Terry Pratchett makes a sword out of meteorites

Showing that he's not just awesome at writing books, Terry Pratchett decided to forge himself a sword after being knighted. As you do.

But believing that to be his sword, it had to be different, he found himself a field with iron ore near his home in Wiltshire, dug up 81kg of iron ore, and smelted it himself.

The 62 year-old bestselling author said "most of my life I've been producing stuff which is intangible and so it's amazing the achievement you feel when you have made something which is really real."

After creating a makeshift kiln built from clay and hay and fuelled with damp sheep manure to smelt his iron, he then tossed in "several pieces of meteorites — thunderbolt iron, you see — highly magical, you’ve got to chuck that stuff in whether you believe in it or not."

After spending some days hammering it into bars, he then took it to a blacksmith, who helped him shape it into a blade and finish it with silverwork.

Pratchett has hidden the sword in an unknown location after finishing it last year, fearing that the authorities may not appreciate his remarkable work on account of it being pointy and very sharp.

"It annoys me that knights aren’t allowed to carry their swords. That would be knife crime," he said.

via Evan, via news.com