Cold Iron

For centuries, iron was viewed as a deterrent to all things supernatural, faeries and elves included. There are a couple of theories as to where this concept came from, but probably the most convincing one has to do with the smell of blood. Blood has long been tied to the concept of lifeforce, so the idea was that if iron smells of the same stuff, it’s probably abhorrent to unnatural beings. Another theory is that at a certain time in history, iron represented the future – it was the cutting edge (hah) technology of the day, something that the old powers just weren’t able to deal with. For the elves of the IZS universe of course, cold iron proved to be their downfall in a rather more tangible way.