Faery Folk & the Soil

[Vietislav]

It's well known that the Good People can be kept at bay with iron: an iron horseshoe nailed to your front door, a pair of iron scissors suspended over an infant's cradle and so forth.

But here's a thought. Gnomes and other faeries who actually dwell in the soil itself, caring for plant roots and generally maintaining the soil structure, must surely have the standard aversion to iron - and yet there's no shortage of places in this world where the bedrock is ironstone and where consequently iron oxide pervades the soil itself. It would seem fair to assume that no faery being could hope to survive in iron-saturated soil: and yet while large areas of Devon have extremely red soil due to the presence of iron oxide, those same areas are renowned for their faery populations, including gnomes.

How can this be? Or are faery folk only affected by smelted iron ore, because of the concentrated nature of it?

Do feel free to comment, especially if you're a gnome.