 

Maybe something could be said for hand-forged items, where a person is needed to pump bellows and hammer iron into shape. Having machines now handling what blacksmiths used to do may diminish the special quality of "cold iron" to affect things?

[Lucius]

 

The first thing I'd ask is, how does one define "cold" iron?

 

I've often thought this meant any iron, including steel, that is not heated above the point where it would de-magnetize, because I tend to associate that ferromagnetic property with iron's disruptiveness to the fae and to magick in general.

 

Which also explains how one can have enchanted iron, and why iron items can be so powerful - the spell is cast when the iron is HOT and therefore "open" to being influenced, and when it cools the spell is "set" somewhat as iron cooling inside a magnetic field is apt to become just as powerfully magnetic.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wonders how to tell real cold iron from a forgery

[Christopher]

It seems like there is a certain "break point" where cold iron crosses over into steel. Perhaps it is the carbon content? Something more mystical?

 

Maybe something could be said for hand-forged items, where a person is needed to pump bellows and hammer iron into shape. Having machines now handling what blacksmiths used to do may diminish the special quality of "cold iron" to affect things?

 

The first thing I'd ask is, how does one define "cold" iron?

 

I've often thought this meant any iron, including steel, that is not heated above the point where it would de-magnetize, because I tend to associate that ferromagnetic property with iron's disruptiveness to the fae and to magick in general.

I had the same idea. One of the reasons you have to keep Hard Disk Drives cool* is that too much heat will de-magnetise the Layer that carries the data:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#Magnetic_recording

 

*On your home computer or laptop the passive cooling is enough. But real servers with entire racks of HHD's need active cooling systems for the Disks.

 

 

That also means we have a rather good knowledge of how to keep stuff ferro-magnetic while working with it - the computer industry needed/needs it (for HDD's at least; right now Quantum Tunnel Effect SSD's compete with them).

[Markdoc]

Meteoric iron is often of surprisingly high purity - enough that it can shaped without smelting. The vikings in Greenland, for example, apparently used iron from a large meteorite and simply cut and hammered it to shape.

 

That's what cold iron is - and it's magical of course, because it fell from the sky.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Steve]

So, if I'm understanding right, Pure iron = Cold iron?

[Chris Goodwin]

On the other hand, if whatever property of iron that causes harm to the fae comes from the iron having been birthed in the core of a dying star, I kind of doubt that heating it will affect that property.  YMMV, of course.  

[Lucius]

If I say of someone who only cares about money "The only way to sway him is with cold hard cash" I don't mean that he won't take your money if it's above a certain temperature or for that matter if the bills have been through the laundry a couple of times are soft and faded instead of crisp ("hard.")

 

Honestly, I think that where the folklore says "cold iron" it just means "iron" period, the "cold" being a poetic descriptive word used because iron often is pretty cold to the touch because, after all, it conducts heat pretty well. I've certainly seen plenty of old stories where the temperature of the iron isn't even mentioned.

 

But if you want the "cold" to be meaningful, there are ways to interpret it, including the one I presented and Markdoc's excellent suggestion of meteoric iron.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary seeks to drive away the sidhe, crying at one end "Flee, Elf!" and at the other "No! Rises Iron!"

[IndianaJoe3]

I have a memory that, "cold" iron may have referred to wrought iron (worked while solid), as opposed to cast iron (which is melted). I don't have a source and it might be my own conjecture.

[DShomshak]

I've heard that "cold-worked iron" hypothesis as well. I've never seen anyone present evidence for it, though.

 

In Poul Anderson's Operation: Chaos, which I've mentioned before, iron suppressed all things supernatural had something to do with its magnetic properties. At any rate, the new age of scientific magic only began once it was found how to degauss iron. In Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest, Oberon and Titania lament that the proliferation of iron-based industry is driving the Fae from Britain.

 

I suppose it all depends on how much of a plot element you want the power of iron to be.

 

Whatever you choose, I like the "Iron is the death of suns" justification for iron's magical potential because it inverts that tired old cliche that "Science strips the magic and wonder from everything." A claim usually made by people who are notably ignorant of science.

 

(And yes, I know that in most stars, fusion does not proceed all the way to iron. But iron is nevertheless a "hard cap" to stellar fusion. If fusion ends at carbon, oxygen, or whatever, that's contingent on the accident of the star's mass. The iron limit, OTOH, is absolute: Stellar fusion does not proceed past iron because it cannot, which gives it symbolic power.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Markdoc]

So, if I'm understanding right, Pure iron = Cold iron?

No - what I was suggesting is that cold iron is "natural iron" - Iron that hasn't been produced in a human forge. It's meteoric iron that has just been carved off a meteorite and hammered into shape. It's a pretty ineffective way to make weapons - all of the unforged weapons we know of are arrowheads or small spearheads or tiny knives: it'd be pretty difficult to make a sword that way.

 

I've heard that "cold-worked iron" hypothesis as well. I've never seen anyone present evidence for it, though.

 

The evidence for the use of unforged iron is in (among other places) the University of Copenhagen's geologic museum (where one part of the Cape York Meteor is sitting in the courtyard) and the National Danish museum where they have a big collection of artifacts from the viking settlements in Greenland. Their websites are in Danish, but there's a page here discussing the weapons, and a better photo here showing another one. So we know that weapons were made of unforged iron. We also know that they were considered valuable items: they were traded back to Europe in small quantities, despite the fact that forged iron was readily available. It's easy to see why - they were made from metal that fell from the sky (or grew out of mountains) and they didn't rust. The part of the Cape York meteorite in rainy Copenhagen sits outside uncovered. In the decades it's been sitting there, the meteorite hasn't lost its lustrous, shiny appearance, despite being fully exposed to rain and air. In a few cases, chunks of meteorite iron were set in medieval jewellery - thought to be for good luck charms (it wasn't because iron was rare; by that stage, iron was being used to make pots, nails and cooking implements). Small amounts of meteoric iron were also forged into more conventional weapons made with ordinary iron, presumably because of its magical property.

 

Of course, we don't know that that's what the phrase "cold iron" refers to: we don't know for sure what it means. But that's a widely accepted origin of the phrase among scandinavian folklorists. Old Norse uses many words to describe iron, among them ildjern and kuldjern (Fire-iron and cold-iron) generally thought to mean forged and unforged iron. The latter is thought to have "magical properties" and the idea that iron is anathema to trolls and færies is common in Scandinavia and the northern British Isles (though if true, it seems to have simply changed to any old iron in many stories). 

 

Like troll or fae, it's a folkloric term and thus by definition, exceedingly imprecise: it can mean whatever you want it to mean.

 

cheers, Mark

[DShomshak]

Ah, thank you, Markdoc. Very cool!

 

(In my admittedly-hasty research for the Forge Masters, I found a picture of meteoric iron set in a gold brooch. That was from the ancient world -- I *think* Mesopotamian, but it's been several years so my memory might play me false. That this was still happening in Medieval Europe suggests the power and persistence of the idea.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Markdoc]

Admittedly, the pieces I've seen were from Scandinavia, which was pretty backward compared to the rest of Europe (both jewellery-wise and superstition-wise). As an aside, people in earlier times had a different ideas about jewellery than we do. The same collection (it's the Royal jewellery collection in the vault under Rosenborg castle) with the meteoric iron brooch has some later pieces (actually quite a few) with bits of coconut shell set in gold or silver. Yup, ordinary, brown-looking coconut shell. I've never heard that it was considered magic, just exotic, so it's possible that the meteoric iron was also prized for its rarity, not magic powers (though I like the magic powers idea, and it's not too far out).

 

Also - on fantasy jewellery tropes - we visited the collection in the sultan's palace in Istanbul. You know those stories about "an emerald as big as your fist?" They actually exist. The collection has some huge gems, literally as big (or bigger) than a man's fist, including one huge emerald hollowed out and made into a drinking bottle. To modern eyes they actually look kind of ehh, because they are not faceted and polished like modern gems, so they look more like shiny rocks, but still ...

 

cheers, Mark

[Christopher]

Admittedly, the pieces I've seen were from Scandinavia, which was pretty backward compared to the rest of Europe (both jewellery-wise and superstition-wise). As an aside, people in earlier times had a different ideas about jewellery than we do. The same collection (it's the Royal jewellery collection in the vault under Rosenborg castle) with the meteoric iron brooch has some later pieces (actually quite a few) with bits of coconut shell set in gold or silver. Yup, ordinary, brown-looking coconut shell. I've never heard that it was considered magic, just exotic, so it's possible that the meteoric iron was also prized for its rarity, not magic powers (though I like the magic powers idea, and it's not too far out).

For some time beween it's discovery and mass production Aluminium was more valuable then Gold!

"Prior to commercial electrical generation in the early 1880s, and the Hall-Héroult process in the mid 1880s, aluminium was exceedingly difficult to extract from its various ores. This made pure aluminium more valuable than gold.^[50] Bars of aluminium were exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1855.^[51]Napoleon III of France is reputed to have given a banquet where the most honoured guests were given aluminium utensils, while the others made do with gold.^[52][53]

Aluminium was selected as the material to use for the 100 ounce (2.8 kg) capstone of the Washington Monument in 1884, a time when one ounce (30 grams) cost the daily wage of a common worker on the project.^[54] The capstone, which was set in place on December 6, 1884, in an elaborate dedication ceremony, was the largest single piece of aluminium cast at the time, when aluminium was as expensive as silver.^[54]"

Yes, the third most common element on Earth and the most common Metal on Earth was one of the rarest and valuable materials - simply because it was hard to produce.

[Lucius]

 

So the legendary metal out of which Elves forged incredibly light coats of mail was aluminum, extracted from ore via a secret magical process and probably alloyed with other nonferrous metals?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary says first class mail has a weight limit

[Markdoc]

So the legendary metal out of which Elves forged incredibly light coats of mail was aluminum, extracted from ore via a secret magical process and probably alloyed with other nonferrous metals?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary says first class mail has a weight limit

 

Yeah, we've already done that joke in my game. Also, it doesn't rust! Truly, the Aluminia of the elves is a magical substance.

 

As an aside, Otto von Bismarck is said to have had a parade helmet made out of aluminium: the photos I saw indicated that it was polished to a high sheen so that it looked like steel, but I can guess that it would be a lot lighter to wear. Not a bad thing if you had to have it on for hours at a time.

 

cheers, Mark

[L. Marcus]

Titanium is my candidate for mithril.

[Lord Liaden]

Many of the materials we commonly use and take for granted today, would be rare and seem the product of magic to earlier eras. I mean, we synthesize rubies, man!

[DShomshak]

More from the prolific Poul Anderson: In one of his Fantasy novels (I forget which one), the elves had daggers of magnesium. IIRC, the protagonist set one on fire to use the blinding, UV-rich light against the sunlight-averse elves.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Bits of coconut shell set in jewelry? There may be more to the story than "It's exotic." Before the discovery of the Seychelles Islands where they grow, the Coco de Mer was one of the rarest and most mysterious commodities of the Indian Ocean -- and consequently believed to possess nigh-magical powers. (The nut's resemblance to a woman's midsection probably added to its supernatural reputation.) The Wikipedia page "Legends of the Coco de Mer notes:

 

"In the Maldives, any Coco de Mer nuts that were found in the ocean or on the beaches were supposed to be given to the king, and keeping a nut for yourself or selling it could have resulted in the death penalty.[2] However, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor was able to purchase one of these nuts for 4,000 gold florins. The Dutch Admiral Wolfert Hermanssen also received a nut as a gift for his services, from the Sultan of Bantam in 1602, for fighting the Portuguese and protecting the capital of Bantam. However, the nut that the admiral was given was missing the top part; apparently the Sultan had ordered the top of the nut to be cut off, in order not to upset the noble admiral’s modesty.[3][4] João de Barros believed that Coco de Mer possessed amazing healing powers, superior even to those of "the precious stone Bezoar".[4] In one of his books, Dr. Berthold Carl Seemann mentioned that many believed the nuts to be an antidote to all poisons.[2]"

 

There's no way of knowing without the full provenance of the jewelry, but if the shell is coco de mer it might have been amuletic, just as if it were set with a bezoar or a bit of supposed unicorn's horn.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

More from the prolific Poul Anderson: In one of his Fantasy novels (I forget which one), the elves had daggers of magnesium. IIRC, the protagonist set one on fire to use the blinding, UV-rich light against the sunlight-averse elves.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

I remember that! "The Dagger of Burning," from Three Hearts and Three Lions. One of my two favorite Anderson novels, along with The Broken Sword (which covers very similar subject matter).