Talk:Iron in folklore

A fact from Iron in folklore appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 March 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that, in mythology, iron is often associated with blood, or used as a protective or lucky charm?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/March.

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Supernovas and mythology?

I'm not sure that this excerpt from the first section of this article really belongs in an entry on "Iron in Mythology":

Lawlor (1999: p.103-104) charts the lifecycle, origins and transmutations of iron from supernova to helium:

Supernova explosions are believed to be triggered by the iron of the star's core collapsing and dispersing. Looked at :symbolically, stars burst like germinating seeds, and the core iron, which completes the cycle of internal densification, converts :back to helium, the original element that was formed in the heavens.

As iron and nickel have the highest binding energy per nucleon of all the elements,[1] iron cannot produce energy when fused, and an :iron core grows.[2] This iron core is under huge gravitational pressure. As there is no fusion to further raise the star's :temperature to support it against collapse, it is supported only by degeneracy pressure of electrons. When the core's size exceeds :the Chandrasekhar limit, degeneracy pressure can no longer support it, and catastrophic collapse ensues.[3]

This seems more like information that would belong in a more general article on iron rather than an article that is supposed to be focusing on iron in mythology. Nortonew 13:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I recently found an interesting reference in "Pan's Travail" by J. Donald Hughes. On p. 175, "Each year the Avaral Brethren, a Roman priesthood who had care of a large forest dedicated to Dea Dia near the city, 'offered two young pigs in order to expiate theunavoidable desecration of the sacred grove by the use of the axe in pruning and belling it...whenever iron was brought into the grove, as for...the lopping and felling of the trees...there were sacrifices ob ferrum illatum ["for the bringing in of iron'], and, when the work was done, ob ferrum elatum ["for the taking out of iron"].'" (footnoted to "Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities", NY, 1923; pp. 686-88, on 'Fratres Arvales'.) This is the earliest reference to the issue of iron in the cutting of trees and the 'desecration' it produces. Course, we know fairies don't like iron, perhaps the dryads don't like them either. Glenn A. Turner 01:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Irrelevant section?

I fail to recognize the relevance of the section on magnetic fields and wayfinding to mythology. Should we delete or move it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.65.233.238 (talk) 16:30, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's totally irrelevant; I'm removing it (nearly a decade after it was brought up). -165.234.252.11 (talk) 15:56, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cold iron

I've heard it claimed that "cold iron" being a distinct form of metal rather than just a poetic flourish in description is a completely modern invention. Newtkeeper (talk) 21:02, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard it both ways and am curious myself. I've read, for example, that "cold iron" describes to an iron object made by hammering soft bog-iron into shape without heating it, but to me that seems implausible from the perspective of metallurgy--impure soft iron tends not to be especially malleable nor ductile, and prone to crystallization and then fracture when deformed beyond rather narrow limits. You can't even really do that with metal as soft and malleable as copper unless you anneal it regularly to prevent crystallization and embrittlement, said annealing normally being done with a gas torch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.41.40.24 (talk) 13:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From my studies a martensite form of iron that mimics the hardness and toughness of steel can be made when quenching pure iron super fast and/or ultra high pressures are applied and/or shock. This might have been discovered by ancient people in the form of Iron meteors that fell into the ocean or swamps. Cold Iron may actually be a real thing.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21663831.2019.1612792

https://mashable.com/article/nasa-meteorite-pacific-ocean-exploration/

https://htracyhall.org/ocr/HTH-Archives/Cabinet%202/G/(Giles,%20P.M.)%20(Gilkerson,%20W.R.)%20(Gill,%20D.H.)/(Giles,%20P.M.)%20(Gilkerson,%20W.R.)%20(Gill,%20D.H.)-7652_OCR.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.175.54.158 (talk) 20:29, 24 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Cold Iron IS a fantasy trope describing iron that is unalloyed and not melted when shaped. It's heated just enough so that hammering doesn't shatter it. Implausibility, in this regard, doesn't matter, since it's almost strictly from fantasy stories and fairy tales. We might as well discuss the chemical properties of mithril. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:2574:D479:6834:B427:31A6:E994 (talk) 20:57, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merging Cold Iron into Iron in folklore

When this was done, the following section was gutted. In other words, something is lost when the subject changes from "cold iron in general" to "only as regards folklore". But who decides when "folklore" ends and "modern usages" begin?

I've readded a version of the first paragraph of the archived fantasy fiction section below, to maintain a minimal note of how the concept of "cold" iron is very much alive even in today's storytelling.

===Later usage===
Poetry

Rudyard Kipling's poem "Cold Iron" used the term poetically to mean 'weapon'.

Fantasy fiction

In modern fantasy, cold iron may refer to a special type of metal, such as meteoric iron or unworked metal. Weapons and implements made from cold iron are often granted special efficacy against creatures such as fairies and spirits.
In fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition, cold iron is a form of iron mined deep underground and forged at a lower temperature to preserve the metal's delicate qualities. Weapons made of cold iron are especially powerful against demons and fey creatures.
In Changeling: The Lost, cold iron refers to relatively pure iron and can actively negate the magical protections of the fae, while wrought iron has additional power to harm and maim the True Fae.
In the Malazan Book of the Fallen high fantasy series by Steven Erikson, Cold Iron is a way of describing how a military general will lead. It is the opposite of Hot Iron, and according to L'oric in House of Chains, Cold Iron will beat Hot Iron four or five times to one.

CapnZapp (talk) 10:58, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Faeries

No reference for this, but: the dislike of the fae for iron might be about the invasion of the stone-age tribes of the British Isles by Celts who had discovered iron. 203.13.3.89 (talk) 03:18, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Definition (or lack of) for "Cold iron"

The article mentions "Cold iron" in quotes but doesn't clarify its meaning. The quotes seem to suggest that there is a specific meaning to that phrase besides the literal interpretation of "low-temperature Fe", or perhaps that the phrase is being quoted from folklore, but this is never clarified. The article should explicitly clarify whether "cold iron" refers to a particular state or composition of iron, some particular natural/supernatural treatment of it, some "magical variety", or if its meaning is unclear or left to interpretation. —Cousteau (talk) 11:52, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are some definitions afterwards in "In fiction", but these seem to be modern uses of the term (and, in any case, these definitions come after the section using the term). If the term didn't have a clear definition in folklore usage, this should just be clarified in some way. —Cousteau (talk) 12:11, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]