A History of Magic- a Journey Through the Hogwarts Curriculum
Page 5
Whereas in previous eras copies of the book would be limited and shared among a privileged few, the relatively new Gutenberg printing press revolutionised how ideas were being spread in Western Europe and allowed those in the Ortus sanitatis to be distributed among a much wider sector of the population.
Print, like digital technology now, enabled information and knowledge to be standardised, set and disseminated faster than ever before. The more knowledge was shared, the more it was challenged, the more it was improved and the more the scientific revolution grew, especially during the Enlightenment of the 18th century. We’re sure Hermione would approve.
The instruments of the apothecary trade also stretch back through time – the pestle and mortar (these names come from the Latin words for ‘pounding’ and ‘pounder’) might be in use in your kitchen just as they were for the Aztecs, Sioux, Ancient Greeks and Celts. Their oldest use was recorded in Egyptian papyri from 1500 BC and, along with other kinds of herb grinders, they remain closely associated with pharmacies today.
Another tool of the trade is a place to store the ground results: apothecary jars. Apothecary jars from 17th-century Spain, with their hand-painted flower designs, are very beautiful and wouldn’t look out of place at Hogwarts. Their contents even sound as exotic as Felix Felicis and Amortentia:
• Vitriol. Coerul.: ‘blue vitriol’, or copper sulphate, which was used in dyes and by apothecaries to induce vomiting!
• Ocul. Cancr.: ‘crab’s eyes’, really a stony mass taken from the stomach of a putrefied crayfish. Used – ironically enough – to ease stomach ache.
• Sang. Draco.: ‘dragon’s blood’ (you might remember that in the Harry Potter stories Albus Dumbledore was an expert in dragon’s blood), purportedly the blood of dragons or elephants, but actually a bright-red resin from a tree found in Morocco, Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, Dracaena Draco – the dragon tree. Used to treat ailments like haemorrhoids, as an ingredient in 18th-century toothpaste and today as a varnish for violins.
The next two days passed without great incident, unless you counted Neville melting his sixth cauldron in Potions.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Perhaps the most famous depictions of potion-brewing are of witches bent over a flaming pot or a bubbling cauldron. One of the earliest images like this can be found in De laniis et phitonicis mulieribu (‘On Witches and Female Fortune Tellers’) by Ulrich Molitor, in which the witches appear to be trying to summon a fearsome hailstorm. Molitor wrote his book in Cologne, Germany, following the collapse of a trial in which a woman called Helena Scheuberin was cleared of being a witch. Her prosecutor had been Heinrich Kramer, the author of an infamous witch-hunting manual, Malleus maleficarum (‘The Hammer of the Witches’).
Unconvinced of Kramer’s claims and methods, Sigismund III, Archduke of Austria and Tyrol, commissioned Molitor as a top legal scholar to investigate and clarify the witchcraft issue. Molitor’s view was that witches were dangerous, but only if they were in league with the devil, and were ultimately few and far between. Molitor was a moderate and he wanted to cool the atmosphere of paranoia and confusion around the issue of witches. On Witches and Female Fortune Tellers is written as a dialogue between Molitor and the archduke, and although the words urged calm, the illustrations pulled in the other direction. A woodcut of two old witches throwing a cockerel and a snake into a flaming cauldron, triggering a hailstorm which destroys crops, is the earliest printed depiction of witches using a cauldron.
Molitor’s book was published in 1489, two years after Kramer’s, and also became an influential bestseller, but not in the way it was intended. The images instilled fear in a largely illiterate public. The book remained in print for a hundred years, enough time to sear the trope of the witch and her cauldron into the popular imagination for ever after. When Hermione throws ingredients into a cauldron and begins to stir feverishly, it is an act continuing an artistic representation that has endured down the centuries.
Hermione threw the new ingredients into the cauldron and began to stir feverishly.
‘It’ll be ready in a fortnight,’ she said happily.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
That is not to say that cauldrons were never used before they were depicted in Molitor’s book. One was recovered from the sludge of the River Thames in London when it was dredged in 1861 – amazingly, the artefact dated from between 800 and 600 BC. The ‘Battersea Cauldron’, as it came to be known (because it was found just downstream of Chelsea Bridge, near Battersea), was made of seven sheets of bronze riveted together with a corrugated rim that was extra strong and had free-moving handles attached. It was huge and the strips of metal that held the rim to the body were individually patterned. Around sixty Bronze Age cauldrons have been found in the UK, almost all of them in bodies of water; they may have been used to make offerings, or maybe they had some other purpose. Since there are no written records from this period, the precise use of the ‘Battersea Cauldron’ will have to remain a mystery, though it would probably have been used for feasting rather than potion-brewing (sadly).
PART 2: LEECHBOOKS AND BEZOAR STONES
Some potions-related artefacts have grown in stature over time, and Bald’s Leechbook is one of them. An old medical text from the 9th century, ‘Bald’ is actually the name of the owner of the book, which itself is named after leechdoms, a sort of medieval medicine. Medicine in Anglo-Saxon England was a mix of charms, remnants of classical theories and practice, folklore and faith-healing. As such, some of the ideas in the book appear bizarre.
For example, a modern doctor wouldn’t advise mixing dog urine and mouse blood to get rid of warts, or that to counteract a snakebite you need to smear earwax around the wound and recite the Prayer of St John. Neither would your local vet suggest that pain in domestic animals might be caused by elves. And though midwives might still point out that a baby unborn after the tenth month could be fatal to the mother, they won’t add that this is especially true on Monday nights!
‘Now then, now then, now then,’ said Slughorn, whose massive outline was quivering through the many shimmering vapours. ‘Scales out, everyone, and potion kits, and don’t forget your copies of Advanced Potion-Making...’
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Incredibly, however, some of Bald’s cures still hold true today. One of the recommended cures – involving leek, garlic, wine and part of a cow’s stomach – was tested in 2015 and found to be as effective against MRSA as modern antibiotics. Likewise, a nettle-based ointment for muscle pain and a herb-based cough treatment are similar to ones sold in chemists and health-food shops today. The book’s advice on how stitches will dissolve, what to use as an antiseptic and even how to perform surgery for a cleft lip indicate that in the Middle Ages people knew something about what they were doing and which herbs combatted which diseases. It was a well-travelled document, too, containing some of the best Mediterranean medicine from the 3rd to 9th centuries. Information was transmitted across borders and national boundaries that we know well today but that didn’t exist in the Middle Ages. Bald’s Leechbook would make a mean accompaniment to Advanced Potion-Making.
Harry bent over the Half-Blood Prince’s book and turned a few pages with unnecessary force. And there it was, scrawled right across a long list of antidotes.
Just shove a bezoar down their throats.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Speaking of which, it’s in the Half-Blood Prince’s copy of Advanced Potion-Making by Libatius Borage that Harry learns what a bezoar stone is made from. Harry famously shoved a bezoar down Ron’s throat when he drank some poisoned oak-matured mead intended for Professor Dumbledore.
Bezoar stones are masses of undigested fibres that form in the stomachs of certain animals, especially of the bezoar goat. Throughout the Middle Ages and early modern period they were considered a universal antidote to all poisons. In the real world, bezoar stones were often enclosed in gold
filigree cases, showing that their owners (gentlemen, noblemen, kings and popes) were keen not to get poisoned, and were wealthy enough to own such exotic goods – even if the exotic good was essentially gunk from a goat’s stomach.
Someone who wasn’t as lucky as Ron was a French cook who, in 1567, had been condemned to hang for stealing some cutlery. Ambrose Paré, a barber-surgeon to the French monarchy, wanted to do a grisly experiment to see whether the bezoar stone was indeed an antidote to poison. He offered the cook a deal: instead of being hanged, he would be poisoned, but he would also be offered the protection of consuming a bezoar stone. If he lived, he would go free. The cook was given a sublimate of mercury and, unfortunately, the bezoar stone offered no defence. He suffered great torment for seven hours, vomiting and emitting blood from his ears, nose and mouth. When Paré opened him up posthumously he found his stomach black and dry, as if it had been burned.
If there can be any justification for the brutality here, it’s that it showcases a form of proto-science which is based on experimentation and observation rather than parroting Classical authors and texts. This was the development of the scientific method in action: learning through the observation of natural phenomena. Mind you, that wouldn’t bring any comfort to that particular French chef.
‘Let’s try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?’
Hermione stretched her hand as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but Harry didn’t have the faintest idea what a bezoar was.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Bezoar stones crop up in many real-life old books and manuscripts; one of the most important of these is The Compleat History of Druggs by Pierre Pomet. Pomet was a traveller, collector, writer and medical researcher. His expertise led him to become chief druggist to Louis XIV, probably the most powerful monarch of the 17th century. He specialised in purveying exotic remedies from distant lands. Regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive book on medicines of its time, The Compleat History of Druggs was a source of fascination to curious readers as well as medical professionals.
In his book, Pomet is pretty specific in his recommendations about how to attain a bezoar stone – you could get one from a cow, but a goat bezoar stone was better. A really rare ape bezoar trumped them all. These were good examples of the kinds of items that were being brought back from (what were perceived as) far-flung regions by countries that were developing their empires in the Far East, India and South America.
PART 3: THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE – AN ALCHEMIST’S TRUE CALLING
The ancient study of alchemy is concerned with making the Philosopher’s Stone, a legendary substance with astonishing powers. The Stone will transform any metal into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
The Harry Potter series began with the search for one legendary object: the Philosopher’s Stone. A substance with unique properties, it was believed to change other metals into gold and to produce the Elixir of Life, which would grant everlasting life to whoever drank it. As well as the subject of the first Harry Potter novel, it was the object of desire for alchemists throughout history and, as such, has been the feature of both scientific texts and works of art for centuries.
What the Philosopher’s Stone is actually supposed to look like is unknown. What colour is it? Does it glow? Is it solid, or a residue of an experiment? Where do you keep it?
There is an amazing, richly illustrated artefact that explains how to best use the Philosopher’s Stone: the Ripley Scroll. The Ripley Scroll is a six-metre-long alchemical treatise, covered in illustrations of dragons, toads and birds, and including a text called ‘Verses upon the Elixir’. When hung up, it is as tall as an adult giraffe, and there are only 22 known copies in the world. One is kept at the British Library. Another is kept at Yale University’s Beinecke Library. They share iconography but portray the alchemical process in a different order. It’s not certain which of these two scrolls on either side of the Atlantic would give you a better chance of producing gold.
The original scroll and its copies are named after the English mystic George Ripley, who was the canon (senior priest) of Bridlington Priory in Yorkshire, England, in the 15th century, and reputedly an alchemist. He wrote a book known as The Compound of Alchymy, but it wasn’t until much later, in the 16th century, that people attributed to him the idea of making your own Philosopher’s Stone.
If this mysterious scroll is unfurled and its instructions followed, you can learn how to turn base metal into gold and live forever. To be honest, people have been trying and failing to do this for centuries, so the chances of success aren’t very high, but here we go...
Stage One:
At the head of the scroll is a red-robed, white-bearded figure who looks like the traditional European-American figure of Father Christmas. It’s not him, sadly; the image is of the legendary Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus. He holds a huge alchemical vessel that’s nearly as big as he is. Inside it are eight scenes, mostly showing wise men gazing into more alchemical vessels that contain human figures. Some of them look like they represent Adam and Eve. But there’s a big picture in the centre – it’s Hermes presenting a secret book to Ripley himself.
Stage Two:
Here, a large tree emerges from a pool of water, with snakes twisting around it. Adam and Eve are definitely represented in the pool this time. To a trained alchemist, this image is highly symbolic and informative: the tree represents knowledge; the snakes represent the Roman god Mercury; Adam represents the chemical sulphur, and Eve, the chemical mercury. At this stage of the scroll, a white stone is created.
Stage Three:
Beneath the white stone, a dragon is eating a toad. At the time the scroll was made, it was believed that toads were created spontaneously, rather than developing into tadpoles from eggs. The dragon and toad in this instance also spontaneously create a black stone.
Stage Four:
Here, a red lion and a green lion stand either side of a furious fire. Any alchemist worth his salt knew what this meant: that red sulphur and the ore from which essence of mercury is extracted are added to the black stone over heat, to create the red stone.
Stage Five (nearly there):
Here we meet the glorious golden bird, Hermes – like a golden eagle but with the face of a man wearing a crown. The bird represents regeneration and the powerful vapours created in the making of the stone.
Stage Six:
Finally – the Philosopher’s Stone. It’s represented as the three coloured stones: red, white and black. They’re shown inside a bright burning sun, signifying gold, and circled by a crescent moon, signifying silver. The stones are held aloft by a dragon.
The final figure is of a man holding a giant quill pen. Perhaps this is Ripley. After all that, he must be exhausted.
If you’ve followed the instructions to the letter, you come up with three different-coloured stones in the course of the process: red, black and white. The colours of the stones have connections with the names of key characters in the Harry Potter series. The red stone has a connection to Rubeus Hagrid, whose name in Latin means ‘red’; likewise the white stone to Albus Dumbledore, whose first name means ‘white’, and the black stone to Sirius Black (for obvious reasons). Arguably, the three father figures of Harry Potter are bound together in the colours of the Philosopher’s Stone.
There have been many reports of the Philosopher’s Stone over the centuries, but the only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr Nicolas Flamel, the noted alchemist and opera lover. Mr Flamel, who celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday last year, enjoys a quiet life in Devon with his wife, Perenelle (six hundred and fifty-eight).
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Whether you’ve managed to successfully create the Philosopher’s Stone or not, someone who certainly did so in the wizarding
world was Nicolas Flamel. In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Nicolas Flamel has created one and hidden it in Hogwarts. There really was a Nicolas Flamel, who lived in Paris in the late 14th and early 15th century.
Supposedly, he never died, but it looks like he might have done because there’s a tombstone with his name on it in the church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie in Paris. The medieval tombstone is quite small, at just over 50 centimetres high – at its top is a scene showing Christ flanked by saints Peter and Paul, along with the sun and the moon. At the bottom is the dead body of Flamel. Flamel was said to have designed the tombstone himself and it was discovered some time in the 19th century in a Parisian grocer’s shop, where it was being used as a chopping board.
Soon after Flamel’s death, stories and legends began to spring up around him. People claimed that his grave was dug up but there was no body inside. And the most popular one suggested that he was a book dealer who came across a mysterious and magical book, and that he made it his life’s work to translate the text. The story was that after years of relentless study and travel he finally managed to unlock its powerful secrets. The legend of Flamel grew with each decade and saw him mentioned by Isaac Newton in his journals and Victor Hugo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
There is no evidence, however, to suggest that Nicolas Flamel was ever involved in the book trade. He was wealthy, certainly, but this was because he married a rich widow and owned lots of property as a result: he was a landlord. He was also interested in commissioning large-scale tombs, which had various religious symbols on them, and in subsequent books written about his life these were interpreted as depicting alchemical experiments, such as how to make the Philosopher’s Stone. His tomb commissions grew his own legend posthumously.