The Great Frost is the Legendary Monsters weapon that comes out of the snow, built from an 
Iron Sword and the pieces you take off the Frostbitten Golem. The Golem sleeps inside its own temple, and you can’t get those pieces any other way.
It hits for 7 and swings slower than a 
Diamond Sword, so the raw numbers aren’t the reason to carry it. Right-click and it throws a line of Ice Spikes out in front of you, and sneak plus right-click on a block puts them up in rings around your feet instead. Neither costs durability, which is what makes it worth building over an enchanted Iron Sword.
Obtaining
Everything you need comes from one place, the Frostbitten Temple, which only generates in cold biomes. They sit roughly 38 chunks apart with a fair bit of empty snow between them, so you might be walking a while if you head out on foot. Biomes O’ Plenty and Oh The Biomes We’ve Gone snowy biomes are included too if you happen to have either installed.
An 
Eye Of Frost saves you most of the searching. Four 
Snowballs around an 
Ender Pearl makes one, and throwing it sends it off toward the nearest temple within 100 chunks, the same way an 
Eye of Ender behaves.
There’s a full rundown of every Eye in Boss Summoning: Eyes & the 
Teleport Machine. If you have cheats on, you can skip the Eyes entirely and locate the structure directly with the command below.
The Frostbitten Golem is dormant when you arrive and can’t be hurt at all in that state, it only stands up once you get close. 
Arrows, thrown Potions and lingering clouds all bounce off it even after it wakes, so this is a melee fight whether you wanted one or not.
Two of the three materials come off it before it dies, as it sheds a 
Primal Ice Shard the first time it falls below half health and another when it drops under a quarter. Those shards glow where they land, which makes them easy to pick back up once you’ve got room to breathe.
Frostbitten Golem Materials
The two shards land during the fight and the rune only appears once the Golem is down, so a fight you abandon halfway leaves you with half a recipe. Pick the shards up as they drop rather than at the end.
A Golem gives you 1 
Frozen Rune and 2 Primal Ice Shards, and the 
Frostbitten Shield takes exactly the same three materials with a Shield in place of the Iron Sword. You can have one or the other from a single fight, so if you want both you’ll need to find a second temple.
The recipe itself is shaped and takes up two rows, with the Frozen Rune sitting above an Iron Sword and a Primal Ice Shard either side of it. Any Iron Sword will do as the base, though enchantments on it are lost, so use a plain one and put your levels into the finished weapon instead.
Craft it at the temple if you can, as the Golem’s drops are the only fragile part of the trip. Carrying an Iron Sword out with you means the finished blade is in your hand before you start the walk home.
Usage
In the hand it’s 7 attack damage at 1.4 attack speed, so a full swing lands the same as a Diamond Sword but you’ll wait a little longer between them. Durability is 750 and it repairs with 
Iron Ingots on an 
Anvil, cheap enough that you won’t be precious about swinging it. It’s the abilities rather than the swing that earn the slot, though.
The Great Frost
Iron Sword
Diamond Sword
Every hit you land carries a 25% chance to apply Freeze for 3 seconds. Freeze locks the target into the same frozen-over state you get out of Powder Snow and takes 2 damage off it now and then while it’s running, which isn’t much on its own but adds up across a long fight.
Stray, 
Polar Bear, 
Snow Golem and the Wither take nothing from freezing at all. Strays share the same snowy biomes as the temple, so don’t expect the effect to do much on the walk home.
Abilities
Both abilities summon the same Ice Spike the Frostbitten Golem throws at you during the fight, just a weaker version of it, as yours deal 3 damage each where the Golem’s deal 5. Every spike that connects also applies Freeze on top, no roll needed. They share a single cooldown between them and neither one costs durability.
Ice Spike Line
Right click, about 6 blocks
Right-clicking sends 5 spikes up in a straight line away from you, one every 1.25 blocks, so the furthest lands a bit over 6 blocks out. They rise one after the other rather than all together, so anything walking at you usually catches two or three on the way in. The cooldown is around 2.5 seconds, short enough to open with it, trade a few swings and open again.
Ice Spikes Around You
Sneak and right click a block
Sneaking and right-clicking on a block puts three rings of spikes around your own feet instead, at 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 blocks out. The rings fire from the inside outwards in about a quarter of a second, so whatever is already on top of you gets hit first. This one has a cooldown of roughly 4 seconds, and the two abilities share it.
Neither version can hurt you, and both skip your tamed animals and anyone on your team. The spikes need solid ground within a block or so of your feet to come up, so nothing happens over Water, off the lip of a drop, or while you’re in the air. When nothing spawns the cooldown isn’t spent either, so a failed cast only costs you the click.
Spike damage is counted as a mob attack, which matters more than it sounds. Armor and Protection cut it down the same way they would a 
Zombie‘s punch, so an armored target takes noticeably less than 3, and anything you clip with a spike will turn on you for it. Against unarmored crowds though, a single ring burst hits everything within 3.5 blocks at once.
Enchantments
It takes the standard sword enchantments, and its enchantability of 14 is better than a Diamond Sword‘s 10, so the same levels on a table give you more to pick from. Sharpness does more work here than usual, as the base 7 damage is where this sword is weakest. Mending is the one to hunt for, since repairing with Iron Ingots adds a level cost each time.
None of those touch the Ice Spikes, which do their 3 damage and Freeze regardless of what’s on the blade. Enchant for the swing and let the abilities look after themselves, as there’s nothing on the table that makes the spikes hit harder.
Tips
Lead with the Ice Spike Line on long fights, as the spikes take nothing off the durability bar and only your swings do. Throwing a line every couple of seconds lets the 750 uses go on the hits that actually finish something, and it keeps the Freeze topped up on whatever you’re fighting.
Plan a second Frostbitten Temple if you want the Frostbitten Shield as well, as it needs the same Frozen Rune and 2 Primal Ice Shards. The Shield freezes anything that attacks you while you’re blocking, so the pair of them cover both halves of a fight.
Use the ring version the moment something closes on you rather than saving it. The inner ring lands at 1.5 blocks, which is inside the range most mobs want to be at, and the 3 damage plus Freeze goes on before they’ve swung at you.
Keep it around well past the Frostbitten Temple itself, as the spikes still earn their place against the bigger bosses later on. Neither ability touches the durability bar, so you can lean on the Ice Spikes for a whole fight and only spend swings where they count.
FAQ
A full swing is 7 attack damage at 1.4 attack speed, so it matches a Diamond Sword‘s hit but comes round a little slower. On top of that each hit has a 25% chance of freezing the target for 3 seconds, and the summoned Ice Spikes add 3 damage each on their own.
Each spike needs a solid surface within about a block of your feet to push up through, so Water, the air and the far side of a ledge all give you nothing. The other reason is the shared cooldown, as the ring burst locks both abilities for around 4 seconds. A cast that spawns nothing doesn’t use the cooldown, so move onto flat ground and try again.
Both recipes want 1 Frozen Rune and 2 Primal Ice Shards, and a Frostbitten Golem gives you exactly that once, so it’s one item per fight. A second temple is the only way to get the other, as the materials have no other source and no crafting recipe of their own.
Anything that already ignores freezing in the base game ignores this too, which covers Stray, Polar Bear, Snow Golem and the Wither. They’ll still take the sword’s normal 7 damage and the 3 from a spike, you just lose the chip damage on top. Everything else can be frozen, bosses included.
