Wouldnt It Be Easy to Kill Faeries With Iron

"All elves feel the shadow of fe, and to those who walk our higher paths, it is a blight that breaks the body and twists the mind."

One of the nigh ordinarily-seen Depleted Phlebotinum Shells and the traditional bane of The Off-white Folk. Other supernatural creatures, such as werewolves and vampires, may also brandish a weakness to information technology. On occasion, this may besides extend to elves.

Iron may be treated every bit naturally magic-disrupting or but poisonous for certain creatures. Sometimes it'due south supposed to suck the magic out of The Fair Folk (similar to the way it sucks heat out of the trunk), usually accompanied with screams virtually how "information technology burns". Sometimes it's got something to exercise with ferromagnetism, or related to atomic number 26's nuclear stability, or its resistance to rust.

Fifty-fifty when it doesn't actually damage anyone, iron may exist portrayed as a magically inert substance that blocks, weakens or dampens magic, or that cannot itself be affected by it.

At that place's little agreement about what "cold" means in this context. Sometimes information technology just ways that the iron, at the moment, isn't hot. Sometimes it's cold-worked iron, every bit opposed to hot-worked. Sometimes it's more than complicated, similar atomic number 26 that has never been smelted, or iron that's been smelted in a magic way that doesn't involve any rut. Or information technology may besides exist a reference to the fact that heating magnets to a sure point causes them to lose their magnetism, and then "cold" iron is atomic number 26 that yet has its magnetic (magic) ability.

Alternatively, information technology might merely exist a poetic reference to any fe (much as "cold steel" was used in after times), just because metals at room temperature feel cold thank you to rut conductivity. These instances are mostly more faithful to the old folklore behind The Fair Folk, in which this trope comes up as as a specially old grade of "magic vs. technology" symbolism. The logic behind these mythos is that metal atomic number 26, beingness a man-made substance never institute in nature, is abomination to the nature-inclined Fae.

Thunderbolt Fe may or may not be related: meteorite alloys are ordinarily atomic number 26-based and can be cold-worked when no fuel is available to make steel. They are good in cold climates considering they don't get breakable in common cold equally hands as carbon steels do (if they're one of those rarities among rarities that isn't brittle at all temperatures because of impurities).

Cold Iron may be a reason why Armor and Magic Don't Mix, too every bit a form of Unobtainium in some cases.

Sub-Trope of Supernatural Repellent and Fantasy Metals. See likewise Silver Bullet, for another metal with anti-supernatural properties.

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Examples:

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    Anime & Manga

• The Aboriginal Magus' Helpmate: Fairies are vulnerable to iron, and can be restrained with something as uncomplicated as a glove with fe thread woven into it.
• Ushio and Tora: Highly implied: the Kouhamei sect's weapons are made of iron and used against youkai, while the Beast Spear itself is made of, mayhap, Thunderbolt Iron. Even Big Bad Hakumen no Mono has a tail made of iron (later upgraded to a tail made of steel blades) to specifically impale other youkai.

    Card Games

• Munchkin: In Munchkin Bites, Cold Iron is a trap card that only affects Changeling characters.

    Comic Books

• Astro Urban center invoked this during the climax of The Tarnished Angel. The destruction of the Big Bad's base led to Steeljack accidentally breaking one of the diverse magical trinkets The Collector had amassed, this one being the prison of seven malevolent spirits known as The Seven Sisters. Unfortunately for them, Steeljack'due south power comes from existence coated with a semi-organic steel alloy, pregnant that his entire torso is cold fe. In the ensuing boxing, Steeljack destroys three of the sisters earlier the remaining four flee.
• Hellboy: In The Corpse, Hellboy exposes a changeling by touching an iron horseshoe to its forehead. Subsequently he tests the real infant the same way, just to make certain. Conversely, in The Iron Shoes (commonly published alongside The Corpse, since the latter is not quite long plenty to fill up an outcome), some folklorists explain that a few fairy creatures don't mind fe and in fact are rather fond of it, including the title character:

  ''Live or die,
  Win or lose,
  All-time beware...
  MY Atomic number 26 SHOES!"

• Legion of Super-Heroes: In the Elseworld story Superboy's Legion, Ferro Lad is able to destroy the magical constructs of the Emerald Enchantress's magic eye — the 2d he heard he was upwardly against magic he turned into his iron form and got to business. This doesn't typically apply to other incarnations of Ferro Lad, though.
• Marvel Comics:
  • Marvel demons are often vulnerable to iron. Even Adversary, an Eldritch Abomination aiming to destroy cosmos and create a new globe had to avoid contact with Colossus. Colossus's organic steel body has also caused difficulty to an entity claiming to be Baba Yaga, and the demon Northward'astirh.
  • Iron Man is not literally iron, ^notation it'southward actually a gold-titanium alloy! but just calling himself "Iron Human" is apparently reason enough for Malekith to call down The Wild Hunt on him - granted, this was by and large a sign of how monumentally petty and casually sadistic he is (ane of the Rings of the Standard mandarin is trying to influence him that mode, it finds out he's Eviler Than Thousand, and he does information technology anyhow). While Tony's usual suits are not iron, Malekith withal ends upwardly getting more than than he bargained for after he provokes Tony (newly discovered to have been adopted) with stories about what Dark Elves do to Changelings. Tony has his ally send him a custom suit made entirely of fe complete with huge wrist-blades, a harpoon gun and a combination of fe filings and fans, so promptly goes on a rampage so roughshod that he scares anybody, from his marry, to ordinary Dark Elves, to Malekith himself, who eventually . Afterwards, the Dark Elves start using him as a apparition for their children (which Malekith actually considers a plus), and information technology gets a Telephone call-Back during War of the Realms when Malekith makes a bespeak of avoiding Tony and manipulating a dragon into going later on him.
  • In The Mighty Thor, the dark elves of Svartalfheim are vulnerable to iron. This is explained by atomic number 26 being "the metallic of humans", so it kinda fits with the nature-vs-science thing mentioned above. Lampshaded in The Incredible Hercules #132 where the title character asks Balder (actually Malekith disguised) why the Asgardians have so much problem with the Night Elves, citing that even their strongest spells can exist nullified by the slightest touch on of atomic number 26 and the Asgardians use steel in their weapons and armor. Balder explains that the Dark Elves have powerful allies that don't share their weakness to iron (cue, a large troll that Hercules just knocked into the ground retaliates and beats the crap out of him).
  • Wolverine's adamantium claws besides count, since adamantium is a steel alloy. In one story he was able to hands acceleration some yokai, merely the big bad was instead vulnerable to golden. Prior to that fight Wolverine had dipped one of his claws in gold and kept it retracted until the critical moment.
• The Sandman (1989): In the story Cluracan'south Tale, the title character (a faerie) is captured and bound with common cold iron chains, in a jail cell with cold iron bars. He has to telephone call on the Sandman to free himself.
• Superlative 10: In the spin-off Smax, Gadgeteer Genius Toybox finds herself having to defeat a dragon in a magical realm where her gadgets don't piece of work. Her eventual solution has a big technobabble justification ^annotation Namely, supernova nucleosynthesis , just for the setting information technology's essentially Cold Iron.

    Fan Works

• Avengers of the Ring: Equally per Marvel Comics canon, Malekith the Accursed, leader of the Night Elves from Thor: The Nighttime Earth, is vulnerable to iron. So Thor decides to allow Iron Human tackle Malekith, while he deals with the Balrog he brought to the battlefield. And Tony makes short work of Malekith once he magnetically pulls up a few atomic number 26 spikes correct through the Dark Elf and leaves him Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.
• Ben 10: Guardians: Anodite aliens are strongly associated with fairies here, which comes with a weakness to cold fe.
• Considering The Dresden Files is office of its Massive Multiplayer Crossover, Child of the Storm follows its dominion that any iron is deadly to the Fae. Although this trope isn't mentioned much, it crops up a few times, such as when Harry Dresden notes that Magneto is pretty much their worst nightmare.
• Codex Equus: Common cold Iron, the bane of onetime-schoolhouse Fae, is an allotrope of iron whose magically-disruptive properties can also disrupt any magically-fueled powers. Information technology's however hard to synthesize, peculiarly in the 2d Historic period.
• A Diplomatic Visit: As revealed in chapter 7 of the 2d sequel, Diplomacy Through Schooling, the mines where Neighsay and his fellows piece of work are lined with this, blocking magic and keeping his amulet from teleporting him out.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Fe negatively affecting fairies is referenced, multiple times:
  • In Run into the Locals, when people call back Ami is a Fairy considering of her blueish hair, they dismiss this possibility due to her handling iron cutlery without discomfort.

    "... bluish? ... think she's fey?" "... no, touching the iron cutlery..." "... but ... gloves ..." "...rather young..." "... witch looking for trouble..." "... hair'southward so short... disgraced... ?"

  • In Diplomacy and Gifts, the Fairy Ambassador confirms that atomic number 26 burns his people's skin.
  • In Cornering The Duke, when Kivith, a Dwarf, is thinking about Fairies, he bases his dislike for them partly in the aversion to what he sees as a perfectly good, respectable and useful metal.

    Oh, aye, the other betoken confronting them, in Kivith's opinion. At that place just had to be something deeply wrong with creatures that couldn't stand the bear on of skilful, solid atomic number 26.

• Foxfire: Iron chains are one of the few things that can injure and bind powerful spirits.
• Atomic number 26 Kissed: Iron is anathema to the Fae. Its touch burns them and breaks their glamours, and injuries from iron weapons are lethal to them. In this example, it'due south specified that this extends to iron alloys such as steel.
• The Life and Times of a Winning Pony: Contact with cold iron causes immense physical pain to fey creatures, and equally a upshot the metal is often used as a way to decide if somepony is a fey in disguise. Cold iron besides disrupts and impedes Unicorn magic, something that has led to a lot of speculation in-universe nigh unicorns' verbal relationship with the fey.
• Mendacity: Changelings inherit fairies' weakness to atomic number 26 — Bon Bon tries non to allow it in the house and can't wearable iron horseshoes.
• My Fiddling Balladeer: Zecora's staff is made of cold-worked iron and ash woods, which gives it some extra oomph against Thorne'south minions.
• Phineas and Ferb in Dimmsdale: Cold iron is made from an alchemic formula, repels fairy magic and remains cold even afterward smelting.
• In Son of the Western Ocean the Tuatha de Danann'south equivalent of Celestial Statuary is Blessed Iron, which is 1 of the few things capable of harming them or The Fair Folk. However, the exact fine art of making information technology and the fact it'south unlike from regular atomic number 26 has been lost by mortals. Percy muses that anyone trying to attack the Celtic monsters with plain iron and expecting information technology practice drive them off would accept almost equally much luck every bit attacking an Empousai with a statuary door knob.
• Vainglorious: Dark Elves are weak to it. It's also a component in Harrow Blades.
• The Weedverse: Demons are vulnerable to fe, which is why in Nom's Mom Bomb Dim supplies Chartreuse with a fireplace poker that he's spent a fair corporeality of time working on to arrive more effective, as well equally adding some salt, also established to be useful against the Things That Become "Bump" in the Night. After Chartreuse is offered the job of exorcist, Luna mentions that she'll be fitted with atomic number 26 horseshoes at some point.
• Weres Harry?: The fae are vulnerable to natural iron, which here means iron that hasn't been created by transfiguration or conjuration.
• In "An Academic Visit" its mentioned that humans initially had trouble fighting the gryphons considering they're resistant to pb based bullets, they crusade bruises but tin can't cause any serious damage, making it necessary to employ nuclear weapons, afterwards the war it turned out that fe bullets are more constructive.

    Films — Live-Activity

• In Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, the vampires' vulnerability is to iron crucifixes (or to a cruciform sword forged from an iron crucifix).
• Ghostbusters (1984): Somewhat of an Inverted Trope, in that a specific metallic or blend used in the construction of Dana'due south apartment edifice is used to attract spiritual forces instead—substantially making information technology a supernatural magnet. Dr Stantz notes that the building's covering material was congenital with "cold-riveted girders with cores of pure selenium," used in no other buildings just patently likewise used in NASA's pulsar-sensing equipment. As it turns out, the building'south architect specifically designed the building that way to summon an Eldritch Anathema and commence The End of the World as We Know It.
• The Hallow: Cold iron burns the Hallow, which won't come up anywhere nearly information technology.
• In Hellboy (2019), Gruagach is repeatedly shown to be deathly allergic to iron. He is role of The Fair Folk after all, so this shouldn't come up every bit a surprise.
• The Terminal Witch Hunter invokes this in Axe and Cross' Badass Avowal, "Past Atomic number 26 and Fire", although it'southward never fabricated clear if it's because iron has any magical proprieties or because iron weapons were the cutting edge engineering back when the organization begun its operation.
• Leprechaun 2: While the Leprechaun was vulnerable to iv-leaved clovers in the first movie, in this ane he's vulnerable to wrought iron instead.
• Lifeforce: The space vampires can be killed by staking; with the stake fabricated of leaded iron instead of wood, and stabbed two inches under instead of through the centre.
• Maleficent: Iron burns fairies, but this isn't common noesis among the humans. Maleficent equally a kid tells Stefan this subsequently his ring accidentally burns her while shaking his hand. Years later, Stefan — now driven insane past his paranoia regarding Maleficent coming for him—-uses this knowledge to arm his men with iron armor and weapons, as well every bit setting up an elaborate trap in an endeavour to kill his former childhood friend.
• Night of the Demons (2009): The possessed are vulnerable to rusted atomic number 26.
• Quatermass: The climax of Quatermass and the Pit (both the moving-picture show and earlier Tv versions) involves the Martian "devil" appearing as a ghostly project, powering destructive atavistic urges in humans. Professor Quatermass and Ronay realise that "common cold iron", in the grade of an electrical conductor, can be used to short out the free energy responsible.
• In Supergirl, the titular heroine temporarily neutralizes the witch Selena past forming a cage around her out of iron posts.
• Vampyr: An iron stake (really a railroad fasten, equally At that place Is No Impale Like Overkill) is shoved into the antagonist'southward chest.

    Literature

• In The Bartimaeus Trilogy all spirits are harmed by iron, only are harmed even more past silver.
• The Borden Dispatches: The merely matter the creatures from the sea are vulnerable to. Lizbeth's axe has an iron head, and she pounds iron nails into every threshold in the business firm.
• Dark Lord of Derkholm: Iron is much harder to piece of work magic on than other substances, and untrained wizards can't use magic while in contact with iron.
• Discworld:
  • In Lords and Ladies, the elves' primary sense seems to be based on detecting magnetic fields, which fe messes with. Magnetised iron is even worse, possibly explaining the reputation of Thunderbolt Iron. The horseshoe above the door is explained by maxim the shape isn't of import, it's simply that horseshoes are unremarkably the closest available source of iron for most people.
  • In The Wee Free Men, Tiffany Agonized uses a frying pan to fight the fairies — this shows that she intuitively knew that iron would be dangerous to them.
  • In The Shepherd'south Crown, the elves are horrified to realize that huge atomic number 26 engines now run across the landscape on fe rail, and goblins who work in the new manufacture are packing iron filings.
• In Doc Sidhe, the people of the fair globe find the touch of iron painful (which makes things interesting for construction workers building 1930s-style steel-framed skyscrapers). Dr. and his colleagues are surprised to learn that the human protagonist carries a pocketknife with a steel bract, and more than surprised when he demonstrates that he can touch the blade with no sick effect.
• Dracula: In the original novel, Count Dracula is slain by a pocketknife through the middle and decapitation by a second knife, drawing on the use of abrupt fe and/or steel tools like knives and needles as protection against vampires. It was never stated in the book that fe, specifically, is what'south important, though.
• Dragon Keeper Trilogy: Dragons are hurt past the mere presence of fe, and Dragon Keepers take to use bronze or copper tools around them. This sometimes leads to bug, as in ancient China, bronze was more than expensive than fe.
• In The Dresden Files Fae are harmed past anything with enough iron, even if it's part of an alloy, such as steel (The "cold" part is explained as being purely poetic, any atomic number 26 will practise). Fae creatures by and large have zero tolerance for information technology in any course, even mere contact with anything containing atomic number 26 causes pain. When cut with it, the fe sets the Faerie blood on fire. It was noted by one Fae that fifty-fifty if the damage is not fatal, information technology will exit pain that lingers for a long time. Also, bringing iron into Faerie Territory (to say nothing of leaving information technology at that place) is roughly equivalent to conveying around uncontained nuclear waste matter. Other beings from the Nevernever don't seem to be harmed past iron — except for Fomor, who are distant relatives of the Fae.
  • At that place is one exception to the Faerie rule — the Queen Mothers are, quite merely, the most powerful Fae in existence. Both of them use a steel or fe cleaver to fix their meals. Mother Wintertime can even make the fe rust.
  • In Grave Peril, Harry plans ahead for when he might demand a lark while he, Michael, and Thomas need a distraction while traveling through fae territory. When they are hounded downward by Lea as she tries to collect on Harry's one-time bargains, Michael and Thomas pull out bags of nails from the hardware store and start spreading them around, ownership Harry the few seconds he needed. Harry knows that spreading iron in their territory is a good way to anger the fae, which is a skilful way to get himself killed, so he used aluminum nails instead.
  • The Knights are mortal champions of the Faerie Queens, and must stay away from fe too. They can yet touch information technology and it's not any more harmful than normal to them, it does instantly disable the Fae powers they get for being the Knight. The Winter Knight, at least, gets both super force a great deal of resistance to hurting, so having the powers shut off at the wrong time tin be very bad.
  • 1 of the more spectacular uses of this happens in Summer Knight. Harry seriously injures a faerie-created tree construct via Auto Fu with the Blueish Beetle. Since it's an older vehicle that Harry uses because wizards are Walking Techbanes, it has a steel body instead of fiberglass. A few minutes later Murph finishes the "chlorofiend" off with a chainsaw.
• The Elenium and The Tamuli:
  • The Bhellium, a Catholic Keystone, is a kind of cosmic spirit that makes worlds, and the affect of iron is anathema to information technology—implicitly because fe is a "crimson" metal, while the essence of Bhellium is inherently blue. As such, the touch of any atomic number 26—even blood—is extremely painful to it, and the merest sword can shatter it easily, though the resulting explosion might well destroy the world.
  • The Styric people absolutely refuse to bear on or employ iron under whatsoever circumstances. The reasons are not given, only the same limitation seems to affect their gods; as a result, the steel-wielding Elene race has been able to completely overrun and dispossess the Styrics despite their use of theurgical magic.
• The Faerie Path: Faeries phone call information technology Isenmort, and information technology'southward poisonous to them.
• In The Falconer, information technology is pointed out that contrary to popular conventionalities, iron is useless against the fair folk. The protagonist recalls having tried to utilise it, and the failure of that attempt.
• Good Omens combines this with Must Exist Invited, with regard to an old cottage that has a traditional iron horseshoe hung over the door, which is able to repell Adam's pet Hellhound. When he forces information technology to enter, it has to get out some of its demonic nature behind, which incidentally heats the horseshoe to red.
• Heralds of Valdemar: In Redoubt, demons are vulnerable to a combination of Sun and Atomic number 26, in the grade of an atomic number 26 chain wielded in the glow produced by a Suncat. The demons are summoned after dark past the Decadent Church building of Karse, which ironically "worships" the dominicus god Vkandis.
• In Iron Druid Chronicles, Common cold Iron refers to meteoric fe. Iron is the contrary of magic and tends to neutralize it. Fairies are magic, so simply touching information technology makes them disintegrate. This makes Atticus the walking embodiment of death to fairies, since his aura is jump to a Common cold Iron amulet.
• The Iron Fey: Worked iron is dangerous to fairies of the Summer and Winter courts. Meghan, fey from her father's side and human being from her mother'southward, is unusual in her ability to handle it. The series takes its name from a new faerie court; the Iron Court. The Iron Rex is also able to handle fe, despite beingness fey.
• Kingdoms of Dust: Pb weakens magic when kept effectually a mage, in contrast to silver and copper.
• In The Terminal Unicorn Mommy Fortuna uses common cold iron bars to trap the unicorn and the harpy. The unicorn is able to endure being closed in by the atomic number 26 cage, but feels pain if she touches the bars.
• The Laundry Files: The Nightmare Stacks introduces the alfär to the setting, Space Elves whose brusk-lived colony/outpost in ancient United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland was the origin of all myths virtually The Off-white Folk. The alfär phone call atomic number 26 "the oldest countermeasure" because it grounds out magic — the foundation of their society and military — and slaves are forbidden from handling information technology on hurting of death. It doesn't have any other effect, even so, and the Host of Air and Darkness regularly goes nearly in steel plate mail. Medieval sociology of cold atomic number 26 being peculiarly harmful to elves are the result of a long game of telephone started by people who misunderstood their aversion to it in the start identify.
• Lockwood & Co.: Iron is a common and good deterrent against ghosts.
• The Long World: Iron, for reasons unknown, can't be carried when stepping between worlds, preventing people who do so from relying upon iron-based tools and objects. There is mention of the idea that an atomic number 26 cage could hold a stepper prisoner.
• L. Sprague de Army camp:
  • In the novella "The Castle of Iron", co-written past Fletcher Pratt, Harold Shea attempts to utilise some gilded coins conjured out of sand to pay a blacksmith; still, when he rings the coins onto the anvil, they turn back into sand. (He remembers afterward that the Rudyard Kipling verse form that he based his incantation on had made fe "the primary of them all.")
  • In the novel The Triton's Ring, the hero is sent on a quest to save his land by recovering "the thing the Gods fear the most", which is the titular ring. Information technology turns out, the ring is made of Thunderbolt Iron from a meteor, and since the setting is even so at Bronze Age, Iron is the ultimate Anti-Magic which allows the user to bypass illusion and spells, ignore demons and even the Gods themselves.
• Malediction Trilogy: Common cold iron is the just affair that tin cause lasting injuries to trolls and limit their magical power. In add-on, human being earth is full of iron, and then trolls who spent too much time on information technology could not render to their own world and lost their immortality due to fe in their blood.
• In Masques, practitioners of green magic are affected past iron more than silverish. Aralorn makes fun of people who call back silver is effective against shapeshifters, as she is easily able to escape a silver muzzle, but would be trapped in an iron one.
• Merlins Godson: The title character has to relieve a tiny Fae civilization from an fe nail that has accidentally fallen into their realm.
• Merry Gentry: Any iron (steel volition practice, too) can disrupt elementary enchantments. Merry wears a clip-on steel-handle folding knife inside her bra, so it is in contact with her peel, as a protection from hostile magics (and as a hidden fill-in weapon, of course).
• Mick Oberon: The classic fae weakness. Its increasingly mutual use by humanity is 1 of the ii main reasons the fae left Globe.
• The Midnighters serial plays with this trope. Whatever kind of assimilated metal (like steel) hurts darklings, cutting through them like a pocketknife through warm butter. Rex notes that the darklings' real weakness is new ideas (hence the significance of names and math when fighting darklings), which ways that simple worked metal worked confronting darklings centuries ago, worked stone arrowheads and spearheads worked against them millennia ago, and he predicts that in the future they will have to use plastics, carbon fiber, or other exotic alloys against them.
• The Mortal Instruments: This is one of the fairies' weaknesses. Cold fe weakens them, so they cannot fight. If they're exposed to the common cold iron longer, it causes them real hurting. Subsequently it turns out that one-half-fairies are weakened much less. Information technology bothers them at most a little.
• My Vampire Older Sis and Zombie Fiddling Sister: Fe wards off evil and is particularly useful as a passive talisman confronting things like fairies — for example, by hanging a horseshoe in the front door.
• In The Proper noun of the Wind, cold fe is known to be super effective vs "demons".
• A Internet of Dawn and Bones: Iron shorts out magic from both demonic and fay sources, for different reasons. Information technology works against fay magic because information technology's the piece of work of humans, while it targets infernal magic due to being forged in the heart of stars. Myrrh muses that it's probably the reason that the two get confused.
• Newts Emerald: Early on in, the heroine's maidservant is working on her clothes and has several pins in her mouth. The narration notes that the pins are copper with tin plating, rather than the expected fe, which is a clue to the knowledgeable that the servant has fay blood. Also mentioned every bit an identifying sign is the fact that the retainer never touches atomic number 26 keys directly, just instead holds them through her frock whenever she has to open a door.
• October Daye: Cold iron is any atomic number 26. Changelings take a better resistance to it because of their homo blood, and the Coblynau, who are the merely Fae able to work with atomic number 26, are a very ugly race, implied to be due to their affinity with atomic number 26.
• In The Once and Hereafter Male monarch the immature boys Wart and Kay have iron with them as protection when they visit the fairies' castle.
• On Stranger Tides makes a distinction betwixt two kinds of iron. The old, naturally occurring in contexts such as claret and falling stars, helps magic along; long-term magic users can turn anemic because the atomic number 26 in their ain blood gets used upwardly, and accept to consume iron-rich foods to recover after a major working. The latter, "cold" fe — basically any worked iron, such equally in a knife or a boom — is magically dead, and impedes magic; the increasing use of fe-based technologies is why you don't become magic much whatever more.
• The Perilous Baby-sit: Zigzagged. The cold iron cross a village adult female gives Kate doesn't hurt the Fair Folk, but it does injure Kate when she cuts her manus with information technology, preventing her from falling into an enchanted sleep.
• In The Phantom of the Opera (the novel, at least), everyone at the Paris Opera relies on atomic number 26 for protection against "the ghost." La Sorelli places a horseshoe on a table near an entrance for everyone to touch earlier entering the building, and Gabriel the chorus principal runs to touch an fe doorknob when he sees the ghost walking backside the Persian, whose creepy presence often makes people touch their metallic keys for protection.
• Poul Anderson:
  • In The Cleaved Sword, the primary reason for the abduction of a human baby by the elves is the need for a human warrior able to wield the sword Tyrfing.
  • The Operation Anarchy serial says the atomic number 26 is anti-magical, simply information technology's set in an alternate history where one of the famous physicists of the early 20th century constitute a manner of suppressing the effect, allowing mankind to have its cake and eat information technology too.
• A Practical Guide to Evil: Iron causes the fey immense, often debilitating pain.
• In The Princess on the Glass Colina, Boots controlled the Cool Horses by throwing steel over them.
• In The Princess Series atomic number 26 simply protects from the weakest of fairy magic.
• The Pusadian Series: The mere bear upon of an object made of iron is enough to break any enchantment. Property an fe object allows one to see through glamour and illusion. Wearing atomic number 26 on your person tin prevent the gods themselves from communicating with that mortal.
• Rose of the Prophet: The master weakness of all Immortals — it tin't hurt them, simply it can bind them and render them powerless. A common threat used against the djinn is existence locked in an iron box and put somewhere nasty where they'll never be found.
• Saga of the Exiles: The alien race that split into the Tanu and Firvulag (inspiration for later legends) dies from a elementary scratch from iron or steel, and refers to it as blood-metal (it'southward noted in text that their blood is apparently fe-based, every bit information technology'due south red, and they're able to interbreed with humans). It's theorized that it interferes with their psychic-ability-enabling torcs, but humans who gain powers from a torc are explicitly not rendered vulnerable to it. Also, human/Tanu hybrids are immune, which leads to a sociological analysis that's not too favorable for the pure-blooded Tanu.
• In The Saga of Hervor and Heidrek, Male monarch Svafrlami catches two dwarfs by "drawing his graven sword over them", which takes away their power to vanish into the stone.
• The Saga of Recluce features this with regards to Chaos-mages. Atomic number 26, both naturally and when transformed into black atomic number 26 past Social club-mages, is a natural repository of Order. Chaos-mages who have a surplus of Anarchy in their body will suffer painful burns when the two energies interact. Consequently, Chaos-mages are fond of white bronze. When the Chaos-mage ruling Fairhaven had a young man mage locked away, her hands were bound with iron manacles, leaving her screaming in agony; the ruler idly noted that with the amount of Chaos in her body she'd likely exist dead earlier the day was done.
• In The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel the Elder Race are weakened past fe, equally information technology negates whatsoever and all magic. For this reason, anyone with fe in a shadowrealm will ordinarily go on their iron tucked away somewhere so they don't offend an elderberry.
• Shadow Magic (2016): The cells in Castle Gloom's dungeon are barred with this to continue magic from getting in or out.
• In The Soldier Son iron is disruptive to magic and very harmful to magic users. The invention of the gun, which can rapidly spray iron bullets, has been instrumental in subduing the magic-using Plains People by the Gernians.
• Special Circumstances: One conversation in Princess of Wands suggests that FBI members who aren't part of the Special Circumstances group could also take function in slaying supernatural beasties, with cold fe bayonets fitted to their rifles specifically mentioned.
• In The Spiderwick Chronicles there is a passing reference to this.

  "Steel. It cuts and burns."

• The Spiritwalker Trilogy: Cold steel in the hand of a cold mage tin can kill just past drawing blood.
• In Stardust Dunstan touches some coins to an fe nail to brand certain that they are real and non "fairy gold".
• A Strange and Ancient Name: Faeries are and then harmed by atomic number 26 that even the slightest scratch is a decease sentence, usually fast. Being not fully of faerie means being able to survive fifty-fifty an iron arrow wound — a revelation so surprising that the faerie court, believing their prince to be across all help, almost lets him dice of fever .
• In Steel Magic, by Andre Norton, old iron is defined equally being any metallic "forged by a mortal in the world of mortals", so the three protagonists terminate up using their stainless steel picnic cutlery — a spoon, fork and knife — as weapons. Fortunately the cutlery develops unusual properties in the magical world (such as irresolute size) and is pretty dramatically lethal to any magical existence it touches.
• Susan Dexter:
  • In The True Knight, Wren and Galvin tin can't work magic on iron, and Valadan can be trapped by an iron flake.
  • In The Wind Witch, the protagonist bargains with a captured raider that she'll set him loose if he works her farm for A Yr and a Twenty-four hour period. Seeing no other option, he accepts the deal — even though he'due south a shapeshifter and using iron farm tools makes him ill. She doesn't notice out at that place'southward a problem until he collapses.
• In The SERR Ated Border past Mercedes Lackey, the Elves get around the cold atomic number 26 by making their cars out of fiberglass — which has the added benefit of making them lighter and therefore faster. In addition to harming Elves by simple contact, iron also warps Elven magic. The good-guy Elves accept learned to predict what running past an iron bar volition do to a spell's trajectory, and take advantage of this during at to the lowest degree one fight scene.
• In Tales from Netheredge presence of atomic number 26 dampens fey magic; a villain prevents Myr from using magic to teleport Runi out of danger by putting an iron collar on Runi. However, a sufficiently powerful fey won't be stopped by a human-made anti-magic detail like this.
• In The Treachery of Beautiful Things, fe is dangerous to The Fair Folk. Jack must get an iron sword to fight the nix. Then Wayland also gives him an iron jack — toy though it is, the fe makes information technology unsafe.
• In User Unfriendly, elves in the game the heroes are playing are injured by the touch of atomic number 26. Two of the players, Arvin and Giannine, are playing as elven characters and take this vulnerability.
• Violet Wings: Iron objects are entirely allowed to magic. It tin can besides demark fairies and reduce their magic; disobedient fairies are given iron clamps around their wings as punishment.
• The Wardstone Chronicles has witches and other dark creatures being susceptible to iron, silverish, salt and some types of wood (such as oak) and as such spooks utilize these in their weapons (commonly making oak staffs with iron or silver spikes and making pits with Fe confined lined with table salt or silver chains to bind their foes).
• In Warlock of Gramarye, iron in any metallic form is potentially mortiferous to the Little People. A scattering of nails thrown into the bushes by a villain in 1 book is answered with cries of pain. And hanging bit iron around your house too prevents the Wee Folk from entering. It doesn't bother their half-human male monarch, however, and occasionally they'll phone call him in to get rid of the stuff for them. (The first book's claim that "witchcraft" can't touch on iron is RetConned abroad very early on.)
• We Walk the Night: Fe hurts fairies, and does not occur naturally in their earth.
• The Wheel of Time has "Iron to bind" to deal with the Finn, who are selectively insubstantial to any other potentially harmful material. It has to be true atomic number 26, though; steel doesn't work. They're also vulnerable to music and fire.
• The Witcher: While mutual parlance for why witchers carry two swords is "silver for monsters, steel for men" Geralt says in The Last Wish that'southward non entirely accurate, there are a off-white number of monsters as vulnerable to iron equally others are to argent. Of course then he goes on virtually how monstrous humans can be. But mainly only for brand think you demand 2 kind of swords so in that location will exist less demon hunters like him.
• The Wizards of Once: Iron is the only thing magic doesn't piece of work on, which is why people are concerned that Wish can perform magic on iron.

    Live-Activity Idiot box

• Beingness Human (US): Iron of any class can dissipate a ghost, sending them back to the spot where they originally died. A fireplace poker is enough to do the chore almost of the time, particularly in the trio'south home.
• Physician Who: In the serial "The Dæmons", the Doctor successfully uses a trowel to fend off a gargoyle that merely thinks it's susceptible to Cold Fe.
• The Librarians: In "The Librarians and the Hidden Sanctuary", Cassie uses iron shavings to slow a fairy downwardly, while staging an accident to summon it. Later on, when it's freed and goes on a binge, she and the townsfolk lure it into a wrought iron gazebo, rendering it powerless.

• Supernatural: Iron, including that in things like wrenches or fireplace pokers, can be used to temporarily decorporealize a ghost. It also weakens magical beings, and binding someone with steel or iron shackles tin prevent them from using magic.

    Myths, Folklore & Religion

• Ars Goetia tells that you should craft the demon'due south seal in specific metals past rank (Kings in Gold, Marquises in Silver, Dukes in Copper, etc.). Equally for the Counts/Earls, associated with Mars and the Tuesday and, past extension, to Fe, the grimoire asserts you should use Silverish and Copper instead. Several occult writters agree information technology's due this very trope in effect ^* and some proceed and say you should spare the iron to, hm, "discipline" uncooperative spirits, like the punishments already ascribed in the Goetia ritual were not enough.
• The Bible's Book of Judges has a fairly famous poetry (Judges 1:xix) where God is unable to bring the men of Judah victory over an enemy for the stated reason that they had "chariots of atomic number 26". Yet, after in the same book, God defeats a similarly equipped army then thoroughly that the ground forces flies into a total on route. The contradicting passages are reconciled by a passage in betwixt the two where in God explains the tribes had angered him by non fulfilling their part of a covenant.
• In Brazilian Folklore, iron is needed to turn an enchanted serpent into a human being, as well as to cure the curse on a Headless Mule(specifically an iron needle in the later on case). Blades of iron or steel are also said to damage and scare the werewolf and the Caboclo d'água (a river creature who perturbs fishermen).
• Islamic djinn are manifestly too vulnerable to fe.
• In Scandinavian folklore, fe was a good deterrent against most supernatural creatures, and putting an fe object (a horseshoe, or a smithed tool) over a door or window was a surefire way to go along them out — or in. Some hypothesise that crafted metal represents civilization and technological advancement, the opposite of the supernatural and the old.
• Putting a horseshoe over the doorway was considered a way to protect the home from intrusion of The Fair Folk — this has allusions to the story of the Exodus and the Passover. Sometimes burying a doornail was used this mode as well. Although frequently burying atomic number 26 was a mode to conceal the iron from The Fair Folk, and if yous could get them to stand over it they would be trapped and bound until they agreed to your demands.

    Podcasts

• In Metamor City "cold atomic number 26" refers to cold-worked atomic number 26, and Damascus steel is produced at low enough temperatures to qualify.

    Radio

• Large Finish Doctor Who: Used confronting the "marsh weans" (a disembodied intelligence believed to be evil spirits in 1950s Orkney) in the sound drama The Revenants. The Technobabble caption is that ferrous metal "presumably disrupt[s] the electromagnetic force that keeps it together". (In a Doing In the Wizard twofer, the local streams are heavy with iron ore, which is why they can't cross running water.)

    Roleplay

• CDT Take chances:
  • This is the reason why Sindar (a fairy) insists on the barkeep at the restaurant serving his ale in a not-metallic glass.
  • One of many tools in Seenarnha'due south cursebreaking armory is a pair of cold fe tongs which she uses for handling magical items (or snakes) that shouldn't be touched with bare hands.
• In Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues, the cold steel of a fire extinguisher is shown to be the simply matter able to affect the other incorporeal snake apparitions that attack the main characters. The next day, Hyeon stocks upwardly on burn extinguishers just in case they attack again.

    Tabletop Games

• 7th Body of water: The Sidhe are vulnerable to cold atomic number 26. The second edition defines cold iron as iron which has been common cold-worked, i.e. hammered without heating to make it stronger, and wrought iron (i.e. smelted worked fe) doesn't work on them. It's commonly used to brand everyday tools, just rarely weapons; there'due south no reason given for the vulnerability.
• Anima: Across Fantasy: (Normal) fe as well as its alloys are the bane of the Duk'zarist, the dark elves ^note very likely taken from the Final Fantasy Iv dark elf as detailed beneath, with just touching something made of fe or an atomic number 26 blend having the possibility of killing them (oddly enough, the Sylvain — light elves — aren't affected by information technology that manner). Even Duk'zarist nephilim are affected by it, albeit in a much milder fashion.
• Beyond the Pale: Many creatures, including fey, are vulnerable to this substance. Its effects increment inversely to the degree to which information technology'south worked — raw iron ore is the most potent variant, while steel has almost no effects whatsoever.
• Champions: In the take chances The Coriolis Upshot, Ch'andarra and her daughter the Black Enchantress have impairment when touched past raw (common cold) iron.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • The "Fool's Gold" spell makes copper coins look similar gold, but it fails when the false gold touches iron.
  • Depending on the edition, demons that could normally only be harmed past magical weapons could also be harmed by iron weapons.
  • 3e+ has Cold Iron as a special material (like mithril or adamantine) for metal weapons. The rule of thumb is that y'all need this to harm (or at to the lowest degree, do full harm) to Fey or cluttered outsiders. The downside? It's i of the flimsier special metals (although simply as strong equally steel), and in that location'southward a static price that must be paid in order to enchant it, doubling the toll of the lowliest weapon enhancement (at least in 3e based systems). Still, information technology's arguably one of the best special materials for weapons. Fluff-wise, the Dungeon Principal'south Guide for 3E explains it as a special form of iron that is mined deep underground and cold-worked to preserve its properties.
  • Even as early on every bit 2nd Edition, some undead took double damage from cold iron weapons.
• Exalted: Atomic number 26 weapons as well deal enhanced impairment to The Fair Folk and dispels their glamours. Proper name "cold iron" in this case references merely the called-for cold it feels to them, not whatever specific fashion of making it — any iron will do (note that about cultures utilise bronze or steel). Although protagonists rarely carp with such measures and by and large simply stab them with the same gigantic swords of magical gold they use on everything else.
• Faerys Tale allows yous to implement cold iron, though information technology's optional. Under the game's accept, cold fe is simply wrought iron (as opposed to cast iron), and although it tin can't truly impale faeries (zippo can kill faeries), the merest touch of it will send a faery into a deep slumber for anywhere from hours to weeks.
• GURPS: The quaternary Edition version of GURPS Fantasy discusses cold fe, and multiple dissimilar ways of implementing it. The default is that information technology'due south simply a descriptive term for regular iron.
• Pathfinder: Cold iron is a specific grade of iron minded deep secret, which does additional harm to fey and demons. Linnorms, a breed of aboriginal, primal dragons, are likewise vulnerable to common cold fe weapons, something presumably linked to their close ties with the First World and the fey.
• RuneQuest: Fe is poison to elves and trolls, because the dwarves who invented it — not "constitute", not "refined", they invented a metal — designed it as a weapon against them. The almost aboriginal dwarves claim that they'd have fabricated information technology piece of work against humans, too, if they'd known how much trouble they'd go as well.
• Warhammer: Cold atomic number 26, defined every bit iron worked without the apply of fire, tin create weapons capable of harming spirits and other ethereal creatures.
• White Wolf games:
  • In Changeling: The Dreaming, cold iron wounds do aggravated harm to changelings — and if they're killed with it, their fae soul volition never reincarnate, finer becoming a ghost. The only reason steel doesn't screw upward the Kithain is because a changeling pulled a Heroic Sacrifice back in the day to ensure that it wouldn't.
  • In Changeling: The Lost, "cold iron" is anything that has a 95% iron content, and it negates any defense wrought past fae magic. The principal book emphasizes that in the modernistic era, y'all'll rarely get anything similar that unless it's a specialty work or from an earlier era. ^notation Stainless steel, which makes up a lot of modernistic consumer goods, by and large contains at least 10-15% chromium On superlative of that, you lot've got hand-forged iron, which is atomic number 26 that's never been heated by human hands or means. This means most manus-forged atomic number 26 weapons are rough and blocky, but they practice hideous amounts of impairment to the True Fae. At that place are many given accounts on why this is, merely the most common i is that the Gentry once had a Contract with Iron; they got power for it in return for making sure it remained unshaped. So humans discovered smelting, the Contract bankrupt, and Iron is pissed.
    • In the second edition, the effects are equally higher up merely acquiring iron and common cold fe is slightly easier. Fe is defined equally "what the average person would think of as iron" (so an atomic number 26 gate or frying-pan would count, simply non a steel sword or stainless-steel utensil), while Cold Iron is iron which was hand-forged, not cast or created by machines or magic. It's too mentioned that fe can never be manipulated, blocked, or affected past fae magic, this includes the basic effects of being a Changeling (so, for example, Changelings cannot use their escape artist powers if bound by atomic number 26 shackles).
  • Werewolf: The Forsaken: The idigam Ansar-zalag cannot harm anyone carrying a piece of meteoric iron.

    Video Games

• In Ancient Domains of Mystery, playing as a Mist Elf will make you suffer damage with each plow you are in contact with iron or steel items. Equipping a cursed or autocursing iron detail, with no way of uncursing it to get rid of information technology, is one of the million possible means to die in the game.
• Battle for Wesnoth: The dialogue in The Southward Guard reveals that elves have a weakness to cold iron, which gets more than severe with historic period. While the novices notice the sensation only mildly uncomfortable, an elven sage would suffer unbearable searing hurting. You are told so past Mebrin, who was tortured this way.
• Evolve Idle: The weakness of the Fey-genus races is "Iron Allergy", being described as iron being toxic to them and must exist handled with care. This causes Iron as a resource to exist mined and refined at a 25% slower rate.
• Last Fantasy IV: The Dark Elf is vulnerable to atomic number 26 and has enchanted his cavern to be heavily magnetic, requiring you to reach him without wielding annihilation metallic. When yous reach him, at kickoff it's a Hopeless Boss Fight, but if you talked to Edward in the castle, he gives yous a harp which breaks the spell, assuasive you to wield metal. Alternatively, you can go to the i town that sells silverish (i.e. non-magnetic) equipment beforehand. It'southward a flake of a trip, but worth it.
• In Pokémon, Steel-type attacks are super effective against Fairy-blazon Pokémon, and Steel-type Pokémon resist Fairy-type attacks. Prior to the introduction of the Fairy-type, virtually Pokémon based on Fairies were Normal-types, which are too resisted by Steel. Of grade, that makes sense when thinking how throwing your body against, or just lashing out at, a piece of metal would indeed be woefully ineffective, merely they resist even energy attacks like Swift and Hyper Beam.
• Princess Maker 2: In the risk section of the game, there is an NPC Elf that can change your daughter's statistics. However, he volition run away if your daughter is equipped with iron weapons or armor.
• Tomb Raider Chronicles: During the segment fix in Republic of ireland (when Lara was 15 and therefore without weaponry) she is attacked at several points by minor imp-like creatures. Throwing a piece of atomic number 26 at them reduces them to a smoking puddle.
• In Dragon Historic period: Origins & Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, "Cold Iron" is a weapon rune that does bonus impairment against the undead.

    Webcomics

• In Codename Hunter, the Fey are extremely vulnerable to iron, but not and so much to fe alloys.
• Dragon Mango: Elves are extremely vulnerable to atomic number 26 (merely touching it causes pain), but through Grooming from Hell tin learn to resist it. Afterwards they utilize iron armors as a Ability Limiter. Half-Elves are completely immune to it, likely due to their man half's atomic number 26-based blood.
• Never Never: Cold iron prevents Pookas from using any of their special abilities, including irresolute size and increased luck.
• Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan: Iron hurts the Off-white Folk, including Kel, who's half-elven. She later uses an iron necklace to keep her elven powers under control.
• In Roommates, cold iron seems to be the default weakness of the fae, because, well, it's believed to be. It'south literally i of the two known things to exist able to injure the resident ane (the other beingness a magic sword specifically designed to hurt him and his subjects). There is no understanding in the comic what makes anything cold iron, though, simply experience showed that steel swords don't count, but iron frying pans practice.
• Tales of the Questor makes extensive use of this trope. Although it claims "cold iron" is a mistranslation of "north iron" i.e. lodestone.
• In The Weave, the fairy queen Rhiannon is murdered with iron, which seems to be sacrilegious; the other fairies are outraged, and so is the ghost of Rhiannon herself.
• Whither: The people of Finn'due south hometown make barriers out of this stuff to keep out The Off-white Folk.

    Web Original

• In Faeophobia, fe is an irritant to Fae and information technology also disrupts magic (including magic cast by humans). Since the Fae now live together with humans, this weakness means that iron and steel are either replaced by other metals (such as aluminium) or covered in pigment. Atomic number 26 is used in prison house cells for Fae.
• Looming Gaia: All fae races (elves, goblins, gnomes, sirene and cecaelia) are weak to iron, equally it negates their magic abilities. Gaians (satyrs, fauns, centaurs, minotaurs and gorgons) that learn magic too gain a weakness to it.
• Pact has a variation in that any crude, unworked material, not limited to metallic, has an consequence against fairies.
• In The Saints, Common cold Iron is described as an effective tool confronting faeries.
• The Salvation War: Demons have a deep-rooted fear of atomic number 26. It'southward apparently toxic to them and screws upward their regeneration abilities. While information technology's never really explained why, the Human forces are quick to exploit it.
• Whateley Universe: Fey the Magical Girl is susceptible to cold iron (and synthetics) every bit soon as she gets her powers and changes into ane of the true Sidhe. As she finds out the moment she picks up her mom'southward iron frying pan. "Cold fe" is common cold-forged iron or wrought iron, according to Word of God.

    Web Videos

• Tales from My D&D Campaign: Footling I wields a Common cold Iron sword. Per standard D&D rules, it cuts through the defenses of any sort of Fey creature, which saves the party more than once.

    Western Animation

• The Avengers: Globe's Mightiest Heroes!: Similarly to the Comic Books instance higher up, Iron Homo tries to exploit this against Malekith the Accursed, attempting to use his armor to agree the nighttime elf back. It's subverted as the suit's alloy is primarily composed of titanium, and while there is iron in it there'southward not nearly enough to affect Malekith beyond mild discomfort - though information technology does serve equally a useful lark.
• Batman: The Dauntless and the Assuming: In "Trials of the Demon!", Jason Blood is burned by atomic number 26 twice, and subsequently, Jason Blood/Etrigan throws James Craddock's iron cane down Asteroth's throat, destroying Asteroth.
• In Gargoyles, Oberon's Children are all weak to common cold iron, up to and including Oberon himself. This is utilized in a number of means — iron chains to bind Puck and the Weird Sisters, an iron robot named Coyote to take hold of the mythical Coyote, and ringing an atomic number 26 bell to take downward Oberon when he agreed to use only as much power as one of his children for a contest (though when he was at his total ability an iron harpoon to the breast merely slightly injured him).
• A Mesoamerican have in Onyx Equinox. Obsidian, the main metal equivalent to these cultures, can kill any supernatural entity, even gods.

    Existent Life

• In the life cycle of larger stars, when they run out of hydrogen in their core to produce free energy, stars start fusing other elements in social club to maintain itself. The star keeps on building layer subsequently layer within the cadre fusing heavier and heavier elements, and getting less and less return. Fusing iron volition give no energy return. A few nanoseconds later on it starts to make iron in its core, it will go supernova. So iron is the star killing metallic.
• In real life, iron is typically found in ores. Methods to extract the iron from them almost e'er involve very high temperatures, sometimes even college than iron'south melting indicate. What is almost never establish in nature is "native iron", also called "telluric atomic number 26". The simply known big eolith is in Greenland. Beingness bona fide atomic number 26, not ore, it does not have to exist reduced first — you lot can forge information technology right abroad. Ane other source of iron exists, and that is Thunderbolt Iron. Metallic meteors of mostly fe can exist in infinite, and if they fall without being completely destroyed then they can serve every bit a source of workable metal. These not-ore sources are sometimes called "common cold iron" because they hadn't been heated — past human activity.
• Ane theory near the origin of the trope relates to the original way that fe was made. The process is called directly reduction. Essentially the ore was exposed to carbon or carbon monoxide at very high temperatures, causing a chemical reaction with products of pure fe and carbon dioxide. Direct reduction was actually the commencement way that iron was extracted from ore (as it requires lower heat which kept information technology in use up to the 16th century), contrary to pop belief, which holds that smelting was the first method (which involves melting the metal). Both directly reduction which creates "sponge iron" and smelting fe which creates "pig fe" or were non very useful alone; they either had to be hammered into "wrought fe" or remelted into "cast atomic number 26". Because of differences between solid and liquid atomic number 26, pig fe contains more carbon than the solid solubility limit of 2.two% and so the carbon precipitates every bit graphite flakes that make the metal easier to re-melt (for casting) only promote rust. Steel was outset created by using a type of furnace chosen a bloomery to purify the atomic number 26 without melting it. Before the Industrial Revolution (and the ascent of misleading trade names like "Maraging Steel") steel was substantially any malleable iron that had enough carbon to be fully hardenable (more 0.45%). If the bloomery was too cold to produce steel, the iron wouldn't absorb much carbon and much of the slag from the ore wouldn't be burned out. The slag actually helped to protect the iron from rust. Since fairies were blamed for sour milk and misbehaving babies, they might accept been blamed for rust, too. Thus the cold-refined iron could take been seen every bit repelling rust-fairies.
• On a more microscopic level, hereditary hemochromatosis is an iron storage disorder that causes the body to blot as well much iron, leading to organ damage and possibly death if left untreated.
• An euhemeristical explanation near this weakness is that in the starting time conflicts between the first members of the Homo sapiens species and less evolved species of hominids (whom could had inspired the myths of trolls and orcs) the forging of metals gave our species a primal advantage confronting the wood and bone weapons of these hominids. Though this claim is extremely dubious given that Homo sapiens didn't start making metal tools until well afterwards it had spread through Eurasia and all other species of man.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ColdIron

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