A History of Magic- a Journey Through the Hogwarts Curriculum

by Pottermore Publishing

  Unfortunately, that meant accusing a number of young women who ranked much lower than him in the strict social hierarchy of being in league with Satan. The reasons why family, neighbours and acquaintances were accused have been debated many times over the centuries. Fear and paranoia played their part, but so did financial exploitation. In these close-knit communities, many people were related to each other and an accusation of witchcraft was a convenient way to bypass a line of inheritance. The misogyny of the period ensured a son never accused a father. Accusations of witchcraft were a way for societies to control what they viewed as ‘disruptive’ female behaviour. What often started as an opportunistic way of getting a woman out of the way became a cultural contagion with little or no rational explanation.

  We now look back at the events in Salem with horror at the terror and pain of the victims, anger at the arrogance of the prosecutors and incredulity at the superstition from another age. But even while the trials were happening, there was controversy – The Wonders of the Invisible World reflects this. Even as he voiced great discomfort with the court’s admission of spectral evidence (testimony from dreams, ghosts and visions), Mather defended the court’s verdicts (as long as they were based on the testimony of human witnesses, however disingenuous).

  Mather’s determination to keep the supernatural out of the courtroom can’t excuse his hypocrisy in defending the witch trials. They were already coming to be seen as a blemish on American society. His explanation of how it was legitimate to execute the witches shows he already understood that history would not look kindly on his actions and the tragedy that he contributed to. And it certainly hasn’t.

  Another tragic example of the hysteria surrounding witchcraft is the case of the Pendle witches and the Lancashire witch trials of 1612 – probably the most famous witch trials in English history. Nineteen people were accused of practising witchcraft and the majority of them were hanged.

  But The History of the Lancashire Witches, published in 1825, over two hundred years after the trials, painted a very different picture of witches to those of Edward Fairfax and Cotton Mather.

  The witches this book portrayed looked like strange bony birds with spindly legs, large beaky noses and angular cloaks that looked like wings. The book actually sought to liberate these figures from the myth of being evil, dangerous creatures and showed them in quite a jolly new light: fun-loving people that liked to ride about on broomsticks!

  As every school-age wizard knows, the fact that we fly on broomsticks is probably our worst-kept secret. No Muggle illustration of a witch is complete without a broom [. . .] broomsticks and magic are inextricably linked in the Muggle mind.

  Quidditch Through the Ages

  The witches were also notable in this book for riding their brooms the ‘wrong’ way round, with the bristles facing forward. It’s only recently that we’ve seen the bristles facing backwards in illustrations of witches riding broomsticks. The rider looking over the bristles of this domestic item suggested an inversion of power, a world turned upside down, women all-powerful over men. Depicted in this way, they symbolised everything that men then feared.

  Several boys about Harry’s age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. ‘Look,’ Harry heard one of them say, ‘the new Nimbus Two Thousand – fastest ever –’

  Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

  Few charmed objects are more closely associated with the Western image of the witch than the broomstick. In 20th-century Devon, Southwest England, during a full moon, a local woman called Olga Hunt took a colourful broomstick and leapt around one of Dartmoor National Park’s most famous landmarks, Haytor Rocks. Many a camper was alarmed, while courting couples almost had heart attacks.

  It’s hard to imagine what Hunt thought she was up to. Did she really think she was flying? Was it about getting kicks by frightening people? Or in her mind was she engaged in something else?

  Olga’s broom was not a typical collection of twigs, nor a fancy Nimbus Two Thousand. It drew from a broader tradition – with its colourful appearance it resembled a maypole. It linked back to ancient practices with roots in pagan fertility rites that fed the superstitions of the 16th- and 17th-century witch hysteria in Europe. It obviously has phallic symbolism and, like the broomstick portrayed in The History of the Lancashire Witches, it was transformed from a harmless domestic object into something socially disruptive.

  There’s no getting away from the fact that the image of the witch on her broomstick has often been reproduced and reworked by men. But Olga Hunt reclaimed it in the 20th century for her own mischievous, subversive ends. Though the exact reasons for her jumping among the rocks remain obscure, it certainly looked a lot of fun.

  PART 3: THE SORTING HAT AND INVISIBILITY CLOAK

  The Sorting Hat is one of Hogwarts’ most magical charmed objects. It is a thousand years old and was originally enchanted by the four founders of Hogwarts. Don’t be deceived by its battered and frayed appearance. After all, a true Gryffindor can even pull a sword from it.

  Early on in J.K. Rowling’s five years planning the Harry Potter stories, she decided that there were to be four school houses – Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin – each with their own distinct characteristics. However, working out exactly how the students would be sorted took a little longer.

  Rowling spent a lot of time brainstorming, compiling notes, complete with doodles and scribbles in the margin, which help us understand how she finally came to decide on how the Sorting Hat, and its performance of a key piece of magical school administration, worked.

  When she finally cracked it, Rowling noted down the logic: ‘Finally I wrote a list of the ways in which people can be chosen: eeny meeny miny moe, short straws, chosen by team captains, names out of a hat – names out of a talking hat – putting on a hat – the Sorting Hat.’

  At the bottom of another page of her notes is an illustration of a hat with a mouth, which talks and sings and looks remarkably like the Sorting Hat as it is represented in the Harry Potter films.

  Notes on sorting the students by J.K. Rowling

  The Sorting Hat Song by J.K. Rowling

  The Sorting Hat would be nothing without the Sorting Hat Song, which is sung at the start of every academic year as first-year students are sorted into their houses. J.K. Rowling’s working draft contained some crossings-out and additional edits, as she worked out the rhymes, rhythms and what to include, but most of its lines survived in the final published version of Philosopher’s Stone.

  The Sorting Ceremony begins when the hat sings a song explaining the qualities favoured by each of the houses. A new song is composed each year. It’s not actually until his fourth year at Hogwarts that Harry attends another Sorting Ceremony other than his own.

  Harry picked the shining, silvery cloth off the floor. It was strange to the touch, like water woven into material.

  ‘It’s an Invisibility Cloak,’ said Ron, a look of awe on his face. ‘I’m sure it is — try it on.’

  Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

  ‘Now you see me, now you don’t.’ From ancient myths to modern movies, people have harnessed the pleasures and possibilities of invisibility. For those who won’t inherit an Invisibility Cloak, other methods of disappearing must be found instead. The Book of King Solomon called the Key of Knowledge was an English manuscript from the 17th century. It featured an invisibility spell under the heading ‘How experiments to be invisible must be prepared’.

  The method proposed existed in several versions because the book was widely shared, copied and recopied by students of magic. It was a manuscript treatise full of various spells. It alternated between black and red ink. Titles and spells themselves were written out in red, while the rest of the description on how to perform the ritual was written in black.

  The manuscript was spuriously attributed to King Solomon – the famously wise and wealthy king who is supposed to have lived nearly three thousand years
ago. But the text – and the invisibility spell – probably date from the Renaissance (1300–1600).

  The manuscript owned by the British Library once belonged to a 16th-century Elizabethan poet and lawyer, an Englishman called Gabriel Harvey, who was a very serious scholar and a contemporary of Shakespeare’s. The manuscript was full of Harvey’s own annotations and highlights, so it was clearly not an ornament but a working magical manuscript that its owner used and studied.

  Not only that, it wasn’t printed; it was copied out by hand. The Key of Knowledge wasn’t properly published until many years later. The spells or charms were described in the book as ‘experiments’, which followed a set process and could be tested, and then repeated, by yourself or others. So the select few magic scholars who had access to these spells were trying to replicate charms in the same way that today’s scientists might try to replicate controversial experiments to prove – or disprove – their worth. If you read the spell the right way you would become invisible (or maybe not!).

  The last line, which was a supplication to make the speaker invisible, seemed to be an appeal to a higher power (presumably God) in the hope of influencing the spell. It suggested that replicating the process was important, but somehow so was the character and virtue of the practitioner – suggesting that the ultimate ability to do anything was granted by God. The charm’s effectiveness could never be technically disproved or discounted and so it endured through time. If it failed to have an effect, it was not because the words didn’t make you invisible; it was because you’re weren’t worthy.

  Early on in the creation of the world of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling drew a picture of Argus Filch. In her vision, he had jowly cheeks, bags under his beady eyes and a very wrinkled forehead. His bald head protruded in front of his bony shoulders, which reached up to his ears. He looked like a haggard vulture. In one hand he held the keys to Hogwarts on a large key ring. In the other he held a lantern for patrolling the corridors at night.

  Sketch of Argus Filch by J.K. Rowling (1990)

  Filch often came close to discovering Harry on his night-time adventures around the school. Harry only escaped detection thanks to his Invisibility Cloak, which once belonged to his father, James Potter.

  Light or no light, we know Filch could never catch Harry while he was hiding underneath his Invisibility Cloak, which is ironic given the root of Filch’s name. ‘Argus’ was a giant of classical mythology who had a hundred eyes. He was known as the ‘all-seeing one’, a description that can’t really be applied to poor old Filch, who spent a lot of his time hopelessly chasing Harry and his friends around Hogwarts trying to find them.

  ‘Ah — your father happened to leave it in my possession, and I thought you might like it.’ Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled. ‘Useful things... your father used it mainly for sneaking off to the kitchens to steal food when he was here.’

  Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

  Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak was the greatest the world has ever seen; the cloak that once belonged to Death himself. It was especially precious to Harry as it was handed down to him by his dad.

  Without the cloak, Harry wouldn’t have been able to eavesdrop on vital conversations, sneak out of Hogwarts for essential missions or peek at the terrifying dragons before the Triwizard Tournament.

  An Invisibility Cloak is a rare, precious and mysterious object. You must be desperate to see it…

  Here it is:

  Someone wearing an Invisibility Cloak

  That is a real, genuine Invisibility Cloak. Bet you can’t believe your eyes!

  Charms is a subject that illustrates more than most how magic has been used and abused over the years. There were some delightful charms, from turning yourself into a lion, to making yourself invisible – their effectiveness has never been completely disproved! But this form of magic has a darker side, too. Over the centuries, magic and witchcraft have been used to mask the persecution of vulnerable people, under the pretext that they were performing wicked and unholy magical practices. The image of the haggard witch was so effective that it still resonates today. You can trace the birth of science and the continuing respect for religion in the rigorous practice of charms. Charms have been used to ward off disease and even to make people fall in love.

  In the wizarding world of Harry Potter, a hat can decide your school house and sing for you, and one tap of a brick can reveal a hidden street full of wizarding delights. All in all, charms are rather… beguiling.

  DEFENCE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS

  Arguably the most important lessons Harry learned inside a classroom were during Defence Against the Dark Arts. Among other things, he learned to summon a Patronus, to deflect a hex and how to resist the Imperius Curse. These were life-saving skills and techniques. In the history of magic, there are plenty of curious additions: why a cucumber might be a good thing to have with you while swimming in Japan, and how to answer a riddle from a sphinx.

  Defence Against the Dark Arts was famous for its revolving door of professors, who themselves weren’t unafflicted by Dark Magic, one way or another.

  PART 1: SNAKES, SNAKES, SNAKES

  All he knew was that his legs were carrying him forward as though he was on castors and that he had shouted stupidly at the snake, ‘Leave him!’ And miraculously – inexplicably – the snake slumped to the floor, docile as a thick black garden hose, its eyes now on Harry.

  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

  Snakes slither through the wizarding world from start to finish. Snape, who finally achieves his ambition to land the jinxed job of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, is a Slytherin whose house emblem is a snake. Lord Voldemort has a special bond with his gigantic, terrifying snake Nagini. And Harry discovers he can mysteriously speak the language of snakes: Parseltongue.

  Snakes have captured the imagination from the moment one slithered down a tree and tempted Eve with an apple. They have been worshipped and feared, sometimes defenders against the dark arts and sometimes instruments of it.

  ‘Dinner, Nagini,’ said Voldemort softly, and the great snake swayed and slithered from his shoulders onto the polished wood.

  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  Snakes are mysterious and wonderful. They slither along the ground without limbs and regenerate whenever they shed their skin. They can be horrifying as well, opening their mouths so wide that they can swallow their prey whole. They have symbolised poison and they have represented medicine. In folklore and mythology, they represent the duality between good and evil, light and darkness.

  One bestiary (a medieval volume that describes various animals) from 13th-century England depicts an emorrosis alongside a snake charmer – an asp so-called because its bite caused haemorrhages so horrific that the victim sweated out their own blood until they died. The asp could only be overcome if it was sung to sleep in its cave. Once asleep, the conjurer could remove the jewel which sat on top of the snake’s head and render it powerless.

  ‘Yes, thirteen and a half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember… I think we must expect great things from you, Mr Potter… After all, He Who Must Not Be Named did great things – terrible, yes, but great.’

  Garrick Ollivander – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

  An object that was historically known to incorporate the features of a snake, so that it would become more powerful in the way it channelled magic, was the wand. Wands are central to the world of Harry Potter. There are complex rules about how a wand is created and chosen, and how it channels magic. You might think this complexity emerges from J.K. Rowling’s knowledge of historical magical folklore, but in the case of wands, she invented it all.

  Wands can be made of different types of wood, just like those at Ollivander’s, which gives them different characteristics. They then might be enhanced with other materials: feathers, precious stones, metals and even unicorn hair – if you can get hold of it – to en
hance their abilities.

  ‘Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard’s wand.’

  Garrick Ollivander – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

  Snakes are significant in the magical folklore of many cultures. Representations of them are found in wands as well as grander objects such as modern witches’ staffs, made of materials like black bog oak – oak that has been sitting in a bog for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The shedding of the snake’s skin represents rebirth, renewal and regeneration, while the coils of the snake portray the dualism in magic: good and bad, destruction and protection, life and death.

  Back in the 18th century, Dutch apothecary Albertus Seba had a renowned collection of curiosities, which he kept in his house in Amsterdam – a city that was then one of the great maritime centres in Europe. Seba provided the port’s ships with medicine, and in return they brought him exotic finds from all over the world. If you went to Seba’s place, you’d see plants, birds, insects, shells, crocodiles, butterflies, even a hydra and a dragon!