Quote:
Originally Posted by JaneKing
Uhmmm..Do you need blood to forge a sword?
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No but it's cool and gruesome sounding. Basically you need to carbonize it and different smiths had their own recipe some of which sound a bit occult but have some scientific validity. The urine of a red haired boy was one Ewart Oakeshott mentioned, though I suspect the smith's thrall just had red hair and he did not check out other hair colors.
Blood would be a perfectly useful thing for it. In fact given how thick it is it might work better. It does not have to be human blood, any blood would work. And dragon's blood sounds impressive though I don't know it's composition.
However the article is off. The blood does not supply the iron (that has to be mined). It supplies the carbon. What you do is twist hot bars together while forging and hammer them flat and pour the blood on. This was what we now call pattern wielding and it is sometimes still used to make decorative blades, except for the blood (hey that would make a great mystery-horror). I did not look up how they do the carbon now but I am sure there are more sophisticated means.
Forging from the blood of one's enemies is not practical if you killed them on a battlefield. Of course if you wish to line up prisoners and whack them at leisure like some Ninevite king that would work.