The whole surface is covered with dark gray oxides of iron, dull and without the signs of the original fusion crust.

[3] Later, the mass was divided into two uneven parts, of which the larger, weighing about 79 kilograms (174 lb) was taken to the royal and imperial natural history museum in Vienna.

It is said that one of them, perhaps Puta von Illburk, was cursed by an old woman, struck by lightning and transformed into this hard piece of iron.

[4] According to another legend, this same margrave of Elbogen used to oppress and ill-treat his subjects with so much cruelty that after his death he was turned into an iron block, which could not even have been melted in the very hot blaze of a furnace.

During the Thirty Years' War the royal and imperial general Johann von Werth decided to try this out by having it thrown into the castle well.