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Author
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Comment
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EdensEcho
Registered User
(5/17/04 11:25 am)
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Why iron?
I've read in many stories about faeries (and sometimes witches) being unable to touch iron and that it negates their magic. But does anyone know why this is? I've never seen to find an explanation.
-meghan
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Amal
Registered User
(5/17/04 12:24 pm)
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Hmm...
I don't know of any source that provides a ready answer (sorry!), but I always understood it to be because iron is associated with industry. Since the faery folk seem to represent (or be bound by) a kind of liminal eternality, I think that iron presents a solidity that their ephemeral nature can't withstand, while also representing the mortal impetus for change that their suspended, twilight aspects can't endure. Which I guess is paradoxical -- iron being solid, but meaning change, and faery being ephemeral, but eternal -- but then, what about faery isn't? And maybe that's why they cancel each other out, being so opposite.
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Helen
J Pilinovsky
Registered User
(5/17/04 12:42 pm)
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Re: Hmm...
There's also a theory that, while the fay can accept contact with pure elements such as silver or gold, it is more difficult for them to be in close contact with adultarated or debased metals. This makes a certain amount of sense, especially when considered in conjunction with Amal's point that iron is a product of industrial advancement - for example, some critics have hypothesized that the "Little People" of legend were actually the Picts of ancient Ireland, whose primitive technologies could not compete with the more advanced knowledge of the invading Romans (i.e., their iron weapons).
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redtiskell
Unregistered User
(5/18/04 10:53 pm)
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why not iron?
Perhaps- and I have absolutely nothing to base this on- it is simpler than theories about industrialization...maybe the fey just don't like it. Maybe they're allergic. Maybe writers got tired of using silver to combat all supernatural beings.ie- werewolves, vampires, and sometimes even witches. Maybe because faeries have generally been associated with beauty, and iron is ugly. In stories, they prize beauty above almost everything, so it makes a kind of sense that iron would be unappealing or dangerous to them.
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Veronica
Schanoes
Registered User
(5/20/04 9:37 am)
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Re: why not iron?
Iron isn't ugly! I love beautiful wrought ironwork! There was a just a fabulous exhibit here in Phillie on the creations of this brilliant blacksmith whose name I forget. His work was gorgeous, like lot of other ironwork I've seen.
It's possible that the fictional fairyfolk and I just disagree about this, of course.
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(5/21/04 8:48 am)
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Re: why not iron?
This is conjecture, but for centuries to be "put in irons" meant, literally, having iron bracelets and chains attached to your wrists and ankles (frequently the neck,too). It was cruel and painful -- one of the favorite ways in which to subjugate slaves and prisoners. I could see any creature that is associated with lightness and speed to loathe iron as its antithesis.
Best,
Alice
Edited by: AliceCEB at: 5/21/04 8:50 am
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No name
Unregistered User
(5/22/04 1:01 pm)
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Iron and Isle of Man
The story I've heard of relating to the Isle of Man is that iron was the railway tracks which crisscrossed the land and that is why the folk don't like it.
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redtriskell
Registered User
(5/25/04 12:57 am)
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iron's relative attractiveness
Veronica- I, too, think wrought iron work is lovely. I better, because
my hubby wants to learn to blacksmith. He already works finer metals
as a jeweler, but he loves the challenge of steel and iron. I merely
meant that, compared to silver or gold, iron is uglier. Its beauty
inevitably diminishes- the pure metals do not.
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VedaliaGraelle
Registered User
(5/31/04 4:02 am)
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Re: Why iron?
Iron represents the age of man; it is the working of Man -- it is
fatal to the fey as a deliverer of mortality. "Mortal man has
wrought, and so mortal is the fell blow." call it a sort of
sympathetic anti-magic. I've read that it is everything from a poison
in the fey blood to an extreme allergic reaction!
Iron was common enough so that the lowliest peasant could have a piece as knife or cross or buckle; many were the homely crosses created from common nails -- double whammy protection against magic of all sorts! imbued with practicality AND protection against enchantments / bane against magic, "good iron, blessed iron" has many appearances in fairy stories.
conversely -- witches use iron themselves to draw negative magics away from them.
VG
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