05-27-2020, 04:04 AM | #31 | |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: cold iron
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05-27-2020, 08:40 AM | #32 | |
Join Date: Nov 2004
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Re: cold iron
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05-27-2020, 08:56 AM | #33 |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: cold iron
...in one version her father has a golden dagger, and I don't recall anyone being daft enough to make weapon out of gold... (except that Bond villain, and I think that was gold plated).
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05-27-2020, 09:23 AM | #34 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: cold iron
The only use I can think of for gold in weaponry would be as a mace head.
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05-27-2020, 10:05 AM | #35 |
Join Date: Sep 2018
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Re: cold iron
I had been told that "Cold Iron" was an olde-timey reference to primitive steel. I never questioned it or tried to find a source.
The old Time-Life supernatural books mention silver a lot in legends of ghosts and fae creatures because of it's supernatural purity. I haven't checked publishing dates but I'm reasonably sure those books predate D&D by a bit. I wouldn't wager that they have any more academic value and they could use the same iffy source material for all I know. |
05-27-2020, 10:53 AM | #36 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: cold iron
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05-27-2020, 02:11 PM | #37 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: cold iron
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05-27-2020, 03:47 PM | #38 | |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: near Houston
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Re: cold iron
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The one werewolf myth I know of involving silver also had a strong religious component attached to it, which is conveniently forgotten in Hollywood use of silver vs werewolves.
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05-27-2020, 05:13 PM | #39 |
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: UK
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Re: cold iron
What's that then?
Werewolf myths do seem to be a bit of a mess altogether - I was looking them up on Wikipedia a while ago, and it's very mixed. The point I was curious about at the time was whether there was anything in the traditional stories about this "wolf-man" form that a lot of people seemed to think of as the defining feature of a werewolf, or whether it was a recent Hollywood development. As it happened, all the werewolves in the books I grew up on were ones that turned from a human into a wolf and no messing about, therefore I was puzzled and rather annoyed by the wolf-man-monster stealing the limelight! Turns out the traditional legends are indeed nearly always the man-or-wolf-but-not-both-at-once kind, although sometimes the wolf is not a normal wolf, but that's about all they have in common. For instance, some talk about it as a phenomenon in itself as in most fantasy stories today, but in a lot of others they're wicked magicians who have learnt the secret of turning into a wolf as one of their tricks. There's apparently even one account of a brotherhood of good werewolves, which is famous among folklore historians, as it looks like the ghost of some kind of pre-Christian tradition mangled almost beyond recognition.
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05-27-2020, 05:41 PM | #40 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: near Houston
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Re: cold iron
The ebook I was referring to is "The Book of Were-Wolves" by Sabine Baring-Gould, originally published in 1865. I'm not claiming it is the best work on the topic, but it is free of any Hollywood influnce, and still an interesting read.
I also like his "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages" (1866) which doesn't really have a bearing on this thread.
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A generous and sadistic GM, Brandon Cope GURPS 3e stuff: http://copeab.tripod.com |
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