David,
Thanks very much for your interesting, thorough reply. Yes, there are
also a few references to "brown" swords.
>
'Metal free' or 'metal clear' refers to the difference between
naturally occurring free iron and iron refined from ore ('metal
brown') - or to the iron derived from different ores. Pyrites,
haematite and another ironstone ore (can't remember, I knew all this
once from my father) require different extraction processes and there
were very rare occurrences of free iron - maybe meteorites...
The same is true of good kitchen knives-- of which i have a couple.
Good swords did not rust(ditto armour) but went dark and stayed
sharp.
CliffA
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