Iron

Figures that bear it

A model judged each figure against its own description, one term at a time. Is: the figure is, or is partly, this thing. Bears: it carries the thing or is marked by it. What a figure does is filed under motifs and powers. Open "why" for the sentence the judgement rests on.

• Abaasy bears Yakut folklore
  why

  In Yakut myths, the Abaasy are iron-toothed demons.

• Baba Yaga bears Slavic folklore
  why

  She is typically depicted as an ancient, wizened crone with iron teeth and a nose so long it touches the ceiling when she lies down.

• Black Annis bears English folklore
  why

  From English folklore, Black Annis is a blue-faced hag with iron claws.

• Fachan bears Irish folklore
  why

  An Irish manuscript account of the same misshapen kind arms it terribly, with a thick iron flail-club in its skinny hand carrying twenty chains, and fifty apples on every chain, every one of them capable of harm.

• Hrökkáll bears Norse mythology
  why

  This eel from Icelandic folklore, with iron-hard scales and razor-sharp fins, secretes a corrosive poison to burrow through the earth.

• Og bears Biblical folklore
  why

  He is described as the last survivor of the Rephaim, an old race of giants, and the text points to an iron bedstead of extraordinary length preserved afterward at Rabbah as physical evidence of his size.

• Oni bears Japanese folklore
  why

  Wielding massive iron clubs called kanabō, Oni are renowned for their incredible strength and destructive capabilities.

• Redcap bears English folklore
  why

  Accounts describe it as a squat, wizened old man with long, wiry hair, taloned hands tipped with claws, teeth like fangs, and eyes that burn with a fierce red light; it is said to wear iron boots and carry a pikestaff or similar weapon, and in some tellings it possesses unnatural strength despite its small stature.