05-29-2020, 06:17 AM | #51 | |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: cold iron
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05-29-2020, 06:55 AM | #52 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: cold iron
Which may change from time to time. So maybe cold iron used to be all iron, but as folk started thinking it's some special subcategory, it became nigh-inapplicable, making the fae essentially lose a vulnerability.
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05-29-2020, 09:18 AM | #53 |
Join Date: Nov 2004
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Re: cold iron
Even 20-some years ago there were urban fantasy novels with that premise. Some elves had got involved in auto racing, because polymers, ceramics, aluminum, etc. were so much more usable for such purposes than they had previously been. The main human character drives a classic Mustang expressly because it's solid Detroit steel and faeries can't touch him when he's driving it.
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05-29-2020, 09:42 AM | #54 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: near Houston
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Re: cold iron
I looked through my copy of Larousse Dictionary of World Folklore (1995). There is no mention of steel under Iron or Faeries, nor does it have it's own entry. Unless you want to take the stance that turning iron into steel is some sort of alchemical process that changes the innate nature of the iron, steel should be similar in effect to iron.
Interestingly, the last paragraph under Iron notes that most early iron used was from meteriorites, which was seen as a gift from the gods (and also why it viewed as a magical protection in cultures around the world). I think what we have are two different myths that have merged into one myth, a gift from th gods and the progress of man to gain dominance over his environment (including fairies, which are often viewed as part of nature).
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06-04-2020, 08:40 PM | #55 | |
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Alsea, OR
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Re: cold iron
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And the lead is usually lead and some other metal (often lead, antimony, and tin as an alloy in various proportions.) We never hear of monsters allergic to copper or lead... except roman emperors and their long term lead poisoning. |
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06-05-2020, 02:12 PM | #56 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: cold iron
Ehn. The typical passenger car is 65% iron by weight. Less than it used to be, but still plenty. Something with an iron allergy couldn't even open the door.
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06-06-2020, 06:32 AM | #57 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: cold iron
Historically iron and steel are the same thing. Nobody would have understood the compositional differences anyway until the 18th century at the earliest, iron just came in a wide range of variations.
"Steel" is the standard Germanic word, iron is an oddity that turned up pretty much only in Anglo-Saxon, so anything an English speaker called "iron", speakers of every other Germanic language would have called something akin to "steel". When other languages needed a distinction they generally call steel sharp iron in Romance languages for example iron is derived from ferro, steel is generally something like acero, "sharp", English cognate accurate. Presumably at the time English speakers first thought they needed to distinguish, the good stuff came from Germanic speaking places.
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06-17-2020, 06:19 AM | #58 | |
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Luxembourg
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"acier" (steel) is whatever can be quenched ("sharp") , "fer" is either whatever cannot be quenched (cast iron, wrought iron) OR iron in any form (ore, iron, steel, cast iron, wrought iron...) Although you will find many text using one word or the other more or less at random. The distinction by carbon content is late 18th century, as you said. (with early work by Réaumur who got the right ideas but did not identify carbon as the key) |
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06-17-2020, 08:23 PM | #59 | |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: cold iron
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