i’m planning on making origami flowers as a gift to the fae and was wondering if they had a repulsiveness to paper as they do to iron
i remember this blog mentioning previously that it’s not the metal itself that repels but the process the ore went through, and i wondered if it’s the same for paper as it’s made from trees.
is it the same? and if so, are paper flowers still an acceptable gift?
What traditionally repels the Folk, as far as metals are concerned anyway, is supposed to be "Cold Iron". Which is a term that has surprisingly little real weight to it. Not because we can say that the Folk are not repelled or scared away by it, but rather because there is absolutely no consensus whatsoever on what "Cold Iron" actually means.
It could mean what I suggested in my earlier post, iron that has been worked by human hands into a blade or other form that isn't raw ore. At the time my research definitely suggested that this was the case. However, It could also just as easily refer to any type of iron that HASN'T been worked by human hands. It could be a reference to the slightly more modern method of forging metal that involves hammering iron into shape without heating it, resulting in what we refer to as "Cold Wrought Iron".
But that's not even the end of possible meanings, not even a little. We also have a possible literal meaning of the words. Cold metal vs warm blood. This can be noted by a quote from the Current Literature (1:3, November 1891), in a section titled "The Superstitions of Fishermen", that delved into the topic of the phrase "cold iron" and its connection to the power to repel witches in superstition:
The saying [aloud] of "cold iron" originates from the belief that if warm blood be drawn from a witch, her power to hurt you is past; as cold steel in all probability, in times when people were less amenable to the law, was the weapon most commonly used for this purpose, the name of the weapon in these days has come to be considered a sufficient and only protection. In reference to this form of superstition, I quote from Brewer: "By drawing the blood of a witch, you deprive her of her power of sorcery."
We know already that much of the superstition towards witches was bound up heavily into faerie folklore over time, regardless of where it might have actually been connected originally. But this also leads us to the consideration of whether or not "Cold Iron" is merely a poetic way of referring to a bladed weapon. We certainly use that interpretation when we say the phrase "cold steel". Indeed, if that's the case we might well understand why the Folk wouldn't particularly like the idea of someone trying to stab them with a sword. It is not unlikely that you too would object to someone trying to do the same to you should the occasion arise.
But then, a more interesting snag has been thrown into the mixture by the fact that "Cold Iron" was used as a substitute name for various animals and incidences considered unlucky by Irish fishermen.
Beyond all that, you must understand that the ties between iron and the ideas of magical protection or healing are far far older than you would think. In 79 A.D. in his Natural History, Book XXXIV, Chapter 44, Pliny the Elder mentioned that iron was used both in medicine and in preventative magic.
"Iron is employed in medicine for other purposes besides that of making incisions. For if a circle is traced with iron, or a pointed weapon is carried three times round them, it will preserve both infant and adult from all noxious influences: if nails, too, that have been extracted from a tomb, are driven into the threshold of a door, they will prevent night-mare."
Protection, healing, repelling of evil... iron has been attributed so many magical properties over time, yet still we cannot even nail down a definite context for what the people telling these particular stories actually meant when they said "cold iron".
My personal take on the matter is this. It seems unlikely to me that a simple metal would be enough to repel the Fair Folk as they are described in the stories. Worked or not, blade or not, it doesn't really make much sense. In fact, I would say it makes about as much sense to me as the idea of someone trying to stab one of the faeries with a perfectly ordinary iron sword. If you are very lucky you might catch them off guard and possibly even hurt them quite badly, but more likely you are just going to make them very angry and you will almost certainly regret your mistake sooner or later.
What does make more sense to me than the whole question of whether the iron is worked or not is the symbolism of the affair. Magic has always relied on symbols and ideas in one way or another. Often in certain practices the items and ingredients used are symbolic stand-ins for other things, or meant to create connections between two things via a pre-existing relationship. From my point of view, It makes more sense to associate the idea of Faeries being repelled by the power of iron with the idea of what iron has allowed humanity to do as a species. Iron as a metal has carried us so very far in such a brief flicker of time. It has helped us build up civilizations, create war, create medicine, art, architecture. The working of iron has contributed heavily to the deforestation of Europe, slowly chipping away at the Hercynian Forest over the centuries. Iron is a very powerful symbol of the progress humanity has made and will continue to make.
If we imagine that the power such symbols might have upon those who are already far more in tune with the world and magic than we, then of course such a symbol would be enough to cause them discomfort and possibly even burn away at them. Even more so when its laid out with intent, for so much of magic emphasizes how very important intent is. So if you think back to all these people who were desperately afraid of the idea of fairies and other supernatural fiends coming to harm their families, is it really out of the way for us to imagine them finding things with many layers of symbolism and weaponizing them with the ideas of folk magic they had knowledge of?
They very much used freshly baked bread to repel fairies as well, and various different plants and herbs for a variety of different reasons and explanations. Often so much of it contradicts with each other, and there is no clear consensus as to why any of it worked, nor any clear details as to specifics.
So I am more inclined to believe that it simply wasn't as clear cut as we would like it to be. That it had more to do with the individual and their ideas, knowledge, intentions, and the symbols they chose to work with than it did with any physical properties of their tools and materials.
I could be wrong, of course. Or it might not matter if the Fair Ones do not happen to exist at all. But I don't think your paper stars will mean anything ill towards them if you don't mean them to. Paper can be a powerful symbol, it is true. Yet a great deal of that symbolism is rooted in the idea of a blank canvas, an empty page rife with possibility for what might be written to cause change. So that part is left to you. What possibilities will you tie in with your paper flowers? What futures do you imagine? What meanings and desires are you imprinting upon these little gifts?
That, I think, more than anything else, will dictate how the Faeries will see them.
