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Author Topic: Cold Iron  (Read 1434 times)

Frostfire

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Cold Iron
« on: February 05, 2013, 03:06:12 pm »
so where did the whole " cold iron kills fae" thing come from? I've heard it referenced that it kills them, although I've only ever actually read that it weakens them and can be used to entrap them. Even then I'm iffy, what do you think it is about iron or rowan or any of the other magical items/ charms that are supposed to be potent against fae, or spirits/supernatural beings in general.  vampires and garlic, fae and iron, charmander and bubblebeam, the list goes on.

I suppose I'm just hoping for some thoughts, suggestions, examples, and explanations about it. Feel free to be up to as oddball or far reaching as me. Momma always said don't hang out with people crazier than you are, so if you go to far I'm afriad we can't be friends no more. :P ( jokes )

Caroline

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Re: Cold Iron
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2013, 04:25:09 pm »
Quote from: Frostfire;95220
so where did the whole " cold iron kills fae" thing come from? I've heard it referenced that it kills them, although I've only ever actually read that it weakens them and can be used to entrap them. Even then I'm iffy, what do you think it is about iron or rowan or any of the other magical items/ charms that are supposed to be potent against fae, or spirits/supernatural beings in general.  vampires and garlic, fae and iron, charmander and bubblebeam, the list goes on.

 
From a 'how did the original idea develop' viewpoint, I would think it is because meteoric iron (the earliest type available) was incredibly rare, and hence had intrinsic value. And if it was actively known or perceived to have fallen to earth, even moreso. Hence something rare/otherworldy as a likely choice to deal with/counter something rare/otherworldly.

Or maybe because iron ore can smell like blood and weird = power.

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Re: Cold Iron
« Reply #2 on: February 05, 2013, 04:29:53 pm »
Quote from: Frostfire;95220
so where did the whole " cold iron kills fae" thing come from? I've heard it referenced that it kills them, although I've only ever actually read that it weakens them and can be used to entrap them.

 
One of the arguments about iron is that it's a symbol/metaphor for the shift from agricultural era to industrial era, and the fading of the Fae. (Before the industrial era, a lot more iron was cold-worked, too, for various reasons.)
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Re: Cold Iron
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2013, 11:08:36 pm »
Quote from: Frostfire;95220
so where did the whole " cold iron kills fae" thing come froma?

 
How about the idea that iron has a rather dense vibration and would disrupt the finer energies of the fae?  In a way grounding them, that could be kinda painful to have your very essence nailed to the earth.
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Re: Cold Iron
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2013, 12:28:47 pm »
Quote from: Frostfire;95220
so where did the whole " cold iron kills fae" thing come from?

 
There's some discussion about that in the thread Protective Properties of Iron from a bit ago, as well.

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Frostfire

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Re: Cold Iron
« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2013, 03:31:35 pm »
Quote from: Oaksworn;95278
How about the idea that iron has a rather dense vibration and would disrupt the finer energies of the fae?  In a way grounding them, that could be kinda painful to have your very essence nailed to the earth.

 
Ah, I think that feels kinda right in my brain box. I'm reaching here, but maybe something along the lines of fae are expressions of free energy so iron grounds them out and unravels their substance?

I had played with a few other ideas:

I was toying with some correlation of the fae and stars.. I remember reading somewhere that when a star begins the end of its life cycle it begins producing iron.  I am not sure why but in the back of my head that sees vaguely related. Like maybe iron leaches the life force or it is a manifestation of  something that is the fae's antithesis.. It is the first sign of the death of a star, fae are life and vibrance and..idk haha

another thing I heard recently that struck me as worth pondering was that iron is not itself poison and pain to fae. a lump of raw iron isn't going to kill or poison a fae or spirit. It's worked iron that is a detterant. Worked iron is a representation of man reshaping and bending the world to his will. It is this that hurts spirits and the fae or keeps them away.  

It also occured to me that maybe it isn't that iron itself is so bad for them. Maybe its more that they have no relationship to iron. Like we have a touch of it inside us. We are akin to it. We shape it, we use it, we know it. Maybe it is just completely alien to them. Completely outside their nature. As such they cannot work it, use it, or have any command of it.

I'm just speculating on all of this mind you or maybe massive leaps of thought and random chains in my head. I don't knowingly work with fae or I'd probably just ask.. stupid as that may seem haha. None of the spirits I frequently work with are bothered by iron either.

I also read once that the iron "allergy" is more regional than a rule.  The person was talking about  how there is an unseelie that lives in the lake by her house, but the lake is so full of iron in the water that it's red. so maybe fae or spirits arn't as a rule repelled by iron but rather a fae who lives where there is none or where there is a notable lack would be more suspeptable to it vs one who lives where iron is prevelant.

i can't find the particular page atm ( i'm at work ) but the blog link is here
http://rootandrock.blogspot.com/

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Re: Cold Iron
« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2013, 06:07:43 pm »
Quote from: Frostfire;95333
I was toying with some correlation of the fae and stars.. I remember reading somewhere that when a star begins the end of its life cycle it begins producing iron.  I am not sure why but in the back of my head that sees vaguely related.


I have long been fond of the "iron kills stars" explanation.

The short run of the physics of it, by the way, is that iron is ... I'm probably going to explain this badly, but here's a go at it: iron is kind of static.

For stuff lighter than iron, you bang things together and you can get energy out of them sticking, and you can keep banging the heavier and heavier things together and still get energy out of it, until iron.  (Fusion.)

For stuff heavier than iron, you can get energy out of breaking them down into smaller components.  But it has to be heavier than iron to do that.  (Fission.)

So you get stars manufacturing everything up to iron in weight because they can 'feed' off the transformations, but once they start getting iron, it costs more energy to transform the thing than they get out of it.  So stuff heavier than iron is only produced by supernovas, where the explosion of death forces transformations that don't feed the star.

If you think of the fey as change-spirits, that stable point might be relevant; if you think of the fey as aligned with the stars, what harms a star would harm a fairy.

Quote
It also occured to me that maybe it isn't that iron itself is so bad for them. Maybe its more that they have no relationship to iron. Like we have a touch of it inside us. We are akin to it. We shape it, we use it, we know it. Maybe it is just completely alien to them. Completely outside their nature. As such they cannot work it, use it, or have any command of it.


This is one of the approaches I have also used.  We cannot escape iron: it is our blood, part of the nature of our form of life.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Aine Rayne

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Re: Cold Iron
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2013, 07:20:17 pm »
Quote from: Frostfire;95333
Ah, I think that feels kinda right in my brain box. I'm reaching here, but maybe something along the lines of fae are expressions of free energy so iron grounds them out and unravels their substance?

I had played with a few other ideas:

I was toying with some correlation of the fae and stars.. I remember reading somewhere that when a star begins the end of its life cycle it begins producing iron.  I am not sure why but in the back of my head that sees vaguely related. Like maybe iron leaches the life force or it is a manifestation of  something that is the fae's antithesis.. It is the first sign of the death of a star, fae are life and vibrance and..idk haha

[/url]

 
Well Iron absorbs energy when it's fused inside a star, as opposed to radiating energy when it's fused, like hydrogen. It's impossible for a star to put enough energy into iron to fuse it into the next element, it just keeps eating up the energy. That's why the star dies once it starts to fuse iron. As the core falls apart because the iron is absorbing energy gravity pulls the outer layers in and it pulls them hard. This causes an implosion and all the matter rebounds outward into a supernova explosion. The force and energy of the crushing and heat from gravity and the resulting explosion is the only thing powerful enough to fuse iron and other heavy elements such as gold and platinum. That's why we have any elements heavier than iron, but it's also why they are so scarce. Supernovas only last for a few seconds and you need a massive enough star (at least eight times the size of the sun) for a supernova to occur. Most smaller stars go red giant at the stage where it's fusing carbon or oxygen before dying off into a white dwarf. That's our sun's fate. I will say that's an interesting idea of why the fae dislike iron.
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