The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter
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Zeus, in recognition of Chiron’s benevolence, placed him in the stars as the constellation
Sagittarius. Another constellation, Centaurus, is one of the most visible in the Southern Hemisphere. These heavenly connections may explain why the centaurs who live in the Forbidden Forest near Hogwarts—
Firenze, Ronan, and Bane—look to the stars to read the future.
What’s the Favorite Trick of Cornish Pixies?
PIXIES ARE ENERGETIC HOUSEHOLD SPIRITS from the legends of Cornwall and the southwest of England. Most stories depict them dressed in green, wearing a pointed cap. They have youthful faces and many have red hair. J. K. Rowling departs from tradition in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, describing them as “electric blue and about eight inches high.”
In folklore, pixies are often said to act like the house elves of Harry’s world. They can be quite helpful but will disappear if given a gift of clothes. Unlike house elves, who are happy to do all the work, pixies will nip at lazy members of a household.
Pixies love to dance under the moonlight. At times they also take horses from stalls and ride them all night, returning them exhausted—and with mysteriously knotted manes—inIt is said that pixies live in caves or burial mounds and come out only at night.
See also: Beasts Boggarts
the morning. But their favorite activity is to lead travelers astray. People who have lost their way (or are in any way bewildered or confused) are said to be “pixie-led.” This disorienting spell may be broken by taking off one’s jacket and putting it on again, inside out.
Leading travelers off a path is a trick often played by another English spirit mentioned in Azkaban, the hinkypunk. Because it seems more like a misty cloud than a solid creature, some people call it the will-o’-the-wisp.
Why Would Voldemort Put the Dark Mark on Death Eaters?
THE DARK MARK IS THE FEARSOME SIGN OF Lord Voldemort. After the Quidditch World Cup in Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, “Something vast, green, and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness . . . It was a colossal skull, comprised of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue.” The symbol also appears on the arms of Voldemort’s followers, growing more visible as Voldemort gains strength and draws near.
The Dark Mark is Voldemort’s version of the Devil’s Mark, a notion from the Middle Ages. According to one medieval demonologist, “the Devil makes a mark on them, especially those whose allegiance he suspects. The mark varies in shape and size; sometimes it is like a hare, sometimes like the foot of a toad, sometimes like a spider, a puppy, or a dormouse. It is imprinted on the most secret parts of the body; men may have it under their eyelids or armpits, on the lips or shoulders; women generally have it on their breasts or private parts. The stamp that makes these marks is nothing less than the Devil’s talon.”
“Morsmordre,” the command that makes the Dark Mark appear, means “take a bite out of death” in French, making it a fitting call for Death Eaters.
Bodkins like these were used to prick alleged witches, to test for the Devil’s Mark. This illustration shows a trick bodkin. Its blade collapses into the handle.
See also: Broomsticks Voldemort
Witch hunters often declared scars, birth-marks, warts, or other blemishes to be the Devil’s Mark. Accused witches were shaved completely so that every bit of their bodies could be examined.
In addition to the Devil’s Mark, witch hunters would look for a Witch’s Mark. This was a less serious matter—only the Devil’s Mark signified a special pact, such as the bond between Voldemort and the Death Eaters—but it could still be fatal for the accused person. Every witch was believed to have one. Any blemish, like a mole or large freckle, might be identified as such.
Sometimes the Witch’s Mark was said to be a spot of skin that did not bleed and where no pain could be felt, so accused witches were pricked with pins (called bodkins) as a test. Often, witch hunters were paid only if they found a witch; so many cheated. For instance, they used special bodkins, similar to the trick knives used in magicians’ acts today. The sharp stem would disappear into the handle when pressed against someone, so it would not puncture the skin.
What Story Began with a Dark and Stormy Knight?
J. K. ROWLING’S PREPARATION FOR WRITING Harry’s adventures included creating a history for the Death Eaters, which she says were originally known as the Knights of Walpurgis. The name is a pun, a reversal of “Walpurgis Night,” the name of an old witches’ holiday celebrating springtime. Walpurgis Night was the night of April 30 (by our modern calendar), the eve of the May Day festival. That date is exactly six months from Hallowe’en, and the two holidays were related in theme. One ushered in the growing season, one marked its passing. On Walpurgis Night as on Hallowe’en, witches and demons supposedly ran wild.
The holiday was celebrated throughout northern Europe and in Britain under various names. “Walpurgis Night” is a translation of the German name. It refers to St. Walpurgis (also “Walburga”), a nun who helped introduce
These 1545 woodcuts claim to show a witch and wizards riding to a gathering.
Walpurgis was actually a Briton, from Devonshire, Wessex. She was the daughter of a Saxon king and the niece of St. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany. Because of her intelligence and skill, the mixed monastery at Heidenheim, Germany, where she was abbess, was highly influential.
Christianity to Germany in the 700s. (The holiday came to have her name by chance. The day chosen to honor her coincided with the traditional spring festival. Walpurgis herself had nothing to do with witchcraft.)
The center of the German celebration was a famous mountain called the Brocken in northern Germany. Witches and demons were said to gather there. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s classic work Faust, about a man who sells his soul to the devil, includes a Walpurgis Night scene on the Brocken. Many magical creatures including griffins, sirens, and phoenixes join the devil, who announces,
I’m like a tom-cat in a thievish vein,
That up fire-ladders tall and steep,
And round the walls doth slyly creep;
... Thus through my limbs already burns
The glorious Walpurgis night!
After to-morrow it returns.
It’s easy to see how the rogue witches on the Brocken might make someone think of the Death Eaters. Perhaps that also explains why Rowling placed Durmstrang, which is sympathetic to Voldemort, not far away.
“BURNING OUT THE WITCHES” Fear of Walpurgis Night created its own rituals. One historian describes how people rid themselves of witches after that hellish night:
On the last three days of April all the houses are cleansed and fumigated with juniper berries and rue. On May Day, when the evening bell has rung and the twilight is falling, the ceremony of “Burning Out the Witches” begins. Men and boys make a racket with whips, bells, pots, and pans; the women carry censers [incense holders]; the dogs are unchained and run barking and yelping about. As soon as the church bells begin to ring, the bundles of twigs, fastened on poles, are set on fire and the incense is ignited. Then all the house-bells and dinner-bells are rung, pots and pans are clashed, dogs bark, every one must make a noise. And amid this hubbub all scream at the pitch of their voices: “Witch flee, flee from here, or it will go ill with thee.” Then they run seven times round the houses, the yards, and the village. So the witches are smoked out of their lurking-places and driven away.
Some northern European countries still celebrate Walpurgis Night, though without the worry about witches.
See Dark Mark Umbridge, Dolores
That description might be funny if it were a scene about Muggles in a Harry Potter book, but as an account of real life it sounds ridiculous. On the other hand, consider this: In Britain, where the festival was known as Beltane, there is evidence that the celebrations included sacrifices of animals and even humans. The Death Eaters would have liked that.
Why Would Chocolate Help After Escaping a Dementor?
DEMENTORS, AS EVERY HARRY POTTER fan knows, are deadly magical creatures. J. K. Rowling introduces them in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: faceless, wearing shapeless cloaks that cover skin that is “greyish, slimy-looking, and scabbed,” they “drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them.”
ROWLING’S EXPLANATION
Rowling has told an interviewer that Dementors represent the mental illness known as depression. She said the choice was deliberate, and based on her own encounter with the disease, which she called the worst experience she has ever endured. Much worse, she says, than merely feeling “sad”—a perfectly normal emotion—depression is an actual loss of feeling. That is just what happens to humans in the presence of Dementors. Dumbledore hates Dementors, because they aren’t satisfied until they’ve consumed all hope and feeling.
Appropriately, Madam Pomfrey’s name comes from a sweet. Pomfret cakes are discs of licorice from Pontefract, Yorkshire. A surprising fact: the area’s renowned licorice was first cultivated to be used as a medicine.
One can’t help but notice that the remedy offered to lighten the effects of Dementors is chocolate, which doctors say can make depressed people feel better. The chocolate has some of the same effects as the medicine that doctors prescribe. Of course, chocolate does seem to be a cure for nearly every ill in Harry’s world.
One also can’t ignore the connection between Rowling’s own experience and the uncomfortable moment in Phoenix when Harry sees Neville Longbottom and Neville’s grandmother, who are visiting Neville’s parents at St. Mungo’s Hospital. Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom are in the hospital because Voldemort’s attack damaged
their minds. Neville is ashamed; Harry is embarrassed on Neville’s behalf; but Neville’s grandmother, older and wiser,is matter-of-fact about the whole thing, which makes it much easier on everyone.
Does Dumbledore Trust Divination or Doesn’t He?
SYBILL TRELAWNEY DOESN’T GET A LOT OF respect. Professor McGonagall sneers after learning Trelawney has predicted Harry will die during this third year at Hogwarts. Dumbledore did not want to hire her because he didn’t think she had a gift for divination. Yet the whole plot of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix centers on a Trelawney prophecy that seems to be accurate. So does Dumbledore believe in divination or not?
PERFECT VISION
Dumbledore, it seems, draws a line between divination and prophecy. The difference is important.
Some types of divination, and what is studied:
Belomancy: the flight of arrows
Bibliomancy: random passage in a book
Dactylomancy: swinging of a suspended ring
Daphnomancy: the crackling of burning laurel
Geloscopy: laughter
Lampadomancy: a lamp flame
Libranomancy: incense smoke
Divination is the interpretation of signs and actions to predict the future or look into the past, or, sometimes, just find lost objects. Many methods are used. The Romans favored augury, interpreting the flight of birds. Other cultures examined the insides of sacrificed animals. Some people still “read” the arrangement of tea leaves or coffee grinds left in a cup.
Dumbledore doesn’t trust this kind of divination. People see what they like in the flight of birds, which isn’t influenced by mystical powers.
A true “seer”—someone who can see the future—is said to have a “gift” of prophecy. Like all gifts, it must come from somebody. Prophecy is said to come from the gods, who don’t communicate through tea leaves. In the ancient world, seers called “oracles” lived at temples so they could contact gods. The most famous temple, at Delphi, Greece, endured for twelve centuries and was linked to various gods: an ancient earth mother; a later earth goddess, Gaea; Dionysus, the god of fertility and wine; and Apollo, the god most associated with prophecy. The priestesses went into a trance so the gods could speak through them.
ALL IN THE FAMILY
So why does Dumbledore give Trelawney a chance? Rowling explains in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix that Trelawney is descended from “a very famous, very gifted Seer” and Dumbledore wanted to be respectful. The name of that ancestor, Cassandra Trelawney, says it all. Cassandra is the name of the most famous seer in Greek myth, a woman who received her gift directly from the god Apollo. He loved her, and promised her the gift of prophecy if she would love him. But after he made her clairvoyant she changed her mind. As punishment, Apollo declared that no one would ever believe her predictions. This caused her a lot of grief, most notably during the Trojan War. She was the daughter of the king of Troy, and was in the city when Greek soldiers tried to invade. After it seemed the Greeks had given up and left behind the gift of a large wooden horse, she warned her father not to celebrate, and to leave the horse outside the city walls. But because of Apollo’s curse her father did not heed her. Of course, Greek soldiers were hidden inside the horse. When it was inside the city they slipped out and took over.
Perhaps the strange voice Trelawney used when making the prediction to Dumbledore—not her usual fortune-telling voice, Harry notices when Dumbledore shows him the memory—might have made Dumbledore wonder if Trelawney’s great-great-grandmother was speaking through her. Ignoring such a warning would not have been wise.
Lithomancy: gemstones
Metoposcopy: forehead wrinkles
Palmistry: lines of the palm
Phrenology: shape of the skull
Some people burn sage to tell the future, as Rowling’s Centaurs do in Phoenix; and of course many people follow the stars with astrology, as the Centaurs do in Stone.
The divination textbook used at Hogwarts was written by a “Cassandra Vablatsky”; her last name refers to a real woman who claimed psychic powers. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society, whose aims include “investigating unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in humanity”—in other words, magic.
See also: Centaurs Runes
Not coincidentally, Sybill Trelawney’s first name also comes from famous prophets of mythology. The books containing the predictions of the Sybils were the most valuable volumes in the Roman Empire. Like Sybill Trelawney, the Roman Sybils were inclined to offer predictions—often dreadful ones—without being asked. Of course Prof. Trelawney will never live up to the reputation of the Roman Sybils. One correct prophecy is not much of a record, even if it is important.
Perhaps Dumbledore’s skepticism about divination can be traced back to J. K. Rowling. She does seem ambivalent about it. Hermione finds it “very woolly,” yet is fond of arithmancy, which is divination from numbers. Though centaurs in the Forbidden Forest read the future in the stars, they seem wise. They also burn leaves to watch the smoke, as Firenze explains to Harry’s class in Phoenix, but even Firenze reveals his doubts about that. Maybe Rowling feels as Dumbledore explains to Harry in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: “The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.”
Which Creature Is Fit for a King?
DRAGONS (FROM THE LATIN DRACO—JUST like Draco Malfoy) are probably the best-known magical creatures in literature. Usually dangerous and terrifying, they are often the most challenging foe a hero can face. Literary critics John Clute and John Grant note this rule of ancient epics: “To kill a dragon is often to become a king.” As a result the dragon is the symbol of many real and fictional kings, including the legendary King Arthur, whose last name, Pendragon, means “head of the dragon” or “chief dragon.” His golden helmet bore a dragon design.
However, as some heroes discover, dragons are often misunderstood. Though they can be frightening, they can also be benevolent.
UGLINESS IS ONLY SKIN DEEP
Many people fear dragons simply because ofJ. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, called dragons the trademark of fairy tales and myths.
&nbs
p; Dragons on family crests.
their appearance. This description from about A.D. 600 was taken very seriously:
The dragon is the largest of all serpents and of all living things upon earth. It has a small face and narrow blow-holes through which it draws its breath and thrusts out its tongue. Being dragged from caves it rushes into the air, and the air is thrown into commotion on account of it. And it has its strength not in its teeth but in its tail, and it is dangerous for its stroke, rather than for its jaws. It is harmless in the way of poison, but poison is not necessary for it to cause death, because it kills whatever it has entangled in its folds. And from it the elephant is not safe because of its size. It grows in Ethiopia and in India, in the very burning of perennial heat.
It is easy to see why the dragon is often a symbol of destruction. That idea goes back thousands of years. In the New Testament, the Lord warns, “I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.”
BRITISH DRAGONS
Dragons play a big part in the legends of Harry’s homeland. For instance, they foretold one of the most important moments in British history. According to an official chronicle, the year AD 793 began with “dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully. Whirlwinds and immense sheets of light rushed through the air, and fiery dragons flew across the sky. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, invading heathens made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island [Lindisfarne].” Those “invading heathens” were Norsemen from Scandinavia. True to whatIn both Europe and Asia, comets and meteors were sometimes taken to be flying, fire-breathing dragons.