Slytherin Book

About Thestrals

What does Newt’s book say about them? Well. Nothing. Or, to be more accurate, there is no entry for ‘Thestral’. When you look up ‘Winged Horse’, there is one phrase (not even a sentence!): ‘... and the rare Thestral (black, possessed of the power of invisibility, and considered unlucky by many wizards)’ (Scamander, 1927). That is all in official magizoological literature. Quite meagre, eh?

So we’ll have to trust Rowling, I guess. What do we learn in Care of Magical Creatures? That’s in chapter Twenty-One of Order of the Phoenix: They prefer the dark. The Forest is their natural habitat. They are rare, Thestrals, and Hagrid is probably the only one who has managed to train a herd. They are attracted by the smell of raw meat, which they eat, as they are scavengers. We know Hagrid feeds them cows. He calls them with a sort of shrieking cry resembling that of a monstrous bird. They have blank, white, shining eyes, dragonish faces, long black tails, leathery wings, and skeletal bodies. They do tear the flesh from the carcasses they eat with their pointed fangs. They are ‘dead clever and useful’, and besides pulling the school carriages, the only job the Hogwarts herd has is to take Dumbledore on his longer journeys.

So basically they look very Cocteau-ish. Cocteau was that French author-painter-cineast who explored the world between life and death in many of his plays and films, and, incidentally, often used a horse-head to materialise this (see picture below).

The Ministry of Magic has classified Thestrals as dangerous (XXXX). Hagrid says it’s because of the reputation they have of being bad omens, not because they are more dangerous than other creatures. They simply look after themselves, and retaliate if you annoy them. Natural.

The Hogwarts herd started with a male and five females. Among the herd, Hagrid’s favourite is Tenebrus, who was the first to be born in the Forbidden Forest. Once they are tamed, Thestrals will never get their rider lost. Their sense of direction is amazing, and you only need to tell them where you want to go to be brought there. Additional information can be found in Chapter Thirty-Three of OoP: Apparently, Thestrals understand human speech, and they do fly fast, hardly beating their wings. When they touch ground, there is no thud, because they do it lightly as a shadow.

Thestrals and Death

Apart from their being rather otherworldly in appearance, or, I’d rather say back-from-the-deadly in appearance, Thestral have that ominous trait of being invisible to mortals who don’t have an understanding of death through seeing someone die. Through this, Rowling is able to take the reader onto a path to comprehend the variety of attitudes humankind can display when confronted to death as a concept before it can become a reality.

Death should be a reality to anyone at least in a biological sense because everything we eat was once living, and all our wooden furniture, houses, and musical instruments, for instance, are actually made of slaughtered trees or dead herbaceous plants. On a humanly biological level, death is not always a reality. As in, many people don’t come to terms with the fact that we are all going to die one day, because we are animals. Whether there is life after death or not is another question, which can be biologically answered (yes, there is, because your matter is being recycled by other living things), or spiritually answered (yes, there is, because you believe in a myth/religion that tells you that there is life after death in some form; or no, there isn’t, because you think you vanish entirely into nothing the moment you die - this, incidentally, sounds very weird to me, because of the laws of conservation of mass). Death is fascinating to some, scary to some (probably most people - when they are asked about it, they often reply, like Voldemort, that there is nothing worse than death - OoP, chapter Thirty-Six, The Only One He Ever Feared), but unless you come to terms with it in some way, there is always that little pang when you think of your last moments and the length of your life on the planet.

Thestrals are some sort of way Rowling has to show us this variety. I think it is somehow summed up in that dialogue Harry and Hermione have while coming back from Hagrid’s lesson on Thestrals (OoP, Chapter Twenty-One, The Eye of the Snake):

‘[...] but Thestrals are fine - in fact, for Hagrid, they’re really good!’

‘Umbridge said they’re dangerous,’ said Ron.

‘Well, it’s like Hagrid said, they can look after themselves,’ said Hermione impatiently, ‘[...] but, well, they are very interesting, aren’t they? The way some people can see them and some can’t! I wish I could.’

‘Do you?’ Harry asked her quietly.

She looked suddenly horrostruck.

‘Oh, Harry - I’m sorry - no, of course I don’t - that was a really stupid thing to say.’

‘It’s OK,’ he said quickly, ‘don’t worry.’

Hermione is clearly fascinated by death and its various personifications; that’s her ‘brainy’ side. Harry on the other hand has already started on the path to get himself acquainted with the reality of death, not only because he has no parents left (but no real recollection of them either, or conscious knowledge of death - he has, I think, a conscious knowledge of absence), but because he witnessed Diggory being killed in June the year before. From that moment on, he’s been on a journey towards an opening of mind and towards an acceptance of death that will culminate with his walking into the Forest at the end of Deathly Hallows. Apart from Thestrals, in his fifth year, he meets Luna, who has her own journey to make since her mum died when she was nine (so basically about 5 years previously, since she’s 14-ish in OoP, being a fourth-year). She seems to have come to terms with death and in her own way helps Harry. For instance, after Sirius’s death, she is the only one with whom he can discuss him, to his own astonishment. I’ll dwell about Luna’s relation to death in another paper, I think. It deserves it.

We cannot see Thestrals, but we cannot see death either (Willson-Metzger, no date). So in that sense they are a sort of death creature, yet they are most alive. They have a part to play in the unfolding of the plot in OoP as in they allow the start of Harry’s friendship to Luna, but then provides means of transport to the Ministry for the Dumbledore’s Army nucleus, giving those who cannot see them some sort of way onto the path Luna, Harry, and Neville have already undertaken. 

Are there such horses in Muggle mythologies?

Let’s do this quick: no. 

BUT you couldn’t imagine I could let this be. So I searched my books (I have a pretty number of them), and the internet. I stumbled upon a paper by Leah on Mugglenet (2004) about a Celtic legend involving… tadaaaa… a horse. Well yeh, like most legends in these parts of the world, you’d tell me, because it’s a means of transport, human’s best friend, was revered for centuries, buried with their owners, or having their own burial services. Yeh. At first the telling of the story was confusing because it involved a kestrel, which is a bird and a Quidditch team (and has a vague resemblance to thestral), but the writer was talking about a horse. So I looked the story up from the source she mentions (Berresford Ellis, 1999). I also checked the French version of the tale (Luzel, 1887). The details vary, but the essentials are coherent. My point is that Leah has a point. There are similarities between the horse in the story she mentions and Thestrals.

So. To make it short, it’s the story of N’oun Doaré (means ‘I don’t know’). He was a child when he was found in a hedge by Bras, a noble man from Brittany. He and his wife Anvab adopted him and raised him. The boy was called N’oun Doaré, because the only thing he could reply to any question at the beginning was ‘I don’t know’. When he was of age, the boy was sent by Bras to a cousin of his who was a renowned druid, until he was seventeen (the same ‘coming of age’ as in the Harry Potter books). Then Bras officially adopted N’oun Doaré as his heir, and went to town to get him a sword and horse. The horse they got on the road from a man clad in black, who was leading a sorry skeletal horse indeed, that looked like the Mare of Death, but N’oun Doaré chose that one. The man told him it had a magical halter. It was full of knots, and each knot untied would mean the mare would transport the rider wherever he wished, by magic. The French version I read said the mare would take the rider 1,500 leagues from where he was. This reminds me strongly of the capacity Thestrals have to travel wherever the rider asks them. The rest of the story is worth reading, but has no more to do with a thestrally horse.

Did Rowling know about this story? I don’t know. She is learnt in French, in legends, and many other parts of culture, so maybe. Anyway, it is interesting to know that such characteristics as, for instance,  the ability to go to the bidder’s chosen place by magic, are shared by other literature. Somehow, the fact that Thestrals are quite unique makes them even more interesting. So I guess there might be more to come about them.

If you have info about thestrals or thestrally creatures in any mythology, pray tell me in the comments sections!

Sources

Mugglenet paper by Leah: https://www.mugglenet.com/2004/10/the-legend-behind-thestrals/

Berresford Ellis, P. (1999; 2002). The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends. Robinson. London. 463-483. Retrieved from: https://yes-pdf.com/book/4406 

Luzel, F.-M. (1887). Contes Populaires de Basse-Bretagne. Retrieved from: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Contes_populaires_de_Basse-Bretagne 

Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury, London.

Creatures

The Niffler Has a Name

It’s TEDDY. Not very original, but since it’s about the time when bears were actually starting to get called Teddy (because of Roosevelt), then why not surf on the wave of fashion. Anyway, I’m glad he has a name. It also shows he has got a more substantial part to play in this film than in the previous ones (in the first, he was a mere sidekick and funny character, in the second he retrieves the blood pact in the end). Proof? He’s got his own Character Poster! As does Pickett! And I do love those posters. The Niffler here is so mischievous-looking! Or like Look At Me I'm So Marvellous!

Pickett is Still There - Thank Merlin

AND TA DAAAAA…. He’s joining forces with Teddy the Niffler! They are teaming up! That’s brilliant. No more (or I suppose, less) rivalry between the coat pocket and the case! Jude Law even said ‘They’re kind of saving the day’ and that there are whole scenes that are only about them. And there goes Redmayne: ‘Teddy and Pickett? I’m watching!’ .

What about Fawkes?

We see a Phoenix in the trailers. Mostly with Credence, but in the end of them, it’s looking like it’s going back to Dumbledore… could that be a hint that Credence is not what he seems to be - again? A hint towards an affirmative answer to this is one sentence by Dumbledore: ‘Things are not quite what they appear.’ That resonates with what Bunty says to Newt on the train.

Snallygaster?

At some point in the trailer we see a reptilian-like bird with a bill like a huge duck’s, carrying something in the air. Could it be a Snallygaster? It is but a glimpse we have, but it does fit the description. We’ll see.

Manticore?

Looks like the creature that is hiding in whatever sewers Newt and Theseus and who-knows-whom-else are at some point in the trailer is a manticore. It was definitely mentioned during the World Premiere Press Conference on 29th March by no other than Eddie Redmayne. And I just found out before posting this that David Heyman actually confirmed the creatures were baby manticores (the crab thingy Newt and Theseus dance with), so the big scorpion-tail could belong to the mummy or daddy…

Dancing Crabs?

That dance we see in the trailers. Jeez it made me laugh. And Redmayne said it stems from that Erumpent mating dance from the first Fantastic Beasts film. Each film has some dance or such like. In Crimes of Grindelwald it’s the weird taming of the Zouwu with that little cat-head toy. Apparently they are baby manticores.

Other Weird Twists

'Memory is Everything. Without It We Leave the Fate of Our World to Chance.'

This quote from the Goblet of Fire film, by Dumbledore, starts the trailer alongside the Hedwig theme. Can’t but think that there’s a strong thing about that in the film. Dumbledore is then looking into his Pensieve. We have no idea what memories he is supposed to be looking at, because ‘I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.’ [...] ‘At these times, [...] I use the Pensive. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.’ (GoF, chapter Thirty, The Pensieve, pp. 518-519).

The fact that there is obviously a link between this older (and more familiar) Dumbledore and the younger one from the Fantastic Beasts series, shows that there is a link between the two eras, something that happened at the time of the films or before (my guess is ‘before’, like the Blood Pact, or Ariana’s Death), that still nags Dumbledore at the time of the Potter series.

Grindelwald Removes a Memory from Yussuf

We see him do that. No problem there. Now the question is which memory? And why is it important to Grindelwald? Many assumptions converge and say it’s probably the memory of the baby swap told by Leta in the Lestrange Vault at the end of Crimes of Grindelwald. Grindelwald cannot possibly know about it, and the only ones left with the knowledge are the people who were in the vault. That is Newt, Tina, Jacob, Credence, and Yusuf. All the others who knew are dead. Now knowing that, for Grindelwald, would mean having to acknowledge that his theory of Credence being a Dumbledore is wrong, and that the real Aurelius (if there ever was one) drowned. If so, then Credence might as well be Corvus Lestrange. Did Credence tell Grindelwald? I’m doubtful. He’s being accepted by someone probably for the first time in his life, and doesn’t want to jeopardise that. Later in the trailer, we see Grindelwald attacking Credence. Maybe he just got told the truth?

Anyway. As said somewhere above, that might also drive Yusuf to swap sides. Maybe Grindelwald not only removed memories from Yusuf, but also planted some others instead? At any rate, Yusuf is seen in the trailer standing behind Grindelwald with the rest of the Alliance.

Then, when talking about memories, we see Grindelwald standing in some sort of pool at one point. Is that some makeshift Pensieve in Nurmengard in which he could see the memories he’s extracted from others, or his own? Does he see Yusuf’s memory in there, and the result of this perusal makes him angry enough to attack Credence? We’ll see.

That Message on the Mirror in the Hog’s Head

Do you know where it is kept? Where WHAT is kept? The blood pact? Or something else? What is the role of mirrors in this whole film? We know there are two-way mirrors in the Wizarding World, but… this one in the Hog’s Head? The Hog’s Head is, after all, a strange place, serving as a hiding place, an outsiders’ watering hole, a link between Hogsmeade and the Room of Requirements…

The Bloody Blood Pact

I’m more and more confident that a theory I put into writing in one of my older pieces, namely that Grindelwald only came to Godric’s Hollow because he Saw Ariana as an Obscurial, and didn’t give a damn about Dumbledore himself apart from using him as a screen and way of getting close to Ariana, is getting nearer to being right than ever. And, besides, I’m not the only one to hypothesize this, I am glad to say.

Grindelwald kept the Blood Pact after it was made because it was the only way for him to save it from an awakening of Dumbledore’s. I guess it was made more to protect Grindelwald from Dumbledore than anything else, because, I guess, Dumbledore is the only wizard [insert name of villain] was ever afraid of. So one more trick played on someone in love. Not the last time Dumbledore will be fooled by it; though, unless we learn more of his life and lies, never will it be to that extent. I mean this resulted in Ariana dying, and Dumbledore never really recovered, did he. However, if Grindelwald didn’t care two straws for Dumbledore, which I believe is the truth, then Grindelwald wouldn’t be protected by it, would it, as an object. So the only protection doesn’t lie in the object itself, but in the fact that Dumbledore does genuinely love Grindelwald, and therefore holds the blood pact as true. Deception, deception…

A blood pact, as I’ve said in another paper (21st September 2019), is basically a contract of non aggression and undying loyalty between people, peoples, or people(s) and an institution. As such, it sort of parallels the Unbreakable Vow in the Wizarding World. Even the way it is shown bound around Dumbledore’s right forearm and the way the Unbreakable Vow is pictured (with lace-like strings of light around people’s wrists) points towards a similarity. If you break the Unbreakable Vow, you die. What about that bloody blood pact? We don’t exactly know, but what we do know is that Dumbledore feels like he cannot engage against Grindelwald because of it, at least not in direct confrontation.

As David Heyman put it during the Press Conference on 28th March, ultimately, for Dumbledore, it’s a journey towards choosing between the love he had, or maybe still has, and doing the right thing. The Bloody Blood Pact stands in there…

Grindelwald and Dumbledore Face to Face Before 1945?

According to canon, those two don’t see each other after Godric’s Hollow until the final duel in 1945. So what happened? What is this confrontation? Is it happening in that mirrorverse thingy? Did it really happen? Did Dumbledore lie to Harry at King’s Cross? Do Chocolate Frog Cards tell lies?

There are some clues that it’s a pretty weird thing. The restaurant is catching fire? Like WHUT? Is that something that actually allows them to meet without actually meeting? Some sort of spell that wouldn’t undo the Blood Pact? BUT. Because there’s a HUGE BUT. We see those two fighting each other later in the trailer, which seems not really possible without meeting, right? Plus they are touching and holding each other’s clothes. I’m nonplussed. Is that happening in that mirroverse thingy? Or is it something unreal again? Clues are pointing that way: for instance, the background is sort of frozen and weirdly glowing. Might also be a bit of Seeing by Grindelwald. Who knows. I reckon we’ll have to wait and see.

Yeh I know the film is called The Secrets of Dumbledore so it’s bound to happen that we learn new stuff, and there’s no denying the man himself is a mystery. But still, twist canon. Meh.

Credence v Dumbledore, the Weird Deluminator and the Change of the Phoenix

We see Credence and Dumbledore in some sort of fight, and Dumbledore Disapparating at some point. We also see a Phoenix (in a pretty bad state, probably close to a Burning Day) fly towards Dumbledore. So do Credence and Dumbledore finally meet? Looks like it. And Dumbeldore is seen standing behind Credence, pointing his wand at Credence’s throat from behind, and saying ‘Do you really intend to turn your back on your own kind?’. There are many possible interpretations of this sentence, but one that springs to mind from the start is a Draco-like ultimatum. It looks, from the trailer, that Dumbledore somehow brings Credence back from the mirrorverse thingy after bringing him down.

Is the Deluminator used to return back to the real world? How come it acts like a sort of source of light not just glowing like any light you’d take away from a bulb or fire, but emanating from the Put-Outer in weird jellyfish-like tentacles? I’m close to hoping that I’m mistaken and that it is NOT the Deluminator and that if it is, it is NOT used to turn the world upside down.

Now is Credence in a position to take over Dumbledore? No. Not from what we see in the trailers. Dumbledore seems to be in complete control. He waves the blasted building away with a wave of his wand, and stops the fire coming from Credence with his hand. Is Credence really willing to fight Dumbledore? Is he only in a rage because he lost his identity yet again (in the case that the theory according to which Grindelwald manipulated Credence into a new identity is true)? We don’t know.

What is Quidditch Doing There

Like WHUT? Yeh. There’s a Gryffindor Quidditch player flying over the castle at some point. I suppose it’s just to make the castle alive. I cannot see Quidditch fit in the plot in any way. It’s way too serious on a global political scale to have something as mundane as Quidditch featured.

BUT. Because there’s a BUT, again. Snitches have uses in the Wizarding World, and are important artefacts because they have flesh-memories. Moreover, it appears that they can carry messages, as we see Dumbledore catching one that seems to come straight to him as he’s walking.

You Must Trust Me - Again: Dumbledore’s Motto, along with ‘It Has to Be You’?

When… When are we going to see Dumbledore actually acting instead of pulling the strings?

What about Voldemort?

If my calculations are correct, and he was born in 1926 (provided Rowling has not changed that as well), then Tom Riddle Jr. would have attended Hogwarts from 1937 on. By 1945 he would have met Hagrid and Aragog, unlocked the Chamber of Secrets, killed a few people, grown that group of ‘friends’ he called Death Eaters, and started planning his way to immortality. Are we going to get a glimpse of Tom Riddle in the coming films (plural intentional)?

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Beasts:_The_Secrets_of_Dumbledore

https://www.wizardingworld.com/features/the-mysterious-life-and-death-of-ariana-dumbledore (published 1st December 2016)

Videos by SuperCarlinBrothers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH9ONoy5BBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40vX8D28WLQ (Five Questions about Secrets of Dumbledore)

About the characters, by the actors and director:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vRWKbIFLDc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfiyni1hLzA (interviewed by Tom Felton at the WB Studios Leavesden)

https://www.facebook.com/wizardingworld/videos/470636091475502 (Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen about the Dumbledores)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu78_OLf7e0 (Official Press Conference, 28th March 2022)

https://www.wizardingworld.com/news/your-roundup-of-the-fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore-premiere

Louhi about the Blood Pact:

https://under-the-lake.tumblr.com/post/187862129606/crimes-of-grindelwald-the-phoenix-the-blood

Books by J.K. Rowling:

Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2016). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

Rowling, J.K. (2018). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Crimes of Grindelwald - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

Some of the Characters in Random Order

Bunty

‘No one can know everything, not even you.’ says Bunty to Newt on the train. Her first line in that trailer. I reckon that there’s more to her than meets the eye. Perhaps even much more. I mean compare this Bunty to the sort of unshaped slug we saw in Newt’s basement, drooling over Newt? No brain to save her life? And here she is, part of a mission to save the world from the most evil wizard of the time? Come. On. No. Kidding. She cannot be Bunty. So that line of hers might actually mean she’s not who she seems to be. A Polyjuiced Tina is one of the most widespread theories, and her actual attitude and tone of voice point into that direction. There’s another argument in favour of that theory: the fact that Bunty is so un-Tina-ish, so transparent, might help Tina, if it’s her, work more efficiently in the shadows.

Victoria Yates speaks of Bunty’s infatuation for Newt as of idolisation more than love. She wants to be like him and she loves the beasts, feeling best in the Basement in Newt’s London flat. However, she’s got to go into the outer world this time, because Dumbledore gave her a mission. We’ll see! At least one thing we know is that she’s carrying a suitcase while walking the streets of a German city alone, and in a pub or some sort of inn with a bloke called Otto (pic above).

Anton Vogel

Current Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and German Minister for Magic. (logo of Deutsches Ministerium für Magie below, right side)

Liu Tao

Current Chinese Minister for Magic, running against Santos and Grindelwald for the succession of Anton Vogel as Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. (logo of Chinese Minstry of Magic below, left side)

Vicênia Santos

Current Brazilian Minister for Magic, running against Liu Tao and Grindelwald for the succession of Anton Vogel as Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. (logo of Ministerio de Magia dos Estados Unidos do Brasil below, centre).

McGonagall

She’s there, we know she shouldn’t because she’d be MINUS years old, but voilà. She’s teaching since at least 1927 but in Order of the Phoenix says it’s since 1956-ish. Plus she’s teaching Transfiguration which should be Dumbledore’s field, since he’s been writing for Transfiguration Today for nearly a decade at the time of the second film. Bleh. Sad twist of canon that has been attempted to be patched up but, at least for me, unsuccessfully.

Eulalie Hicks

According to Jessica Williams: Funny, brilliant, smart, kind, and intuitive.

Eulalie Hicks (pic below, right) is a new character in the franchise. She appears in the trailers on a regular basis, as part of Dumbledore’s First Army (as it is sometimes called). She also appears to be the one who goes for Jacob, trying unsuccessfully to make him join the force, and eventually resorting to Side-Along-Apparition or something of the sort with a lot of book pages floating around them, to get him to come. We’ve seen Lally before, yet at a glimpse only. She was the one whom Nicolas Flamel was talking to in the book he took out at the end of Crimes of Grindelwald. Lally is, according to scene 86 in the Script of Crimes of Grindelwald (p.192), a teacher at Ilvermorny. During the Press Conference on 28th March 2022 Williams adds she’s a Charms teacher. She has only two lines in Crimes of Grindelwald, but within that time she sends Flamel to the Père Lachaise cemetery in a quite authoritative tone, given she’s a young witch and Flamel is five hundred odd years old. Lally also says to Flamel, and that’s probably the best clue we have as to her connections with MACUSA: ‘We believe in you!’ (scene 86, p.193). Who would be ‘we’, if not MACUSA and/or the staff at Ilvermorny? But why the staff at a school? And across the Pond? So the best guess, I reckon, is that she’s in contact with MACUSA and most probably has worked, or is still working, for them. How would she know, otherwise? She’s probably also in contact with Dumbledore. Otherwise, how would she know Flamel?

All that questioning is sort of confirmed by a tweet by Rowling: 'You only see a HINT of Lally in Fantastic Beasts 2. Her true glory is revealed in FB3.' 22 April 2018.

From the above-mentioned press conference, we learn that Eulalie went to school at the same time with Queenie and Tina Goldstein, meaning they know each other, giving not only a political motivation to the mission, but also a sentimental one. To back this, and also the fact that she’s the one sent to get Jacob back on the train, Jessica Williams said Eulalie is good at seeing into the heart of people. She’s therefore the right person to go and enrole Jacob. She’s also good at defensive magic, and as Williams puts it, ‘Dumbledore recruits her to deal with his bad ex-’.

Yusuf Kama

Now he’s a tricky one (pic above, left). In the trailers, we see him standing behind Grindelwald with Queenie, Vinda Rosier and the rest of the gang. At another point, we see Grindelwald clearly removing a memory from Yusuf. Which memory? To which purpose? Is Yusuf a baddie too?

The memory, as the general guess has it, might be the one of the drowning of Corvus Lestrange, giving that precious information to Grindelwald, in his construction of the fake identity I believe is Credence’s. The only people who know about this memory are the ones who were in the Vault when Leta told them. Another theory on some videos is that Grindelwald would have removed all good memories from Yusuf’s head, and then Imperiused him (would he need to Imperius him, if he had only bad memories, and then Grindelwald could simply word-charm him into believing he’ll build better ones when the world is ruled by his lot?). Another possibility, probably the plainest, is that Yusuf is not that good. I never really knew which side he was on, or was he simply on his own side?

Yusuf, says William Nadylam, is motivated by pain and vengeance. Kama doesn’t have a good karma, Nadylam adds. We also learn that Kama has got a mission given to him by Dumbledore. Also that he got a family. So…. mission spy for Dumbledore?

Credence and the Issue of the Obscurus in HP lore

According to Ezra Miller: abandoned child, rough background, puritanical foster care, magical being, Obscurus. Seeking identity.

Credence. Much speculation around him. At the end of Crimes of Grindelwald, we were left with the possibility that he would be Dumbledore’s lost brother. However, never never never did we get even the tiniest hint that the Dumbledore kids would be more than three. And believe me, I’ve combed the books. I’m inclined to believe that Credence will still have another identity switch. What makes me think so?

First, Grindelwald is a bloody manipulator. We know from Rowling that he uses his Seer abilities to guide him, like when he went to work for MACUSA as Percival Graves because he knew there was an Obscurial there in the shape of Credence Barebone. I suspect he also went to see his aunt Bathilda Bagshot not because she was family (he had conveniently forgotten that before), but because he had seen Dumbledore and his quest for the Deathly Hallows living down the road, and potentially, also his sister Ariana, who, after she was bullied by Muggles and her dad was sent to Azkaban, most likely became another Obscurial. Everything points towards that. Even what Jude Law says in a video released by Wizarding World on 2nd April 2022 backs this up: ‘At a young age, Ariana was brutally attacked by three Muggle boys, leaving her permanently scarred and scared to perform magic, out of fear of losing control. [...] Years later, when Ariana was fourteen years old, she had an episode resulting in her mother’s death.’ Those words I underlined. Well. Do we really need more proof? Apart from what Dumbledore says to Harry at the end of Deathly Hallows. Namely that ‘Ariana had one of her rages’ and that it killed her mum. (Chapter 28, The Missing Mirror) Just found another bit to back up all this: Her powers ‘turned inwards’, which was extremely dangerous. (see reference in sources: Wizarding World about Ariana)

Second, Grindelwald is a bloody manipulator. How about his using Credence to kill Dumbledore, and abusing Credence’s urge for identity to turn him into an angry weapon against the ‘eternal enemy’? The blood pact prevents Grindelwald from acting against Dumbledore (or so he thinks, but I reckon since there was no love on his side, the pact is void?), so Grindelwald needs a weapon. I reckon he already tried with Ariana but failed. So he turned to Credence, and manipulates him to think he’s a ‘lost’ brother (yet again, because being Corvus Lestrange was also being a ‘lost brother’).

Third, if Credence was a Dumbledore, that would mean either that Dumbledore himself wouldn’t have known about it, or that he lied to Harry in their discussion in Deathly Hallows, where he’s supposed to come clean about everything. Neither of those convince me. I tried taking miles-long steps back, but just no. Maybe I’m wrong, and I’d like to see what sort of plot-twists or breakings of canon can yet come to prove me wrong.

Ok, back to 193something. When we watch the trailers, there’s no doubt in there that Credence has mastered his Obscurus and gained self-confidence over the time he spent in Nurmengard. He tears buildings and destroys magical shields (similar to the one that was cast over Hogwarts in the Final Battle against Voldemort). However, it seems from the trailers that he’s still no match to Dumbledore. That battle seems to be taking place in some sort of mirrorverse (that mirror in the Hog’s Head being the means? dunno): all the signs on the street are reversed, and we eventually see the return to ‘normality’ on screen. Why?? It cannot be a wizarding alternative to some place; all the references we have so far show physical entrances to wizarding variants of Muggle places. That doesn’t fit here. A ‘safe’ place to fight? That would seem strange too, but not impossible (though why wouldn’t we have known about such a thing before??).

Last, the Phoenix. The Bloody Phoenix. It seems like he’s swapping sides at some points, going from Credence to Dumbledore, when they are in the street. So…. there’s a hint there that not all that glitter is gold and all that. We’ll have to wait and see.

By the way, don’t you think Credence looks a huge lot like a young Snape? Could he actually be related?

Aberforth and Ariana

According to Richard Coyle: Honest. Brave. Earthy. Strong moral compass. Goatlike. Hardheaded. Resentful.

In an interview with Tom Felton, Coyle says a good life lesson learnt from Abe is ‘it’s never too late’. Does he refer to the fact that he eventually joined the ‘cause’ during the Battle of Hogwarts decades after this film takes place? Or is there something else?

We see Abe as the tenant of the Hog’s Head Inn in Hogsmeade, young, grim, not exactly keen on talking about his brother; at least that’s what he looks like in the trailer. Now his inn is being used as a meeting point of sorts, between Newt and Dumbledore. There is that weird message on the mirror, saying ‘Do you know where it’s kept?’, but we have no clue if it’s the same moment in the film as when the meeting takes place. Two-way mirror? That’s a theory. Filthy mirror with message on it? That is as likely as any other theory, given what we know of Abe’s relationship with a feather duster from Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows.

We might, in this film, get more detail about Abe’s relationship with his sister Ariana before her untimely death in 1899. Ariana is listed in the cast, so she’s going to be there! Abe says, in Deathly Hallows, that he could have calmed her down when she was getting more and more upset: she was witnessing Grindelwald use the Cruciatus Curse on her brother Abe, Albus trying to stop his ‘best friend’, and then all three duelling (Chapter 28, The Missing Mirror). I believe the strings of this event were pulled by Grindelwald to have Ariana work herself into a stage agitated enough to release her Obscurus and kill Albus, but that didn’t go to plan, did it. Love again? She couldn’t fully control her rage, I suppose, but could do enough to prevent killing her family members, and therefore directed it towards herself? Or had she come to a stage of her relationship with magic where she’d not release her own magic, have it encapsulated somehow, and end up self-destroying herself? It’s quite horrid and disturbing to think of those things. How did Abe relate to all this, how did he help her control herself? Did he manage, eventually? I suppose he did at first, but we know that with time, Obscuri tend to destroy their Obscurials and that Obscurials tend to not live long (Newt says so in the first film). In Fantastic Beasts the ‘first’, Newt also says he’s got no record of an Obscurial living beyond 10 years old (scene 61), and tells Tina about his experience. Ariana is 14 when she dies. Credence is 21 when Grindelwald tracks him down in the first film. He’s now at least 36 (counting from 1926 to 1931). Both instances, that is Ariana and Credence, have been hidden from the world, so that Newt couldn’t have heard of them before. In the case of Ariana, because she died and the reason was hushed, I believe, and in the case of Credence, because the magical community wasn’t aware until ‘Percival Graves’ started working on him in New York, and Dumbledore sent Newt there to look into the matter (I don’t buy the ‘releasing a Thunderbird’ or ‘buying an Appaloosa Puffskein’ rubbish - I think Newt was Dumbledore’s agent from the start, using his case as a cover, yet really wanting to study Fantastic Beasts and work towards their better knowledge and conservation).

This Obscurus thing keeps driving me from the subject. My apologies (not really, because it’s mind ramblings, these papers, but you know. So that you know I’m aware I’m digressing and circonvolutating and taking you on a tour of my brain meandres.).

Theseus (pic below)

According to Callum Turner: Head Auror of the British Ministry of Magic, deskworker, lost his fiancée, a bit lost.

As Newt’s brother, and an Auror, he’s bound to be part of Dumbledore’s First Army (as some coin it). He’s a big part of the film and has his own poster character. Now there’s something related to Crimes of Grindelwald that is related to Theseus (and Newt): Leta’s death. Leta, if you remember, sacrificed herself to save both men at the end of the film. She did that, saying ‘I love you’ and looking at the brothers. Did she love one of them (and then, which one?), or both? Because if love is such a big thing in the Wizarding World, and a prominent one on the ‘good side’, then this sacrifice would be similar to the one Lily Potter made to save her son, and the one Harry himself ultimately made in the Forest in Deathly Hallows, thus casting a lasting and powerful protection over those she was shielding. Would it be Theseus or Newt? Or both? Or none, if this theory is proven wrong?

What about that encounter in the sewers (or any sort of deep damp cave) where we see both Newt and Theseus doing their weird dance with some crabs, and then Theseus being grabbed by something looking like a manticore? Is he going to die??

Queenie (pic above)

According to Alison Sudol: magical empath, loves pastries and Jacob.

Queenie joined Grindelwald. Is that a forever thing? Or is she only trying to marry Jacob? What is her plan?

Queenie is a Legilimens (at least that’s what Rowling calls it when it’s an ability to read minds, not à la Snape). As such, she’s an asset for Grindelwald, and shouldn’t remain there, I suppose. In the Press Conference Alison Sudol says Queenie is utilised by Grindelwald for that power she has. He’s also manipulating her because he sees that longing to be herself within her. Probably Dumbledore would want her back on the ‘bright’ side? Yet how to do that? Spite made her swap loyalties. What next? Well, I guess the answer is Jacob. Jacob is her weakness. She most certainly still loves him. And again… love.

How does she react when she sees Jacob performing magic? If that is the means of the reunion, then it’s a flop, I must say. Muggles and Wizards have been marrying for ages in Europe, and that could have helped the couple. So why that move towards Grindelwald? Is Queenie really a baddie? Meh… don’t know. At any rate, Alison Sudol said Queenie is coming out of her cocoon. I cannot wait!

Jacob Has Got A Wand: Is it a ‘Tschechow’s Wand’ thing?

According to Dan Fogler: Baker, ex-soldier, lover, fighter, fantastic wand-wielder.

‘I want out.’ That’s the first line we hear from Jacob in the trailers. Out of where? Well, quite easy to guess, I guess. Remember the end of Crimes of Grindelwald? I reckon that’s the answer. Seeing Queenie switch sides and go to Grindelwald makes it too much for poor Jacob. One would despair in less tragic a situation. First Jacob discovers that Queenie has put him under a spell to marry him, then he witnesses her getting besotted with theories of wizarding domination at that Grindelwald rally in the Lestrange Vault. Giving up the lot, that’s what he decided to do. Who can blame him? Apparently, Dumbledore doesn’t see it that way, though (who is surprised by that - raise your hand - nobody? good.). He wants Jacob with that First Army of his. I think we can safely assume that it’s not MACUSA with their retrograde attitude towards Muggles, nor Eulalie Hicks herself, who decided to get Jacob further involved. Proof? Dumbledore gives Jacob his wand (all right, all right, via Newt. But still.).

When Lally comes to get Jacob, Jacob is back in his bakery in New York. He’s gone through the Great Depression, both economically and sentimentally. ‘He kind of reflects the times. [...]He’s lost his love, he’s lostg his appetite, he’s losing his bakery, he’s like losing his mind, you know.’ says Dan Fogler in the Press Conference on 28th March. Doesn’t want anything to do with wizards anymore. Lally speaks the words ‘We need you’. We? Well, I guess Dumbledore and the rest of them. It brings me back to what I theorised in the bit about Eulalie. There’s more to her than meets the eye. And she’s again the one who conveys the sort of short, unobjectionable messages from HQ. She used the same sort of phrasing with Flamel, remember? ‘We believe in you.’ To the point. No way out. Just do it. Dream of an alternative. Let’s grab you by the arm and shove off from here. Where? Remains to be seen as of today.

Now Jacob is a Muggle. A No-Maj, if you’d rather. I prefer Muggle, easier on the tongue, more natural. A bloody Muggle. Or that’s what we were meant to believe. Yet Lally says ‘We [as in, the wizarding community] need you.’ How come a Muggle can be needed by the wizarding community to fight a war against the most evil sorcerer until Voldemort? That would be a serious breach of the International Statute of Secrecy, wouldn’t it? Besides, if Jacob is ‘needed’, then that means he’s somewhat important, right? Be it only to get Queenie back - though what is one person back, in a situation like the one faced by the world at the time? Jacob must have something capital to do in the fight against Grindelwald. Yet, to do that, he’d have to be able to see the same things as the rest of the wizarding community, and have some sort of power to use, other than only his wit and baking skills. We already know he sees things other Muggles don’t. Jacob couldn’t forget the creatures he saw with Newt in the first script. He could also enter and see the Wizarding Paris, for instance, when he was there with Newt. No Muggle could see that. The person would have to be at the very least a Squib. Is Jacob a Squib? What use would a Squib be in a bloody war, I ask you. I mean yes, Dumbledore has been using Squibs in other instances, like Filch at Hogwarts or Mrs Figg to keep an eye on Harry Potter in Little Whinging. That being said, those jobs don’t mean the people doing them are under death threat (all right, again, until Voldy attacks Hogwarts for instance), whilst it seems to me that Jacob is not going to make pastries.

And. Jacob. Gets. A. Wand. (and I don’t think it’s a trick, because his character poster shows him with a wand, and a wand that emits light) And. Jacob. Does. Magic. (though quite unfocused, as if he were untrained - which he is) And. Jacob. Sees. And. Visits. Hogwarts. And. Jacob. Gets. Cockroach. Clusters. From. Slytherin. Students. In. The. Great. Hall.

That’s quite a lot for a Muggle, right? Well, most of us had our doubts from the first film on. It’s just unfolding slowly. There might be other twists to come (like Tom Felton answering ‘technically, no’ to Dan’s question of ‘Can you call me a filthy mudblood’ in an interview). However, it would be rather nasty to have Jacob holding a lit wand on his character poster only to tell us he’s not a wizard, wouldn’t he?

Where’s Nagini?

No bloody clue. Claudia Kim is not even listed as part of the cast on iMDB. One source says it’s because the actress was pregnant during the time of filming. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A80d-o9hmrw )

Where’s Tina?

She has no character poster, and doesn’t appear in the trailers, but she’s listed on the cast for this film. She does appear in the TV spots, according to some theorists, but in a really weird way. There are two theories about this. The consensus is that she has taken Polyjuice to impersonate someone on either Grindelwald’s or Dumbledore’s team. The least frequent theory is that she’s taken Vinda Rosier’s place on Grindelwald’s side. The only reason I see this theory being all right is the need to have a spy on the Dark Side, and also keep an eye on Queenie. However, that doesn’t really fit, somehow. The other theory, which also has flaws, is to make Tina Polyjuice herself into Bunty. Apart from the points in favour of this theory that are listed under the ‘Bunty’ entry, there’s still this, which makes me wonder: why does Tina need to hide in the first place?

Anyway, she was at the world première in London on 29th March, and she didn’t let slip anything. So…

Dumbledore

Jude Law: ‘Powerful. Maverick. Eccentric. Morally sound. Dashing. Fun. There you go, that’ll do.’

In the global Press Conference on 28th March, Jude Law said the Fantastic Beasts Dumbledore is a man still fighting to find his way, fighting his demons, confronting the past and facing his own guilt. What links the FB-Dumbledore with the HP-Dumbledore is his mischievousness, his humour, and the fact that he is able to see the potential good and positive in people. He loves people. I mean he saw Draco wouldn’t kill him and tried to make him change his mind about his task, right? For Dumbledore, Hogwarts is a safety net, says Jude Law. Dumbledore’s a loner, like Newt, though often in company, like Newt. Maybe that’s one part of what unites them? In another interview, this time with Tom Felton at Leavesden in Dumbledore’s Office, Law says Secrets of Dumbledore investigates the sadness that lies deep in Dumbledore, albeit a little. So we get to know the building of the character a bit more. Although still trying to figure out who he is, Dumbledore is already a hugely complex character, even if you consider only the human in him. It’s already NOT a no-brainer. When it goes to the magic, it becomes even more complex and mind-blowing.

And I reckon Jude Law is quite akin to Dumbledore in some ways, like when he says there’s time for green tea, in the morning, and then it is quarter to chocolate and coffee. Whimsical and eccentric.

Dumbledore stands in the path to power that Grindelwald has seen for himself. He must be restrained, somehow. I think Dumbledore experienced the force and weakness love can produce, because it made him blind to what could have brought Grindelwald (who, after all, is a skilled manipulator) to Godric’s Hollow of all places in the world: an Obscurial, and his potentially best enemy. Making Dumbledore believe that a blood pact is a good idea was genius.

Mads Mikkelsen’s version of Grindelwald

Dedicated. Wants to make the world a better place, using means that are not yours (for ends that wouldn’t be yours either, I suspect).

Grindelwald (pic embedded above) is a Seer. Not a Trelawney-like one, who makes predictions, but one who can see some stuff about his own future, it appears. We also know he lies (from a tweet by Rowling). I wonder when (and if, but this ‘if’ is more rhetorical than real) he had the vision of the potential use of an Obscurial to destroy Dumbledore, and thus, when did he See that Dumbledore would be his best enemy? Also when did he See that Ariana might be one, or Credence? Did he come to Godric’s Hollow in 1899 to thwart Dumbledore via the Blood Pact, and then manipulate everybody to get to that confrontation between himself, Abe and Albus in front of Ariana, trying to have her being upset enough to release the Obscurus and kill Albus and whomever would stand in there? Had he actually manipulated Ariana too, beforehand (I mean, using her to release her Obscurus to kill her own brother by ‘accident’ is bloody manipulative all right, but I was wondering if he had been working on her like he’d be working on Credence)? Had Abe seen through all this, as an outsider? Many questions…

[EDIT, 10.4.22: I'm rewatching Crimes of Grindelwald, and in one of the first scenes, during the first meeting between Newt and Dumbledore, Dumbledore actually tells Newt that Grindelwald had a vision, many years ago, that an Obscurus would help him kill the person whom he'd be in most danger of, that is, Dumbledore. So the theory is true, at least for this bit, and most probably for the rest. Also, now Ariana is dead, Grindelwald had to find another Obscurus, hence his seek of Credence.]

Minalima have released a print of Grindelwald’s Wanted Poster (www.minalima.com ). It is featuring Grindelwald holding a MACUSA number plate. I imagine it’s the prison number he had when he was held captive after being cornered by Newt at the end of Fantastic Beasts ‘the first’. However, the poster is stamped by the International Confederation of Wizards, meaning it’s an international wanted poster.

Eddie Redmayne’s version of Newt

Compassionate. Empathetic. Antisocial. Kindhearted. Loving.

In the Press Conference, Eddie Redmayne says the relationship between Newt and Dumbledore has evolved, from that of a master and apprentice to something more fraternal. While Newt is most comfortable with his own creatures in his own world, he’s taken out of his zone of comfort by Dumbledore, who sees a potential for leadership in him. Maybe Dumbledore also sees that Newt shares his capacity to see the good in people. And little by little, Newt takes on this new role within his band of outsiders, forming Dumbledore’s First Army. As Redmayne puts it, Newt does it in the most Newty way possible.

‘We all make mistakes in life, but we can all try and make things better, and it’s the trying that counts.‘ That’s a mix of a line from Newt’s screenplay of Secrets of Dumbeldore’ and its comment by Eddie Redmayne during the Press Conference. It actually sums up Newt nicely.

I can’t wait to see how the characters really develop, and how the creatures (see next section) unfold, and build their own characters. I am sure there are more twists to come, and I don’t mind them, as long as it’s not at the Cursed Child-level and that it doesn’t bend canon.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Beasts:_The_Secrets_of_Dumbledore

https://www.wizardingworld.com/features/the-mysterious-life-and-death-of-ariana-dumbledore (published 1st December 2016)

Videos by SuperCarlinBrothers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH9ONoy5BBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40vX8D28WLQ (Five Questions about Secrets of Dumbledore)

About the characters, by the actors and director:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vRWKbIFLDc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfiyni1hLzA (interviewed by Tom Felton at the WB Studios Leavesden)

https://www.facebook.com/wizardingworld/videos/470636091475502 (Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen about the Dumbledores)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu78_OLf7e0 (Official Press Conference, 28th March 2022)

https://www.wizardingworld.com/news/your-roundup-of-the-fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore-premiere

Louhi about the Blood Pact:

https://under-the-lake.tumblr.com/post/187862129606/crimes-of-grindelwald-the-phoenix-the-blood

Books by J.K. Rowling:

Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2016). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

Rowling, J.K. (2018). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Crimes of Grindelwald - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

Let’s start with the trailers, shall we?

Oh no. Before that, just one thing that made me laugh my socks off. Eddie Redmayne wants to use Tarantallegra to make random people dance on the Tube (Press Conference, 28th March 2022).

Oh and just another: I love it how in that Press Conference, no actor uses the word No-Maj. All of them, whichever their culture, go with Muggle, particularly Dan Fogler. HA. (Schadenfreude or whatever, but No-Maj is not a word.)

First Official Trailer, from Pottermore (sorry I keep calling that site PM thought now it’s Wizarding World) as of 13th December 2021: https://www.wizardingworld.com/news/watch-the-first-trailer-for-fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore

Second Official Trailer, from PM, as of 28th February 2022: https://www.wizardingworld.com/news/watch-the-second-trailer-for-fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore

Warner Bros., Heyday Films, 2022, directed by David Yates (aka The Godfather, said Mads Mikkelsen during the Press Conference on 28th March 2022), screenplay by Joanne K. Rowling and Steve Kloves, music by James N. Howard.

Setting: London, Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, China, Bhutan, Berlin, 1930s

Caveat: I’m not going to delve over acting or changes in cast. That’s not my point. My point is the plot and how it fits with canon.

Here’s a list of the main things that struck me when I watched the trailers, interviews and press conferences, as well as when I watched the breakdowns by Supercarlinbrothers and LastMarauder on Youtube. I also added my questions to this list. Then I’ll choose a few of them and go into more detail with the info and brainwaves we’ve got so far (time of writing 3rd April 2022).

But first, here’s the cover for the screenplay. It's the picture under the paper title. And I’m gutted. I was excited about getting a new dust cover by MinaLima and all we have is that boring film poster.

Action takes place in nineteen thirty-something. The parallel with the rise to power of Nazis in Germany and Fascists in Italy is pure coincidence, of course. No. Actually I don’t think it is, but you know. It would make it around 1933 to me, but some sources say 1939.

Locations

Here’s a list of locations with what is sure about them from breakdowns and what is still in the form of more or less open and blurry thoughts.

China

Eddie Redmayne said on the red carpet at the World Premiere on 29th March in London that he had an expedition scene in China. Confirmed by Tim Lewis (one of the Producers) during the press conference on 28th March. So here we go! I’m excited about this because after all, as a biologist and zoologist and whateverologist myself, I’m keen on seeing Newt in the field, doing his job. In the trailers we can see him fleeing some creature, and holding what looks like a Mooncalf in his arms.

Bhutan

This seems to be an official one. Bhutan. Why there? Not the faintest clue. It seems, however, that some sort of political rally is taking place there (again - we had that at the end of last film too), where speeches are made to help folks decide whom they are voting for. It transpires it is for the election of the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. Three contenders are present: Grindelwald, whom we hear speak and cast his logo into the air in the trailers (that green ‘Alliance’ logo with the double G that looks like a swastika and, embedded between them, the sign of the Deathly Hallows - rings a Dark Mark bell? Voldemort the copycat?), and Liu Tao (Chinese Minister for Magic), along with Vicência Santos (Brazilian Minister for Magic). Each has their own colour (green, red, and yellow) hanging from the highest building.

However, when Grindelwald is speaking, it looks like at that rally, there are not only the official election banners as seen carried by people or floating in official places in the trailers, but a couple of huge personality-cult-type posters floating besides the temple stairs in Bhutan. They look very much like a totalitarian regime’s propaganda posters, and we saw similar ones in Order of the Phoenix with Fudge’s face on them in the Ministry of Magic. At that moment in the trailer, we also see that the three coloured banners hanging from the top building are no longer red, yellow, and green, but all that dull Grindelwald-green.

If we have a closer look at the Daily Prophet front page, however, we see that the title says Who Will Triumph? Liu or Santos. NOT Liu, Santos or Grindelwald. So I suppose we can hypothesise that Grindelwald is gatecrashing in the race to Supreme Mugwump? That would also explain why his insignia replaces the other ones in the end? Or maybe he’s the winner? Like his Muggle counterpart Herr Hitler was, in 1933 Germany? Regularly elected? We’ll see. Since these films seem to be, from quite the start, an allegory of the rise of dictatorships, and particularly Hitler’s, between the two World Wars of the 20th century, it might be that I’m right in my last idea…

Germany

Yes, we do go to Germany, and to the German Ministry of Magic, which is called Deutsches Ministerium für Magie. To go there, Newt’s team is travelling on the Great Wizarding Express, and a lot is happening on this journey. Keep reading :)

We also get to know that the German Wizarding Newspaper is called Die Silberne Fledermaus, aka the Silver Bat (see picture above).

Hogsmeade and The Hog’s Head

Do you know where it is kept? - Seem to be the words written in the grime on the mirror we see in the Hog’s Head. One source (the Harry Potter Theory channel on Youtube) states it is a two-way mirror. I don’t know what evidence they have for that, but they claim both Aberforth and Albus Dumbledore have a piece of it, allowing communication between them. Obviously, we know there are such artifacts in the magical world, because we have seen one (or, to be precise, fragments of one - might be of this particular one) being used between Sirius Black and James Potter, and later by Aberforth and Harry. Moreover, we know that mirrors play a role in this world. There’s the Mirror of Erised, in addition to this two-way mirror.

The Hog’s Head is well known to the Harry Potter series reader/watcher. It’s one of the drinking wells in Hogsmeade, run by Aberforth Dumbledore (none other than Albus and Ariana’s brother), and probably the creepiest, most hidden and less welcoming watering hole in the village. That is also probably not without reason, as we see in many instances. In the Harry Potter series it serves as a hidy-hole for not-exactly-law-abiding traders (dragon eggs, for instance), dodgy people (Mundungus or Willy Widdershins, for example), and illegal meetings (the DA). It also provides access to Hogwarts’ Room of Requirement, via a corridor behind Ariana Dumbledore’s portrait, which allowed fighters to enter Hogwarts during the Final Battle against Voldemort. In Secrets of Dumbledore, we are there again, and for the first time since the beginning of the Wizarding World, we see Albus and Aberforth together. Interrupted by McGonagall with news about Grindelwald.

Room of Requirement

At some point in both trailers, we head to the Room of Requirement. Come. On. Again, either canon has been tampered with, or Dumbledore lied throughout the Harry Potter books. He clearly says in Goblet of Fire that ‘Only this morning, for instance, I took a wrong turning on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I have never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamberpots. When I went back to investigate more closely, I discovered that the room had vanished. But I must keep an eye out for it. Possibly it is only accessible at five thirty in the morning. Or it may only appear at the quarter moon - or when the seeker has an exceptionally full bladder’. (GoF, Chapter Twenty-Three, The Yule Ball, p. 363). Obviously, another explanation for this could be that Dumbledore has forgotten he used the Room of Requirement back in 193something, but that doesn’t fit at all with the character.

Whatever. This room now contains five suitcases arranged in a star shape around what looks like a giant prayer wheel, the like of which you find next to temples in Tibetan Buddhism. Since the final rally is taking place in Bhutan, which is south of Tibet, it sort of makes sense. Now why use exactly that object as a Portkey or whatever means of transport that is? I suppose not a Portkey because they don’t all live together with the wheel, whilst a Portkey would be group transport and the object itself would travel along. Or a Portkey but they are all leaving for different destinations, giving Grindelwald some sort of a goose chase, red herring barrel of sorts. Maybe those suitcases actually hold the Blood Pact? That wouldn’t fit but why not, after all. However, I don’t think it’s a real Portkey as we know it from the HP series, because it doesn’t glow blue. Now having visited the www.minalima.com website after the release of the new prints for Secrets of Dumbledore, I must admit I’m disappointed. They do call it a Portkey. So is that some new trickery with canon again? Or has the blue-glow feature been added in the years between 193something and the 1994 Quidditch World Cup? I suppose we’ll never know, or it’ll be called bloody poetic license. Meh. Mind you, that would tally with the bucket-portkey of Crimes of Grindelwald, which didn’t glow blue either.

Now the five suitcases. Well, it looks really familiar, because it looks like decoys. Whether the ‘important’ suitcase is transporting, or if they are all transporting the same thing and multiplying chances of getting it where it must be, we don’t know. We do get a glimpse of the inside of one of the cases and it’s full of books, from Lally’s collection, according to the MinaLima labelling. From the www.minalima.com prints we can make out Sonnets of A Sorcerer, Legal Guidelines for the Manufacture of Magical Apparatus, Have a Fiesta in a Bottle, Achievements in Charming, Advanced Charm Casting (by Eulalie Hicks, incidentally), Death Omens, Jinxes for the Jinxed, World (?) Wizarding Dilemmas and Solutions. Are those books hiding something? Enchanted? No clue. However, in the trailer, the pages sort of spring to life and start whirling around people, apparently either attacking them or preventing them from doing so. Might be they are only a diversion? No clue either. The plan itself, though, looks much like the Seven Harrys in Deathly Hallows. We will have to wait and see, I guess. There’s confirmation of this theory in the snippet we get into the film in the Tom Felton interview. On the Great Wizarding Express, the ‘Army’ discuss what is to happen next, and the fact that confusion is the best way to win against Grindelwald. ‘Many overlapping plans’ are mentioned. So… that might explain the suitcases to a certain extent.

Great Wizarding Express

At some point in both trailers we see a gathering in the dining carriage of a train. There has been much speculation about what train it might be. In my opinion it couldn’t have been the Hogwarts Express because there’s no dining carriage in there. After all, it’s supposed to be a means of transport for students, mainly, and for them the Trolley Witch’s supplies should be enough. We know some adults have been travelling along, namely Lupin and Slughorn. Lupin slept for most of the journey, and Slughorn hosted a party in his private carriage (might have been the dining carriage but I doubt it).

By browsing www.minalima.com I found this ephemera and ticket for a Great Wizarding Express, leaving from King’s Cross, Platform Three And A Third, to Berlin BFRI, aka Berlin Friedrichstrasse.

So the German Ministry of Magic is in Berlin? That would make sense as it was then the Muggle capital of the Weimar Republic until its end in 1933 with Hitler’s rise to power as chancellor.

Anyway, we see our favourite wizards and Muggle (or not so Muggle) on board the train, where Jacob gets his wand, on the way to Germany. And I love it how Jacob is playing with a frying pan at the beginning of the scene we get a sneak peek of . A bit like Kreacher in Deathly Hallows. I mean Frying Bloody Pans. How come they can become such representatives of the Wizarding World!? That just made me laugh when I saw it. That’s the scene where Newt conveys a message from Dumbledore to his ‘crew’: the fact that Grindelwald is a Seer and can potentially anticipate what the group is going to do. So they must discuss a plan about confusing him. It’s a bit like a Boggart-Grindelwald. The force of the group against it is confusion, goose-chases and such. And I still love how Jacob is going through all this with his frying pan under the arm.

Two Worlds: Through the Wall, and Upside Down?

Complete mystery. Some theorise that it’s a world you access via mirrors, or using the Deluminator. I’ll simply wait and see I guess.

I suppose we’ll have to wait to have a lot of the answers we are wanting, and more probably than not, more questions than answers… In the meantime, enjoy the brain blast of the following parts of this paper, and don’t refrain from commenting, here or on FB, about what you think of the theories.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Beasts:_The_Secrets_of_Dumbledore

https://www.wizardingworld.com/features/the-mysterious-life-and-death-of-ariana-dumbledore (published 1st December 2016)

Videos by SuperCarlinBrothers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH9ONoy5BBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40vX8D28WLQ (Five Questions about Secrets of Dumbledore)

About the characters, by the actors and director:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vRWKbIFLDc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfiyni1hLzA (interviewed by Tom Felton at the WB Studios Leavesden)

https://www.facebook.com/wizardingworld/videos/470636091475502 (Jude Law and Mads Mikkelsen about the Dumbledores)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu78_OLf7e0 (Official Press Conference, 28th March 2022)

https://www.wizardingworld.com/news/your-roundup-of-the-fantastic-beasts-the-secrets-of-dumbledore-premiere

Louhi about the Blood Pact:

https://under-the-lake.tumblr.com/post/187862129606/crimes-of-grindelwald-the-phoenix-the-blood

Books by J.K. Rowling:

Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2016). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

Rowling, J.K. (2018). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - Crimes of Grindelwald - The Original Screenplay. Little Brown, London, UK.

Obviously, if you ask anyone in the street today about what Hallowe’en means, they’ll answer monsters and sweets and kids. Not a festival for adults. Well, that was not the case back when Samhain was important. It was a festival for everyone because it was New Year, and everything had to be cleaned (physically or financially or whateverally, really), new fires were lit, etc… Sweets can be related to the offerings made to more-or-less malevolent spirits and fairies that night, and monsters can be related to the fact that the culture included a spiritual world not completely separated from the realm of the living, and that Samhain was a liminal period in the year, which would make the two worlds even closer to each other than they would be during the rest of the year. Disguises were already in use at Samhain too, and we’ll see why later.

Monsters & Co.

Barriers between worlds were breachable during Samhain, so offerings were made during the festival to fairies, for instance. The gifts were placed well out of the villages. Fairies weren’t those unsavoury little winged things people have inherited from a Victorian tradition and that Disney-dictatorship has translated into Tinkerbell (though the original book already had her so, but you know how books struggle against other media… ; see picture below). Fairies, or faerie, are supernatural beings or enchanted ones, living in a realm of their own. In Irish myths we have the aos sídh, who are the barrow-dwellers, and also called the faerie. Remember Aillén Mac Madgna? He was a fallen of the Túatha Dé Danann, and was called a fairy, though he burnt Tara every Samhain for twenty-three years until Fionn came and stopped him.

There are some creatures and beings more specifically active at Samhain, and here is a short description of some of them. None of them is really remembered at Hallowe’en, replaced by screaming ghost figures and werewolves.

Among the specific creatures associated with Samhain is the púca, a fairy and a shape-shifter. He is said to appear most often in the shape of a black horse (see picture). The púca got offerings from the harvest to keep him checked. Some beliefs are that if the harvest, cattle and foraging is not done before Samhain, the púca will render it all inedible.

Another Samhain-apparition is the Lady Gwyn, who is a headless wanderer-chaser and who’s accompanied by a black pig. Why the heck a pig? At any rate, she is pictured in two different ways according to different sources. Either she’s a good spirit, guarding crossroads and graveyards from other less nice creatures, or her purpose is darker, and she is there to lure the odd wanderer to their doom by asking for help, or offering some glowing treasure.

Then there’s the Dullahan. The Dullahan is a headless rider (male or female, depending on sources), who roams the land in quest of victims (picture below, credit to https://www.theirishplace.com/). He is more prone to appear at some particular festivals, carrying his severed rotting head with him. No gate stays locked before the Dullahan, and anyone spotting him would go blind. The Dullahan can take lives, but, according to some sources, only if he speaks their name, and he can do that only once in his journey. The name spoken will mean death for the bearer, and there is no countercurse. The myth of the Dullahan has survived in many cultures, and for instance in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving, published in 1820. It tells the story of a soldier who lost his head during the American War of Independence, and comes back every Hallowe’en to look for it.

Worse or not? - the Sluagh, a creature that steals souls from houses, always flying from the West (so… the Enemy doesn’t always come from the East, does he, Mr Tolkien?). Are those sort of Dementors? Whom do they steal souls from? Dead souls from the family? Or straight from living people? At any rate, ancient tradition says they are faerie gone terribly wrong, fearless and merciless. People would keep their western windows closed tight at all times, for fear of the Sluagh coming for a soul. Some sources say that it is because the Sluagh come out at Samhain that all fires had to be extinguished at that time, so as to avoid detection. Other sources say it was because a year had ended and needed to start afresh. I’d rather back that second one.

Now about the banshee. Aka the Bean Sídhe (picture of the Bunworth Banshee, Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland. 1825). Bean Sídhe actually means woman of the barrow/rath. They were originally graceful and gentle women of the people of Danu (i.e. the Túatha Dé Danann). Today we think about banshees as horrid howling old hags. Actually, Irish mythology tells that the Bean Sídhe can take three forms, one being that of a beautiful woman, one that of an old woman with red eyes, and one that of a red-headed long-haired woman in a white dress. Some sources say Bean Sídhe sings people to their deaths, though most say they foretell whom in the clan will die, and that hearing her keening meant someone in the clan or family would die. They are, in some sources, considered a household fairy, who would be attached to a family and move with them. Myth has it that at first, the Bean Sídhe would keen only for the five foremost Irish families, the only ones being blessed with a lament by one of the faerie, wherever the dying person was. Her cry was the first news of someone snuffing it in the family. Those families were the O’Neills, the O’Briens, the O’Connors, the O’Gradys, and the Kavanaghs.

During Samhain, people also wore disguises. Usually, those were animal skins, along with their heads. And not bunny rabbits. Usually scary animals. The idea was to hide themselves from their deceased relatives who would be able, that night, to come back and visit, since the barriers between the realms would vanish. The disguise would prevent relatives from imposing upon the living, or taking them to the otherworld. Spirits were also believed to leave their barrows/raths to mingle with the living, which would probably be one more reason to hide oneself. Those people were called aos sí (pronounce ‘ees shee’), meaning ‘the people of the hollow hills’ and the raths were the sídh (shee). As barrows go, those were believed to be portals to the otherworld and very prone to opening during Samhain, the most liminal time of year. Remember the story of Fionn against Aillén and the saving of Tara? And again, rings a Tolkien bell? The Barrow Downs (aka Tyrn Gorthad) are exactly that, and Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry experience the trouble of meeting the Barrow-Wights on their way to Bree. The Hobbits meet the Barrow-Wights during a foggy morning, which is, as fog goes, a liminal moment in weather: orientation goes haywire, sounds are muffled, nothing is really right.

All Hallows Eve

In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III decided that 1st November would be All Saints Day. That’s yet another example of how a new religion takes hold of what they would call pagan traditions and usually consider a threat to their domination. Using a traditional feast to build a new one (or a sacred location to build another temple) is common throughout history, and has as an aim to assess the power and predominance of the newly come/imposed belief. That is particularly true for monotheistic religions, though in the case of Samhain, it was not completely possible to annihilate the old rituals, but it looks like Christianity had to do with it rather than completely against it. The Day of the Dead is celebrated on 2nd November since it was created by the abbott Odilon at the monastery of Cluny, France, in the 11th century, and is either ‘only’ a way to remember the dead, because they don’t come back in the realm of the living, in Christianity, or is a way of feasting over their coming back for a day, like in Mexico, where traditional and Christian beliefs mingle for that feast.

There was no real way to occult the idea that the realms of the living and the dead would be in closer contact during that time, so the Church had to make do, basically. It is now widely believed that the Church tried to wipe off the important festival of Samhain and replace it with something that it would sanction, as it did with many other celebrations, like for instance Christmas.

About the name of Hallowe’en, though, as feasts tended to start on the evening before the actual day - as they did in Celtic tradition too - the day of All Saintss, i.e. All Hallows, started on All Hallows’ Even, 31st October. Evolution of language made it into Hallowe’en or Halloween. Traditions of disguising and hiding from the otherworld were kept. There are also the lanterns and the sweets… but why?

Why Do We Carve Pumpkins? - Jack o Lanterns

And why Jack? You could ask. Well. They weren’t always pumpkins, to start with. Pumpkins sailed to Europe in the 16th century, so millenia after the beginning of any sort of Samhain festival. At some point in history, people, in addition to using disguises, started to carve root vegetables like turnips into scary faces and place a candle inside, to keep the evil spirits away and with them a bloke called Stingy Jack. Having lanterns was an expensive business, so people used root veggies to the same effect. Later those were replaced by pumpkins, but the idea was the same. Some casts of carved turnips are visible at the National Irish Museum.

So what about that Jack person? That is a tale that comes after Christianity had overtaken Ireland. It goes like so: Stingy Jack was a penniless drunkard, who liked roaming the roads at night. One such night, he came upon a body with a twisted face on the road. Thinking it was his end at last and that Death had come for him in the shape of Satan. Not willing to depart this world without a last sip, he asked the devil to come and have a drink with him at the pub. They went. After a few pints, it was time to pay, and true to his name, Jack asked the devil to cough up, because he was skint. The devil was too. Jack told the devil: ‘Turn into a coin so I can pay and then you turn back into yourself whenever the bartender is not watching.’ So the devil, acknowledging the level of trickery in Jack, turns into a coin. Jack, trickster among the tricksters, decides not to pay but to pocket the coin and go. Trouble is, in his pocket was also a crucifix, meaning that the devil was basically at Jack’s mercy. You can imagine that Satan wasn’t very happy with the arrangements. He asked Jack to free him, but Jack bartered with the devil: ten years to let him go. And Satan agreed. What were ten years for an immortal thing like him?

Ten years later, the same scene repeated: Jack stumbled upon Satan on the road and the devil told him it was the moment to fulfill his part of the bargain. Jack, true to himself, asked for an apple to feed his empty stomach. Satan - he was really daft - didn’t see the trick, and climbed up an apple tree to get what Jack asked. Meanwhile, Jack carved a cross into the trunk, and Satan couldn’t get down. Asking for his release, the devil heard a second demand from Jack: ‘I’ll let you down if you promise never to take my soul to Hell.’ To which the devil agreed, frustrated to have been outwitted once more.

Eventually, Jack died. He arrived at the gates of Heaven, but was rebuked and sent to try his luck in Hell. Arriving in Hell, Satan, keeping his promise to Jack, didn’t take his soul in. And Jack was then left to roam the limbo with an ember inside a hollowed turnip for light.

That’s how we have turnips and now pumpkins at Hallowe’en. Naturally, this story has many versions, and the number of years allowed to Jack and the ways the crosses are used change from one story to the next. However, he always meets the devil twice and is denied entrance to both Heaven and Hell, and wanders the Earth with a turnip lantern. The Irish first called him Jack-of-the-Lantern, which soon shortened into Jack-o’-Lantern.

How Come Hallowe’en Is a United-Statesian Affair?

I’m not speaking of Dias De Muertos, which is a Mexican festival that is, though related, completely different, mostly because it has a way more religious connotation than Hallowe’en (which has none).

If we look back at the US history of immigration from Europe, it is quite obvious that Hallowe’en cannot have travelled there via the so-called first settlers, because of their rigid protestant laws. The celebration of some sort of yearly festival seems to have started in the southern colonies, by the telling of ghost stories, and pranking, maybe to remember the púca and other pranksters from Irish folklore? Nothing really widespread happened before the great waves of immigration of the 19th century, when a massive arrival of Irish settlers fleeing the Potato Famine brought Hallowe’en with them. Before the 19th century waves of immigration arrived, there was a move to change the prank-and-witches feast into something more neighbourly, more community-centered. By the mid-19th century, the feasts had become more centered on games, food and festive costuming, trying to remove anything frightening or grotesque from the feast (quite intriguing, given that it was also the boom of the gothic movement). The consequence was that by the 20th century, Hallowe’en was basically a garden-party/town parade business. The 1950s baby boom meant more children, and the parties moved to classrooms and homes, and were more directly designed for younger humans. The trick-and-treating was also revived, and giving out sweets was a relatively cheap way to avoid getting pranked. Obviously, this can be related to the tradition of making offerings to faerie and getting disguised to avoid recognition by malevolent spirits, but it has come a long way from Celtic Ireland to this.

Today, Hallowe’en is a huge commercial event: for instance, 25% of all sweets bought yearly in the USA are bought for Hallowe’en. Europe had not been touched a lot by this wave until recently, but there are not really parties or trick-or-treaters on continental Europe. They are a thing on the British Isles, obviously, but I reckon the US version of Hallowe’en has taken over the traditional one. There are sort of revivals of new fires and traditions, of course, but they are marginal compared to the mercantilism of today’s Hallowe’en.

How it happens in the Harry Potter books

There is not much in the Harry Potter series about Hallowe’en, but it is a time of danger and a turning point in the story, usually, because weird things happen that shouldn’t be happening: Lily and James Potter die at the hand of Voldemort, and Harry survives; Quirrell makes the Troll enter Hogwarts in Philosopher’s Stone; Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday is on Hallowe’en, and famously, Harry, Ron and Hermione attend his 500th Deathday party in Chamber of Secrets, and it was on the same day that the Chamber of Secrets was opened for the first time after fifty years, and the Basilisk Petrified its first victim, Mrs Norris; in Prisoner of Azkaban, Sirius Black enters Hogwarts on Hallowe’en, frightening the Fat Lady who must be replaced by Sir Cadogan for a while; in Goblet of Fire, the Triwizard Cup is launched and Harry chosen as fourth champion.

Besides, as Harry and Neville were born on 30th/31st July, it is likely they were conceived on or around Hallowe’en the year before.

So Hallowe’en is an important date, because in the first four books something central to the plot happens. However, in terms of links with Samhain, there is practically nothing. Is it because the lore in the Wizarding World is already rich enough? Because no kind of religious reference was wanted there, be it ‘pagan’ or not? Pumpkins and live bats are the only references to any kind of tradition in the books.

Everyone can make their own idea about how they want (or don’t want) to celebrate Samhain or Hallowe’en. I separate the two because now that I've learnt a bit about Samhain, it is impossible to relate it completely to the 21st century version of Hallowe’en. However, I hope you enjoyed this trip throughout cultures and history. I did.

Sources

Online Sources:

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/jce/beansidhe.html

https://brewminate.com/samhain-the-celtic-inspiration-for-modern-halloween/

Text of the Second Battle of Mag Tuired: https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T300010/index.html

https://celticmke.com/CelticMKE-Blog/Samhain-Tlachtga.htm

http://fermoyireland.50megs.com/bansheestory.htm

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41/41-h/41-h.htm

https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween

https://www.knowth.com/the-celts.htm

https://thefadingyear.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/the-puca-and-blackberries-after-halloween/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/paganism/holydays/samhain.shtml

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zbkdcqt

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Samhain

https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/13things/7448.html

https://www.theirishplace.com/heritage/the-dullahan/

https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/samhain

https://www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio300w/frsl.htm

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-people-carved-turnips-instead-of-pumpkins-for-halloween-180978922/

Bookses and Papers

Farrar, J., Farrar, S., & Bone, G. (2001). The Complete Dictionary of European Gods and Goddesses. Capall Bann Publishing, Berks, UK.

Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Random House.

Johnson, P. (2008). The Little People of the British Isles - Pixies, Brownies, Sprites, and Other Rare Fauna. Wooden Books, Glastonbury, UK.

MacKillop, J. (2006). Myths and Legends of the Celts. Penguin UK.

Meuleau, M. (2004). Les Celtes en Europe. Ed. Ouest-France.

Rees, A., & Rees, B. (1991). Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales. 1961. Reprint.

Rowling, J. K. (1997). Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (1998). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (1999). Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London.

Dramatis Personae

It is never clear, wherever you look, what the genealogy of those people are, unless clearly stated in tales. Therefore I will not try and suggest anything out of those lines.

Warning: I haven't put any illustrations here, because these are stories and you should make your own pictures.

Aillén Mag Midgna - called ‘the burner’, harassed Tara every Samhain until Fionn Mac Cumhaill killed him.

Balor of the Evil Eye - Fomorian king of the Hebrides, his eyelid must be lifted by four men to open, and when so, Balor’s gaze is deadly and can reduce an army to impotence. Granddad of Lug Lámfhota and killed by him in the second Battle of Mag Tuired.

Bres - son of Elatha of the Fomorie and Ériu of the Túatha Dé. Hateful king of the Túatha Dé, replaced Nuadu after the latter had his hand cut. His ungenerous and unkingly rule resulted in his being deposed as king, and his brooding over battle to regain his kingdom, which in turn resulted in the second Battle of Mag Tuired.

Elatha mac Delbaíth - Fomorian king, father of Bres.

Ériu - goddess of Ireland (Éire), mother of Bres. Ériu is one of the Túatha Dé.

Fionn Mac Cumhaill - main hero of the Fenian Cycle, liberator of Tara against Aillén Mac Midgna, one of the aos sídhe.

Lug Lámfhota - son of Eithne daughter of Balor of the Evil Eye, the Fomorian king of the Hebrides, and of Cian son of Dian Cécht, the Túatha Dé god of healing. Lug is therefore the grandson of Balor, and this is important. Lug is also called Lug Samildánach, meaning ‘master of all the arts’, because he indeed masters them all, as will come in handy when he wants to enter Tara.

Nuadu (Nuadu Airgetlám) - king of the Túatha Dé, who loses his hand during the first battle of Mag Tuired and is replaced by Bres, son of Elatha of the Fomoire.

Ogma - orator and warrior. One of the three main champions of the Túatha Dé. The Dagda’s brother.

The aos sídhe - barrow dwellers, people of the sídh, i.e. fairies. Sídh are funeral barrows that open at Samhain and let people walk from one world to the other.

The Dagda - the ‘good god’, leader of the Tátha Dé Danann. Ogma’s brother.

The Fir Bolg - aka the Men (fir) of Builgh, are the fourth of a series of six invaders of early Ireland according to Lebor Gabála Érenn. They were replaced by the Túatha Dé.

The Fomorie - Malevolent deities of early Ireland, constantly raiding and tricking against the inhabitants of Ireland, according to Lebor Gabála Érenn.

The Morrigan - the Irish goddess of war fury.

The Túatha Dé Danann - people of immortals, who precede the mortals in the pseudo-history of Ireland, Lebor Gabála Érenn. Their main foe are the Fomorie.

The Second (and final) Battle of Mag Tuired

The Second Battle of Mag Tuired (various spellings according to language) is said to have happened during Samhain. It is the final battle between the ‘Good god’ the Dagda, Lug, and their spiritual folk the Túatha Dé Danann, and the Fomoire. It is actually one of two texts that recount how the Túatha Dé Danann settled in Ireland and how they were taught agricultural basics by the Fomoire. It is a story of intercourse between men and women of both cultures, producing heroes who choose loyalties and fight each other. A story of oppression and freedom, of magic and war.

The Túatha Dé Danann had come to Ireland from the north, challenged the local people called the Fir Bolg (men of Builg), into either giving them Ireland or fighting. The Fir Bolg, who had been there only 37 years, chose to fight, and the Túatha Dé king Nuadu had his hand cut. The Túatha Dé were still winning, and a truce was called, but the Fir Bolg still chose to fight, and after a while they conceded victory, were allowed to keep a part of Ireland for themselves, and the Túatha Dé Danann settled in. That was the first battle of Mag Tuired.

The Túatha Dé Danann leader Nuadu couldn’t be their king anymore because of a rule set by the goddess Brigid, that no one can be king if their limbs are not complete. So another man, Bres, was chosen as king. Bres was the offspring of a union between a Túatha Dé Danann woman called Ériu and a Fomorian king called Elatha. The Fomorian are the malevolent people, the ones who raid and never settle. Bres, considering himself more loyal to the Fomorie, oppressed his fellow Túatha Dé Danann folk. He set the Dagda to build him a fort and Ogma to fetch wood! Probably even worse, king Bres was not generous. Eventually, the Túatha Dé rebelled, deposed Bres as king, and restored the no-longer crippled Nuadu. The latter had had a new hand made of silver for him by Dian Cecht, the god of physicians (not the only silver hand we know of, is it? Rings a Wormtail bell, Potterheads?).

Bres went away but started plotting for his restoration. He tried to get his fellow Fomorians to help, but most of them, including his parents, agreed he acted foolishly and selfishly. However, Balor of the Evil Eye, king of the Hebrides, agreed to support him. Balor had been told he would be slain by a grandson, but apparently he didn’t think much of this, because he was a danger himself: Balor couldn’t open his eye unless four men lifted his eyelid, but once it was open, any army looking at the eye would be rendered powerless. His look was lethal. Surely such an ally would grant Bres an easy victory, should he consider battle against the Túatha Dé Danann?

Meanwhile, Nuadu was reigning happily at Tara over a now content people, and though the thought of a Fomorian raid nagged him from time to time, he didn't really bother. One day, a foreigner arrived at the gates of Tara with his suite of warriors. He was handsome and looked noble. The tradition was not to let anyone join the household who could not bring a new talent to Tara. The ritual was carried on with the newcomer, who introduced himself to the gatekeepers Camel and Gamel as Lug Lonnansclech, son of Cían son of Dían Cécht, and of Ethne daughter of Balor (see picture, credit British Museum, London). Lug listed his talents, which were smith, champion, harpist, warrior, poet and historian, sorcerer, physician, cupbearer and brazier. Each one was individually countered by the answer ‘We do not need one. We have a [insert talent] already, Luchta mac Lúachada.’ In the end, Lug asks the gatekeeper to ask the king if he has one man who possesses all these arts. The doorkeeper goes to king Nuadu and announces a warrior named Samildánach, meaning ‘master of all arts’, who has come to help Nuadu’s people. Lug then proves his talents by beating all competitors set to confront him. Nuadu recognises Lug’s claim and welcomes him to Tara, eventually stepping down from the throne in Lug’s favour. Lug rules for thirteen years, in peace. However, news from the Fomorie start to trigger people into action, and Lug retires to a secret place with four other leaders to discuss and plan battle. They stay there for three years (or one, depending on sources). The druids and sorcerers of Ireland, the warriors and mountains and all craftsmen of Tara were asked what they would do to ensure the Túatha Dé a victory over the Fomorie.

A week before Samhain, the Dagda went to his house in the north, because he had arranged to meet with a woman there. They united, and she told him she’d kill the king of the Fomorie with the help of the Túatha Dé. And so was done. And the woman was the Morrigan.

Then Lug sent the Dagda over to the Fomorian camp to spy, ask for a truce, and delay the enemy until the Túatha Dé are ready. However, when the Dagda arrives there, the Fomorians humiliate him by making him eat so much porridge and meat he cannot walk. All is not lost though, because on his way back, the Dagda meets Domnu, the Fomorian goddess, who promises to help the Túatha Dé against her own folks.

The Túatha Dé were ready for battle at Samhain. As the battle begins, slaughter follows and soon Mag Tuired is a pool of blood. The Túatha Dé are favoured by all the skills the Tara people possess: warriors are healed by Dian Cécht, Lug comes to battle as a sorcerer to aid his armies. Balor of the Evil Eye, the Fomorian, is ready to strike. He kills Nuadu. However, Lug is ready for the encounter, but he knows he cannot come face to face with his grandad, because of the eye. So he comes up with a plan to strike from afar. He throws a slingstone at Balor’s eye, and the stone goes through it, crashes through the back of Balor’s skull, killing twenty-seven Fomorians on the way. This was the end of the Fomorian resistance. They were all driven away, never to return to Ireland. Bres - remember him? The ungenerous king who wanted revenge and went to Balor for that? - well, Bres, who had sworn to decapitate Lug, cannot honour his promise because he is captured. After some negotiations in which Bres promises impossible things first and is rebuked, Bres is allowed to live so that he can advise farmers about ploughing, sowing and reaping.

And that was a short version of the story of the second battle of Mag Tuired, which happened at Samhain, between the Túatha Dé Danann and their Fomorian enemy, and from which the most important gain was learnings to make agriculture and farming better.

The history of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and Aillén Mac Midgna

The aos sídhe, who lived in the barrows called sídh (pronounce ‘shee’), have been believed to be fairies, or Túatha Dé Dannan who had been driven underground, and sometimes even as the pre-Celtic inhabitants of Ireland. They were known to be able to walk freely between their barrows and the world of the living during the period of Samhain. Some say one could actually see the fires lit within the sídh during that time. During the rest of the time, farmers avoided cattle grazing on the sídh and didn’t walk paths leading to and from them.

Fionn mac Cumhaill, apart from being credited for creating the Isle of Man (where he’s known as Finn McCooil) by tearing a huge bit of earth from the province of Ulster and tossing it into the Irish Sea, and being part of a huge lot of tales in Irish folklore (the Fenian Cycle), has a part to play in a tale involving one of the aos sí at Samhain. It is an important tale because it is an important deed Fionn did that night.

It is said that Tara was destroyed yearly during twenty-three years (some sources say nine) at Samhain by one of the Túatha Dé Danann, a fairy musician who lived in Sídh Finnachad, up north. He was called Aillén Mac Midgna, but also went by the nickname ‘the burner’. And for a good reason. Each Samhain, Aillén Mac Midgna came to Tara and played his timpán. It’s a kind of small drum, according to certain sources (MacKillop, 2006) or a precursor of the Celtic harp according to most online sources. Whatever the real form of the instrument, Aillén would come and play sweet music. However, his real intentions were mean. His music rendered listeners sleepy. Once the residents of Tara were asleep, Aillén would puke flaming rocks onto the palace, which would burn to the ground. He would burn it for twenty-three years, and for twenty three years the people of Tara would rebuild it. Fionn suggested he helps Tara get rid of Aillén, in exchange of which service he would be reinstated head of a restored Clan Baíscne (that is yet another story, the one of the fall of Clan Baíscne, but not one for today - any good book on Irish myths will give it to you though). All the nobles, poets and druids of Tara agree with the arrangement. So now, how does Fionn make himself immune to the power of Aillén’s music? Well he owns a spear, which point is so venomous it forbids sleep. Fionn breathes the poison of his own sword, thus making himself immune to the Sleeping Power of music. He is ready. When Aillén, having put the rest of the Tara people to sleep, blurts out his flame, Fionn deflects it with his own cloak, which drives the fire downwards onto the earth, where it creates a huge crater. Like all tyrants, Aillén is a weak thing. He flees north, towards his sídh, once he sees his powers not only challenged but thwarted. Aillén is not fast enough, though. Fionn is at his heels, and soon catches up and impales Aillén on his spear. Fionn chops Aillén’s head off, brings it back to Tara, and displays it on a spike as proof of his victory. The people of Tara keep their promise to Fionn.

And these are two important stories connected with Irish mythology and Samhain. Hope you enjoyed! I did doing the research and learning a lot!

Sources

Online Sources:

http://www.carrowkeel.com/index.html

Text of the Second Battle of Mag Tuired: https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T300010/index.html

Bookses and Papers

Farrar, J., Farrar, S., & Bone, G. (2001). The Complete Dictionary of European Gods and Goddesses. Capall Bann Publishing, Berks, UK.

Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Random House.

MacKillop, J. (2006). Myths and Legends of the Celts. Penguin UK.

Meuleau, M. (2004). Les Celtes en Europe. Ed. Ouest-France.

Origins of the Word(s)

Foreword: Since Celtic peoples have spread in many parts of Europe and the world, it is obvious that this short paper cannot tackle the variety of customs and traditions. So I will focus on the Irish, because it is the most documented and living, with occasional incursions into Cornwall, Wales or Scotland and the Isle of Man, but I won’t be dealing with the wider world. At least not this time.

Today many of us Humans call it Hallowe’en and imagine only trick-or-treating, sweets and scary costumes in a basically children’s party evening, not knowing that this word has a historical significance. Hallowe’en is a short form for All Hallows Even/Evening, which means the night before the Christian feast of All Saints, which takes place on 1st November in our modern Christian calendar. The feast, like many others in monotheistic religions, starts on the evening - the eve - preceding the actual day. Take Christmas or Rosh Hashanah, for instance. They start the evening before, usually at sundown, with a period either of feasting or waiting.

Hallowe’en aka Samhain was never a fully religious feast, in the sense we understand the word today. It was a celebration of new year, of harvest, of the merging of the worlds of the living, dead and spirits, and supernatural creatures and phenomena. Offerings were made to divinities and creatures, obviously, and druids were involved, but it was nothing religious as we consider the word today, Religion was not related to big buildings as places of worship, but more to natural spots, rural shrines associated with springs, rivers (like the Shannon or the Boyne), trees, water sources, rocks and other type of natural places. Druids were not only the mediators between porous worlds but educators and teachers.

Samhain (or its variations) means ‘end [fuin] of the summer [sam]’. This hints towards change of season rather than any sort of worship, or even of ritual. In other parts of the Celtic world, the name of the feast is different, because the languages are different, but the idea is the same: first day of winter in Wales (aka Hollantide or Calan Gaeaf), or beginning of November in Cornwall (aka Allantide) and Britany (aka Kala Goañv; kala and calan stand for calend, which, is the first day of any month). Btw don’t ask me how to pronounce those, I don’t know, and didn’t find out. However, what is to be noticed is, that whatever the language, the beginning of each quarter of the year was celebrated, and the names we use today are the names of the months corresponding to the ‘first of’. For instance, Beltaine is actually the month of May, and the feast was held on the eve of and on the day of 1st May.

The Celtic Year

It is a commonly shared preconception that all ancient societies have a yearly cycle based on the movements of the sun or the moon. It is often true, but not with the Celts. At the beginning, the Celtic year was regulated by seasons and agriculture (of course you could argue that seasons are an astronomical feature, but they didn’t know that 4 millenia ago- or did they?). Only later did the division become lunar, with the inclusion of a 30-day month every third year, to align on the solar cycle (Coligny Calendar, see picture of close-up, credit wikimedia commons). The Coligny Calendar even shows that some months were considered auspicious (and thus labelled MAT - good) and not good (ANM - for anmat), giving a wee insight into this culture’s proscriptions.

However, time was mainly measured by the moon, and, as mentioned in the Coligny Calendar, the night preceded the day (whereas we live in a conception that the day comes before night, which is a bit mental because midnight is the actual beginning of the new ‘day’, and, apart from polar regions, it’s actually dark at that moment at all times of year). It sort of makes sense to me in the way that it makes the day and year go from darkness and cold to light and warm rather than the contrary, and makes death something that is not fatal and horrible and to be dreaded, but more like the beginning of something new. I remember reading somewhere that some Celts believed in the fact that even if the body decays and is eaten by worms and other saprophyte friends in the soil, the soul travels to a new being. And since spirits of deceased people could come over to the world of the living at Samhain, there is a parallel belief of souls just remaining souls, I would say.

There are some remains of the tradition of starting things at nightfall in some sayings in English: the use of sennight (a week - seven nights) or fortnight (a couple of weeks - fourteen nights) tells us the time was calculated in nights and not in days. Following (actually preceding but you know) the same idea, the Celtic year started with the first day of winter, which opened at Samhain. The year was divided into two main parts, the winter half (Geimhreadh) and the summer half (Samhradh), each of which was divided into two quarters, the first of which was sort of more important because it held the opening festival for the winter/summer half. Each quarter started with a festival, but the most important were the ones opening the winter half (Samhain, 1st November) and the summer half (Beltane, 1st May). The table below summarises the Celtic year at the time when Samhain was important. I put the full ‘modern’ dates for all festivals, since as we know the ‘day’ started the night before.

The days in this calendar obviously have various names according to the country, culture and Celtic language spoken. Many of those correspondances in the main Celtic languages can be found, surprisingly, on a wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_calendar ).

None of the four festivals is connected with the times of equinox or solstice, because the calendar was mainly lunar and seasonal. However, the two main Celtic festivals were later merged into Christian ones, as usual. Samhain was made All Saints Day, and Beltane became St John the Baptist’s Day even if it has nothing to do with it date-wise. The latter also replaced Midsummer in the cultures in which it was an important festival (some sources say it was another version of Beltane, with similar rituals). Today Midsummer is still a very important festival in some parts of Europe, with many traditions that have nothing to do with Christianity, even if a church celebration usually follows the night of pagan feasting. Beltane and Midsummer aren’t the same festival. They may have arisen separately, one being the start of the summer, when herds are taken out to pastures, and midsummer being more of an agricultural festival, also marking the year’s longest day.

In the case of Samhain, the Christian Church first tried to move it to spring, in the early 7th century (Pope Boniface IV) and then back into autumn (Pope Gregory III) when it made 1st November All Saints’ Day, and Catholics made it one of the ‘obligatory feasts’ of the year for parishioners to attend. In that sense the ‘wiping off’ of Samhain is more significant than the replacement of Beltane by St John the Baptist’s Day. That is very visible in the fact that while Midsummer traditions have survived rather well in many European countries, Hallowe’en is not such a big thing on continental Europe, while Celts had dominated Europe in many ways during many centuries.. Sometimes, however, the Samhain rituals are found to be observed on St Martin’s day, which is 11th November.

Since the Celtic festivals were primarily agricultural and pastoral feasts, not only some sort of religious presence (aka druids) is involved, but, connected to druidism, also magic. The importance of magic was in helping or asking favours from the powers of life and growth, to help have good crops and flocks, and in the relationship with spirits, souls and creatures.

Samhain - the End of the Year, and a Liminal Festival

As said before, Samhain is probably the most important of the Celtic festivals, because it was the one that started the Celtic year, merging the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. It was a capital social and religious occasion. Many things happening at Samhain were believed to have an influence on the whole of the coming year.

Among those were the obvious agricultural pre-winter tasks, but also the settling of business matters including debts, and inauguration of new kings. Less savoury things like trials were also held at Samhain. Those events were important things in the running of the Celtic world, obviously, but also remember that peoples weren’t gathering that often, and were spread all over the country, meaning such big gatherings were a real opportunity.

In the Celtic world, the otherworld and the world of the living are not opposed and separated like they are in our monotheistic societies. They are more like parallel worlds with constant connection, but the period surrounding Samhain was believed to be the one when the barriers between the two worlds were at their thinnest, as well as the ones between the ‘human’, and ‘spirit and creatures’ world. Therefore many offerings and rituals were carried on, to keep relationships if not good, at least not bad. During the festival, gods, who became visible, were believed to play tricks on mere mortals, making the period also one of fear and supernatural presence, counteracted (or not) by the above mentioned offerings and sacrifices. Not only are the boundaries between dead and living at their thinnest, but Samhain is also the moment when the communities welcome those born during the past year in their midst. Both a festival of the dead and the living, it is, ultimately, a festival of life in all its forms and times. Remember that not all religions believe death to be something to fear or the dead spirits to be dreaded. That’s something very much linked to monotheistic religions (Harari, 2014).

All those things bring us to the importance of liminal spaces in the Celtic world. All the ‘in-between’ places were fundamental in Celtic society: shores, springs, hedges, but also dusk and dawn. Those transition places or times are neither nor, meaning some sort of chaos in the usual order. However, that doesn’t mean it was a time of quarrel. It is usually believed it was rather a time of peace. No need to show off such things when the spirits and gods are so close.

Let’s get a bit into details about what was done at Samhain.

Harvest Festival

Given the timing, it seems natural that Samhain would celebrate the end of the harvest season, and crops being safely stored for winter. Like at the end of any job well done, you deserve a pint and some onion rings, you start thinking about what is happening next and are in a mood that would open many doors should Sucellus (Celtic god of agriculture, forest and alcoholic drinks for the Gauls) or whomever deity or spirit open conversation.

By Samhain all crops would have had to be gathered in, everything cleaned for the start of the new year. Any leftovers would be contaminated by the púca. Some people also believed that some berries like blackberries, could not be eaten after Samhain because they would be made inedible by the púca, who would spread a nasty slime on them.

Bonfires were lit for many reasons, but one was to help the regenerative agricultural process. Of course, we know that biologically, fire is a provider of a ‘start back from scratch’ effect. When any kind of fire destroys landscape, the result is a decrease in biodiversity and nutrients, and there are also physical modifications to soil structure. However, those ‘desolate’ landscapes, as press coverage usually has it, although indeed being less rich at the time, are fertile land for new opportunist plants. Animals, and other living organisms, who make it their habitat for a while, until the soil is again rich enough to host a different ecosystem. Some plants have even adapted to fire so much that their seeds need it to germinate. That’s the case, for instance, for eucalyptus. So I see the use of fire in the ‘regenerative’ purpose as something that today makes sense biologically, though it was a metaphorical use in the ceremony. The parallel I draw is that where fire barrens the land and starts the whole colonisation process from scratch, so do farmers, when they plough the soil. The major difference resides in the fact that a farmer would choose what seeds they are planting, whilst nature would use whatever pioneering species are at hand to set life back in the destroyed place.

New Fire

New year, new fire, new start.

To have all that, all the old year’s stuff had to be completed. Debts settled, crops gathered in, and, most importantly, old fires extinguished before the night. So the night of Samhain would be the darkest of all, because there wouldn’t be fires in grates. However, a new fire would be lit by druids from the sparks of a spinning wheel, which in turn was considered a representation of the sun, which was one of the Celtic gods. Some say that sacrificial bones were tossed into the fire, giving the word bone-fire, and bonfire. In Ireland, the Great Fire Festival would be held on the Hill of Tlachtga (near Athboy, co Meath, Ireland; also known as the Hill of Ward, see picture; https://www.discoverboynevalley.ie/ ), the fire lit on the eve of Samhain (aka our modern 31st October), before the actual festival of Samhain would start on the hill of Tara, 12 miles east.

People took a flame of this new fire to light their own at home, after all fires had been extinguished as a sign of the ending year..

Some sources say that bonfires - or winter fires - were lit to commemorate Dagda’s ritual intercourse with three goddesses: the Morrígan, Boand, and the unnamed daughter of a Fomorian king and warrior called Indech. That might hint towards Samhain being a festival of fertility, but there are no records to back this up. Btw that bloke, the Dagda, is the ‘good god’, one of the leaders of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the people of immortals that preceded the mortals in Irish mythology. Rings a bell? What about the Valar in Tolkien’s world? The Morrígan, the Great Queen, is the goddess of war fury in early Ireland. There is a lot more to say about her (or them - since she is often represented as a trio with Badb and Macha) but it will be for another time. Boand (or Bóinn) is the goddess of the river Boyne, and her intercourse with the Dagda gave birth to the Irish love god..

Divination

The fact that the boundaries between the world of the living and that of the dead were basically dissolved during the Samhain period allowed, according to belief, the druids to make relevant predictions about the future. The stronger the bond with the otherworld, the better the predictions. Samhain was therefore the very best moment. That was not only the druids’ job, though they were the most able. Everyone could have a go.

Sacrifices

We know cattle sacrifices were made at the start of every important festival or event. There is no clear evidence (from what I read, at least, and from the most recent documentaries about Celtic culture I watched), and therefore there is much debate around, the fact that humans were ever sacrificed, apart maybe in times of famine. Entrail reading of sacrificed animals -haruspicy- was common practice before the setting of an event, and no doubt Samhain would have been one of them.

What next?

From what is written above, we know that originally, Samhain was a very important part of the year, a new beginning for everything from agriculture to social life. We also know that Samhain was a period of feasting, of sacrifice, of increased druidic activity, but also of more active communication between the realms of the living and the spirits and dead. A liminal period of time. That is for the anthropological part.

We also know that a lot of stories were told that happened at or around Samhain. Those are, for instance, the story of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and Aillén Mac Midgna, or How Tara Was Saved From Yearly Samhain Burning. The hero is Fionn, and the Burner is Aillén, one who dwells in a sídh, which is a barrow. Another one is the history of the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, between the Fomorians and the Túatha Dé Danann, in which the evil Balor, king of the Hebrides, was slain by his grandson Lug. All the Tuátha Dé usual people are present in that one story, including the Dagda and the Morrigan. Those two stories can be found in many places, but I summarised them from various sources in the next paper (Samhain Part 2 - Celtic Myths and Stories).

Obviously, if we have Hallowe’en as we have it in the 21st century (or say, as the United Statesian have it), there is a history to it. Monsters, Fright, Spirits, Haunting, Jack-o-Lanterns, those are not just commercial inventions (though today they are commercial invasions), but they have roots in ancient beliefs and rituals I want to dwell into. I also want to explore a bit how those traditions were used in the Harry Potter series. This will be the subject of the third Samhain paper: Samhain Part 3 - What Became of it Today?

Louhi

Sources

Online Sources:

https://brewminate.com/samhain-the-celtic-inspiration-for-modern-halloween/

Text of the Second Battle of Mag Tuired: https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T300010/index.html

https://celticmke.com/CelticMKE-Blog/Samhain-Tlachtga.htm

https://www.knowth.com/the-celts.htm

https://thefadingyear.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/the-puca-and-blackberries-after-halloween/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/paganism/holydays/samhain.shtml

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zbkdcqt

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Samhain

https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/13things/7448.html

Coligny Calendar, wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coligny_calendar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_calendar

https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/samhain

https://www2.nau.edu/~gaud/bio300w/frsl.htm

Bookses and Papers

Farrar, J., Farrar, S., & Bone, G. (2001). The Complete Dictionary of European Gods and Goddesses. Capall Bann Publishing, Berks, UK.

Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Random House.

MacKillop, J. (2006). Myths and Legends of the Celts. Penguin UK.

Meuleau, M. (2004). Les Celtes en Europe. Ed. Ouest-France.

Rees, A., & Rees, B. (1991). Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales. 1961. Reprint.

Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London.

Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954). The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of the Lord of the Rings. George Allen & Unwin. London.

Magizoology and Herbology: Counterparts for Muggle Zoology and Botany?

First I think it is important to clarify the meaning of ‘Magical Naturalist’ and hypothesize why it wasn’t ultimately chosen as a job for Luna. A Naturalist, in whichever world you live, is a person who studies the interactions between living things in a given environment (which size may vary from the local hedge to the entire planet). It is one of the oldest sciences and is still relevant today. Therefore it is not astonishing that there would be Magical Naturalists. Now a naturalist’s job would be to study not only animals, but plants, fungi and other living species (or extinct ones, sometimes), and their interactions. That is something very complex, that requires systemic thinking and a wide knowledge of nature. I am not implying that any of Rowling’s characters is not able to achieve that, quite the contrary. I am hypothesizing that introducing a Naturalist in the wizarding world would mean creating a huge new chapter in the new world’s shaping and it might not have been worth it on a storytelling point of view (which reader, apart from a few weirdos like me, would care about the ecological interaction between Leaping Toadstools, Unicorns, and their link with the biodiversity of the Forbidden Forest?). Moreover, when non-naturalist/non-biologist people think about nature, they usually start with the animals they know, not the plants or the fungi, of which they often know but few, since those beings are either very cryptic or simply don’t move enough to look ‘alive’ or interesting enough. This is completely reflected in the way the natural world is written in the Wizarding world. Given that complexity, it sort of makes sense to have Magizoologists and Herbologists rather than Magical Naturalists. It is also easier to create ‘teachable’ subjects for a secondary school like Hogwarts out of Muggle Zoology and Botany rather than Ecology, because readers can relate to them easier. Moreover, as we will see later on, it makes it more relevant to the parallel with cryptozoology. It is another way of making the Wizarding world ‘believable’, since, as Tolkien says: ‘[...] it is found in practice that ‘’the inner consistency of reality’’ is more difficult to produce, the more unlike are the images and the rearrangements of primary material to the actual arrangements of the Primary World.’ (Tree and Leaf, 2011 [1964], p. 48).

Secondly, I think it is interesting to sketch the stereotypical naturalist/zoologist/botanist, because it is quite fun and might also be relevant. When you tell people you are a Naturalist, or an Ecologist, or even a Botanist or a Zoologist (let alone an Entomologist or a Herpetologist or a Whateverologist as long as it sounds weird enough) they usually are either delighted or weary or heatedly angry (either way, they usually start talking politics), but all agree that you earn your living running in the fields in wellingtons with a utility weskit full of pocketses, carrying binoculars, and a butterfly net. Oh and a hat. And living in a somewhat unconnected world of yours. Or something along these lines (like that bloke in the picture, above, or Myriam Margoyle's Professor Sprout). Well, it is partly true. That’s called data collection and field-work. I can remember people staring at me when I was doing exactly that, or collecting faeces or tracking mammals and trapping micromammals to count them, birdwatching on skis for hours at a time, catching butterflies and determining plants. People think you’re a harmless weirdo (or sometimes a political activist, but that is scarce, thank Merlin). They think that Luna is that too, and Hagrid, and Professor Sprout, and Newt Scamander. All in their own way. (and if you analyse that list of people and add me in, all Hogwarts houses are represented in this job!)

Herbology, Herblore and Botany

Botany is the study of plants, how and where they live, what adaptations they have to their environment, what interactions they have with other species in their environment. The word ‘botany’ has roots in Ancient Greek, with two words: ‘boskein’ (βόσκειν, to feed, to graze), and ‘botane’ (βοτάνη, pasture, herbs, grass), but most often it is traced to the word ‘botanikos’ which means ‘concerned with plants’ βοτάνιkoς). Herbology, in the wizarding world, is more concerned with medicinal and potionic uses of magical plants, and how to grow them, at least from what we can gather from the books (see picture about Wormwood below, credit to https://www.pinterest.ch/pin/373728469059913188/ ). It is closer to horticulture and herbalism than botany. It is certainly not phytopharmacology, which would imply the molecular study of the plant active principles. The only link between Herbology and Botany seems to be the fact that both subjects are concerned with the study of plants. So let’s have a quick look back into the history of Botany to see if there is anything we can use to draw a closer parallel, because my hypothesis, at first sight, is that both Herbology and Magizoology are described in the Wizarding World in the way ‘ordinary’ people would see them, not from a really scientific point of view. Of course magical properties of the plants are discussed, but as a school subject, it is (sadly?) a very ‘popular’ point of view that is taken.

Botany started as ‘herbalism’. That means a lot of things, but it mainly deals with the domestication of plants: what could be used to feed, cure, kill, curse, grow. That dates back to the first animal who used its brain to distinguish between edible and non edible plants. As for humans, or humanoïds, it dates back hundreds of thousands of years. Usually, in our materialistic society, herbalism is seen as a weird para-cultural anti-scientific way of using nature, and is usually represented, as in the picture above, with pestles, mortars and bunches of fresh or dried herbs (that’s what also represents many witches and wizards and their potions…).

Now scientists, when writing about history of Botany, usually say ‘yeh the first written traces we have are in the Old Testament and on Babylonian clay tablets and the first bloke to write anything vaguely scientific about that was the Greek chap Theophrastus, about 2300 years ago.’ (Pelczar, Pelczar & Steere, 2020; Botany Online; Wikipedia). Again, that is one point of view, created by the way our 21st century society sees the world and the reliability of Science. However, other societies have classified plants, studied them, and have passed the knowledge to the next generation. Some native societies have a way wider understanding of their local botanical garden than we do, and it is often an ecological as well as purely botanical, medicinal or shamanistical understanding (Narby, 1995; Narby & Pizuri, 2021). Today our cartesian society shuns this knowledge as ‘folklore’, because we need ‘scientific evidence’. I think we are prejudiced. I say that, being a scientist myself. Obviously, sometimes, empirical observation is only observation and doesn’t allow us to connect the observed effect with the real biological cause(s) of what is seen, therefore often giving a wrong explanation to what happens. However, recurrence of the same observation in different conditions have led many people(s) to make the right connections, albeit without being able to explain the cause on a molecular level, and therefore build a kitchen herblore and a medical herblore that are in great part completely accurate. Our modern methods only allow us to take this a step further, describe the active principle via chemistry models (like that molecule of salicin (see picture below) - aka (2R,3S,4S,5R,6S)-2-(Hydroxymethyl)-6-[2-(hydroxymethyl)phenoxy]oxane-3,4,5-triol - which is the basis of our aspirin), explain what exactly happens, and refine what was observed before, leading to a better understanding and dosage of medicine and herbs. Science owes a great deal to folklore, and we tend to forget it, thinking we’re omnipotent. We lost humility on the way to modern science.

Right. Now after this digression, back to our plants. Rowling has never given much detail about Herbology classes. We know that the students study in different greenhouses, pot and repot plants, tend to them, and learn about some of their properties, but that is about it. We also know about at least two books about plants: the textbook called One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore, and Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean (given to Neville by Moody in GoF). One of the only mentions of plant property in Herbology is about Mandrake (see picture of the root below, and for a fuller insight on that particular plant, see the blog post about Shape-shifting, Louhi, May 2018) in Chamber of Secrets, when it is used as an ingredient for the Mandrake Restorative Draught.

Hermione mentions a trait of Devil’s Snare when she tries to disentangle Ron and Harry from its grip in Philosopher’s Stone. Other plants that are mentioned but not particularly detailed are Fanged Geranium, Puffapod, Alihotsy Bushes, Bubotuber, Mimbulus mimbletonia (see picture below), and Abyssinian Shrivelfigs, for instance.

In Philosopher’s Stone, our first acquaintance with Herbology is in Chapter Eight: ‘Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learnt how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi and found out what they were used for.’ Herbology is not given much importance in the series, apart from the fact that it provides Snape, Slughorn and Madam Pomfrey with plants to cure students and brew potions. It is somehow quite stereotypical that Professor Sprout is the head of Hufflepuff and that it is Neville, of all students at Hogwarts, who becomes the next Herbology teacher. Botanists are not people who put themselves forward. They are a quiet force. They are the cryptical magical source of the wizarding world. Without them, no apothecary shelf would be quite that furnished and potions couldn’t be brewed. That would mean the biochemistry of magical plants should be known, wouldn’t it? Yet it is not, and doesn’t seem to be on the way to be known either. Herbology looks very much an empirical science in the wizarding world, and therefore is much closer to herbalism as it was practiced until the 19th century than to modern Botany. Herbology, as it is conveyed in the Harry Potter books, is more herblore than Botany, and reflects the way ‘ordinary’ people view it. PS: I’m not at all saying herblore is useless, quite the contrary (I use plants all the time to prepare potions to cure myself when minor afflictions strike), but you would think that there is a bit more ‘academic’ work to it, that there would be a Magical Plant department somewhere in the Ministry if not at a Wizarding Natural Academy or whatever.

Care of Magical Creatures, Magizoology, and Zoology

Care of Magical Creatures at Hogwarts is the class that teaches students about some common UK magical Creatures and how to tend to them. It is, to me, like training the students to be good magical zoo-keepers rather than Magizoologists, though being a zoo-keeper requires a good deal of study about the biology of the animals one is taking care of. I’d still love to take the class.

Zoology is the science that studies animals and how they interact with their environment. That should include the humans, but for centuries now our vanity has made people believe we are not animals. -sighs-. The fathering of modern zoology is usually attributed to Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner, who lived in the 16th century (Ruickbie, 2016). Like Botany, people usually view Zoology as a field science full of exciting meetings, as if we could all be like Sir David Attenborough. Unfortunately not. And even if we could be like Sir David, it would take ages of study to actually know the things, and learn about what we’re doing. Most of us just keep to the ‘local pond’ level (which is, incidentally, the roots of all ecological knowledge, so keep doing it, folks.).

Now as for Botany, if Rowling had wanted to write a whole natural world into the Wizarding World, it would have taken a lot more than the (already cool) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which has not been much updated since it was first published nearly a century ago (January 1927), and is still used as THE textbook at Hogwarts. I would have thought that since the subject is taught at school - and I cannot believe other magical schools don’t teach it either - some magizoologists would have surfaced from that community. Otherwise who would be competent enough to work for the Department of the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures at the Ministry of Magic? It seems to me like Magizoology is a snapshot of time that was taken back in 1927, and that Care of Magical Creatures uses that snapshot exclusively until the Potter series, and that nothing more than Newt’s first published work has been done on the subject for nearly a hundred years (all right, it has been ‘updated’ after the Fantastic Beasts films came out, but that is still a bloody century after Newt did the actual work, so it makes no sense). I cannot believe that. I cannot imagine Newt not going on studying creatures and updating his book. Moreover, I suppose that one who would like to have a career in the field would have to either be an explorer (in the 19th and early 20th century meaning of the word, so more of a naturalist), or would have to study somewhere, or both. We know from Order of the Phoenix (Chapter 29, Careers Advice) that if you want to become an Auror there is further training after graduating from Hogwarts. It makes sense to infer from that that there is some sort of training for any field you want to study. Looking back at Herbology, I cannot imagine Neville going back to teach at Hogwarts at age 17 with nothing more than what he learnt from Sprout’s classes. That would defeat the purpose completely, and give a vision of teaching that is nothing more than the reading (or in this case regurgitation) of a textbook, rendering the subject completely sterile. So there must be some kind of tuition after Hogwarts, maybe wizarding universities, where research and field studies are carried on, where knowledge can be built and shared, therefore enriching the wizarding community.

The only glimpse of what happens straight after Hogwarts is when Dumbledore and Elphias Doge describe the fact they would have ‘taken the Grand Tour’. That sounds a lot like the medieval tradition of the Grand Tour when someone finished their apprenticeship and was made a Companion. They used to tour the country to perfect their learning with other masters and show their skills. Has the wizarding world evolved from that? What happens in post-Hogwarts years in the 21st century?

That was yet another digression… forgive me. Contrary to Herbology, where the textbook is only mentioned in the series (One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, by Phyllida Spore - love that name), there is a tangible printed textbook for Care of Magical Creatures. It is Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, by Newton Fido Scamander, published in January 1927. In the foreword, it is mentioned that it is a copy of the first edition, suggesting there have been further ones, but we don’t know about them, sadly. The book links the subject to Newt’s work a century back, and from the film series Fantastic Beasts (mostly from the first, but also from the second), we can see that Newt is a Magizoologist, but also a Conservationist. Now what is a Conservationist? It is a scientist who studies animals in the perspective of preserving the environment and wildlife (ecosystems) and biodiversity other humans have mishandled. Ultimately we can say it is someone who also might want to save species from extinction. They are people who want to preserve the natural world we are living in and need. Newt does exactly that. We have proof of this when he takes Jacob down into his suitcase in the first film: Newt: So they’re the last breeding pair in existence. If I hadn’t managed to rescue them, that could have been the end of Graphorns - forever. A few lines later: Jacob: So what, you - you rescue these creatures? Newt: Yes, that’s right. Rescue, nurture, and protect them, and I’m gently trying to educate my fellow wizards about them. (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay. Scene 47 - see picture below)

Newt is doing what Muggles do in zoos: help the last individuals of endangered species to breed and build a new pool of genes, and wants to help educate his fellow wizards about wildlife. The difference with the Muggle world is that Newt seems to be the only one in his world doing that. Say he’s the only one we know of. Moreover, it is the start of the 20th century we’re speaking of. Not to say that there was nothing like Conservation in the world. There was. In fact, it is argued among scientists that Conservation started as soon as humans started using their surroundings (Meine, 2013). When you pick berries or mushooms in the wild, you never empty the spot, always leaving some for other animals, and allow the spreading of the local population of plants (at least that is what I do). Hunting should do the same. Only on a lesser degree, obviously, because the reproduction strategies of animals and plants are widely different. When each vanilla orchid pod contains hundreds of thousands of potential offspring (therefore making it a genocide when we use one pod in custard), your average deer only gives birth to one calf at a time (so taking it would have more impact, locally, than eating a pod of vanilla seeds). Agreed, I used extremes, but still, take a blueberry bush versus a wild boar, you cannot argue that eating one wouldn’t affect the community the same way as eating the next. Today, spontaneous conservationism is too often not natural, and therefore I reckon focusing on Newt’s attempts at it - maybe unconsciously - may be a good way to bring that part of our behaviour back into the discussion. Newt is quite down-to-earth in spite of his obvious para-world. He cares more about his suitcase and basement than about the rest of the world. Luna,... well, I think I’ll leave her for later.

If we try a wrap-up after all this looping around, I would say that Herbology is an ‘ordinary Muggle’s’ vision of Botany, but with the Healing layer added or kept, depending on what the Muggle’s relationship with healing is.. Care of Magical Creatures is really how to tend to animals, wild or tame (so zoo or farm, basically), and Magizoology is an oldish version of Zoology with a hint of Conservationism. However, both Herbologist and Magizoologist are real jobs.

Nargles, Wrackspurts and Crumple-Horned Snorckacks: the Cryptozoological Part of the Magical World?

While reading the Harry Potter series, we come across a wide array of strange plants and animals, thanks to Luna, mainly. While most of us surely remember Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and Dirigible Plums, there are way more strange things in Luna’s world: Nargles, Wrackspurts, Moon Frogs, Blibbering Humdingers, Heliopaths, Umgubular Slashkilters, Aquavirius Maggots, Gulping Plimpies, and Dabberblimps. To Muggles those sound like fantasy creatures nobody would dare believe could exist outside the creations of an author of children’s books. To the Wizarding Community, on the other hand, they are just the kind of creatures that could potentially exist but have a place in their folklore (s.str.).

Let’s draw a parallel:

Muggles have the ‘traditional’ biological A-Z, which includes living beings people can actually (potentially) spot (or could before they got extinct) like wolves, boas, okapis, dodos and moose, bees, tarantulas, hammer-head sharks and shrimps. Among those ‘real’ creatures are some quite weird contraptions of nature, like flesh-eating plants (see pic of Nepenthes, above), Angler-fish, Axolotl, Tardigrades, Armadillo Girdled Lizards, Velvet Ants (furry ants!!), Platypuses or Dumbo Octopus and Blue Dragon (a one-inch long lethal nudibranch, see picture of Glaucus atlanticus, below). For all of those, Muggle zoologists and botanists have provided documented evidence on an academic level, and a huge amount of it has been made available to larger audiences via documentaries on the telly (thanks, in the English language, to the career-long efforts of Sir David Attenborough, for instance, bless him).

Muggles also have the ‘traditional’ fantastic beasts A-Z, which today includes pieces of human fantasising over millennia of building cultures around the world. Many of those fantastic beasts have been included in religious histories (like dragons, for instance, in Christianity), or remain firmly in local folklore (like unicorns, kelpies or the yeti). Those animals, Muggles claim, don’t exist, and are part of the imaginative culture of the peoples. They are not academically documented, but are part of Muggle lives (apart from the Dursleys and other narrow-minded and purely materialistic people, I guess). Folklore (lore as tale, story), has many occurrences of those animals (some of our blog papers have dealt with some of them, like the Kelpie).

That last paragraph actually constitutes part of the Wizarding ‘traditional’ bestiary, in addition to the common Muggle one. Wizards live with their natural environment, as do Muggles, but they also live with an extension of it, comprising all the stuff that Muggles have rejected over time as fantasy: dragons, unicorns, merpeople, centaurs, phoenixes, werewolves, hippogriffs and thunderbirds, but also some creatures quite unknown to any Muggle culture (at least to my knowledge at time of writing): thestrals, augureys, fwoopers and, most scaring of all I think, dementors, for instance. All those creatures are accepted as part of the living world (or nearly living in the case of Dementor, but again, they breed and all that, so have some characteristics of life in them, biologically speaking). Some are roughly documented in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, published in 1927 by Newt Scamander, but as said somewhere above, there is little evidence of any magizoological or -botanical studies after that anywhere, unless you count the facts that Luna married Rolph Scamander and she was a renowned Magizoologist. The only bit of info we have about actual species is that she had to give up on Crumple-Horned Snorkacks at some point, because it was obvious they didn’t exist.

However -because there is a ‘however’, we know that said Crumple-Horned Snorkacks are part of an imaginary world within the Wizarding World, along with other strange things like Nargles and Wrackspurts. So Wizards also have their part of fantastic creatures, made-up living beings linked to their culture, even if we know little about them and the context they were brought into the culture. Rowling has not developed the point. We only know there is an audience for that, as well as contributors to that knowledge-base, because of what Luna mentions of her dad’s work and about the Quibbler articles (see for instance OoP, Chapter 26, Seen and Unforeseen).

So both worlds have two layers of botanical and zoological knowledge. It seems to me that the Wizarding point of view is broader than the Muggle one, though less documented. To make an easy example: Both worlds have living beetles, foxes, birds, daisies, birches and fir trees which seem to be the core of the wider picture. Dragons are Muggle fantasy world, while they are part of the real Wizarding World, which in turn, has Moon Frogs and Wrackspurts as their fantasy world.

Could we say the Muggle World is embedded in the Wizarding one? I guess it is (see figure above). Narrow-mindedness is only ‘seeing a part of the wider picture’, after all.

Cryptozoology or Parazoology?

This is a weird little distinction I want to make here, and be short about it. Cryptozoology is the science that studies animals that are ‘hidden’ (from the Greek word kryptós). In more scientific terms, it can be defined as the study of species which existence has never yet been confirmed (Dendle, 2006). Parazoology is, according to Ruickbie (2016), the study of those creatures that belong to the supernatural, like unicorns and merpeople. Those creatures were once believed to exist in the Muggle world, but people have had to give up on them, like Luna on Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. However, all those creatures still feed our imagination, tales, dreams and frights. Why would Samhain have become such a parody of a feast otherwise? Why would tales of horror, vampires and zombies still exist today if this parazoological knowledge hadn’t been passed on by generations? Cryptozoology v Parazoology: it is a subtle distinction, but it is another way to look at that figure above.

For the classifying, order-needy, cartesian 21st century person, the question is ‘Which creature belongs to which category?’. Thinking about this would probably mean adding a layer to my figure, between the ‘core’ of academic zoology and the first circle of Wizarding bestiary. This one would actually be divided into two layers: Muggle cryptids (cryptids are the creatures studied by cryptozoology) like the yeti or Chupacabra, and Muggle fantastic beasts like unicorns and phoenixes. Both are part of the Wizarding A-Z.

Anyway, to me, some exist, some don’t depending on which cap I am wearing at the moment - the witch’s, or the scientist. Or I could even say, who cares if they exist or not?

PS: Next time I want to go further into this. I just noticed I didn't talk much about Luna's job and the link between her weirdness and the actual field she chose. I did that in the background, but it deserves a good paragraph. Then I'll be talking about MoM regulations and classifications of Beasts and Beings, how they relate to Zoology/Magizoology, human conceptions of intelligence and so on.

Sources:

Coll. (1996-2004). Botany Online, consulted at: http://www1.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e01/01.htm

Harry Potter Lexicon, consulted at: https://www.hp-lexicon.org/thing/herbology-class/

Wikipedia: Botany, consulted at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botany#:~:text=Botany%20originated%20in%20prehistory%20as,contained%20plants%20of%20medical%20importance.

Weird animals:

https://greenglobaltravel.com/weird-animals-around-the-world/

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161122-the-myths-and-folktales-behind-harry-potter

Couplan, F. (2000). Dictionnaire étymologique de botanique. Delachaux & Niestlé, Lausanne.

Le Callet, B. (2018), Le Monde Antique de Harry Potter, Stock, Paris.

Louhi (May 2018). Shape-Shifting Part 2: Animagi and the Animagus Potion. https://under-the-lake.tumblr.com/post/173638721831/shape-shifting-part-2-animagi-and-the-animagus

Meine, C. (2013). Conservation Movement, Historical. In: Levin S.A. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, second edition, Volume 2. Waltham, MA: Academic Press. 278-288.

Nadal, C. (2014). Magical Science: Luna Lovegood’s Beliefs, Discoveries and Truth. In Martín Alegre, S., Arms, C., Blasco Solís, L., Calvo Zafra, L., Campos, R., Canals Sánchez, M., ... & García Jordà, L. (2014). Charming and bewitching: considering the Harry Potter series. 148-153.

Narby, J. (1995). Le serpent cosmique, l'ADN et les origines du savoir. Georg. Geneva (this book exists in English under the title The Cosmic Serpent - DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1999)

Narby, J., & Pizuri, R. C. (2021). Plant Teachers: Ayahuasca, Tobacco, and the Pursuit of Knowledge. New World Library.

Pelczar, R. M. , Pelczar, M. J. and Steere, W.C.l (2020, February 11). Botany. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/botany

Rowling, J. K., (2016). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay. Scholastic.

Rowling, J. K. (1997). Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2005). Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Bloomsbury, London.

Ruickbie, L. (2016). The Impossible Zoo - An Encyclopedia of Fabulous Beasts and Mythical Monsters. Robinson. London.

Scamander, N. (2001; 2018; [1927][J.K. Rowling]). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Bloomsbury, London, in association with Obscurus Books, 18a Diagon Alley, London.

Loyalty, Friendship, Empathy and MPDG

I’ve been asking people around me what they thought of Luna. Many put her loyalty, friendship and empathy forward. First it might be useful to define those terms. I know we all have some idea of what they are, but I was thinking of a more academic point of view (still wondering why Louhi was not sorted in Ravenclaw). I’ll try and make it short (I can hear you snort…).

Loyalty

Loyalty has been a theme running throughout the series from the very first chapter. Mr Dursley’s loyalty to the family principle of not mentioning the Potters is tested a few pages into the first book (Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter One). Dumbledore’s loyalty to the Potters is shown straight in as well (PS, Chapter One). I mean why would the headmaster bother bringing a baby to their foster parents himself if there was not a good reason? Harry’s loyalty to the Dursleys is settled rapidly as well, and further into the book (PS, Chapter Two), Hagrid’s loyalty to Dumbledore is stated by the gamekeeper very soon after he meets Harry (PS, Chapter Four). Loyalty as a virtue is associated with Gryffindor House by the Sorting Hat in each of its three songs (PS Chapter Seven; Goblet of Fire, Chapter Twelve; Order of the Phoenix, Chapter Eleven). It is therefore associated straightaway with the hero of the story, and by default, and tacitly, slyness and unreliability are associated with the ‘enemy’ that are Slytherins. None of these traits is mentioned in so many words, but Gryffindors are the ‘brave at heart’ whilst Slytherins ‘use any means to achieve their ends’ (PS, Chapter Seven) and that doesn’t change throughout the books.. Luna is a Ravenclaw. So what then?

What is loyalty? I mean we all have a sense of what it is, of course. Supporting our friends, our family, fly high the values we share with a society, support them whatever the circumstances, swearing allegiance to a master or an institution (sometimes even to social constructs). Loyalty is a virtue, albeit, as many point out, a complicated one, because it puts the person in front of hard choices, for instance telling their friends the truth or being bold, or honest, or doing things that they wouldn’t normally do, or acting against their own inclination. Some say loyalty is only a feeling because it’s always grounded in some sort of attachment for a person/institution/society. There’s no denying that loyalty cannot be affectless, but it doesn’t follow that the feeling is a positive one. You can be loyal out of fear, for instance. Take Wormtail. Of course one can question the very use of the term ‘loyalty’ in his case, but it ticks most of the boxes. What are the boxes, then? After reading the ‘loyalty’ entry of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Kleinig, 2017), I decided to make the boxes as follows: a) there needs to be some strong form of attachment that can go as far as devotion via professional commitment (like for a lawyer), b) this attachment makes the person want to secure (or at least not to jeopardize) the well-being/interests of the person/object/concept they are loyal to, c) this attachment makes the person put their interest and well-being after those of the object of loyalty, and d) there might be an interest for group survival (either genetic or other). That last one is one of the boxes that relate to family relationships, friendships, house loyalty etc…

The question is, how does Luna relate to loyalty? I reckon she’s one of the most loyal characters in the whole Harry Potter series, because she doesn’t question the concept. Her friendship, therefore her loyalty, once given, is given forever. Whilst she can be very Berkeleyan in many ways, Luna is full black or white when it comes to friends.

Friendship

Aristotle (him again) devoted a big part of his thinking to what friendship might be. Peoples (or some people among the peoples) have been discussing the topic of love and friendship as something fundamentally human (I don’t think I agree with that, but that’s not the point here). Ancient Greeks and Romans put friendship above romantic love in their scale of feelings (and I must say I do agree with that): it’s philia, friendship-love (Deavel & Deavel, 2010). That’s why there’s such a canyon of difference between the words ‘pal’ or ‘mate’, and ‘friend’. It has to do with the level of intimacy you share with the person (mentally and/or physically), but also with how much you embrace that person with all their qualities and faults, not trying to change them for your or their sake, but also being able to tell them truths in their face that nobody else would dare utter without fear of losing them.

If we go back to Aristotle, he defined three types of friendship (which, for him, is a kind of virtue, meaning people must constantly work on it): friendship for use, for pleasure, or complete friendship (Aristotle, in Mogg & Tully, 2012). It is easy to understand the first: the person whom the ‘friendship’ is bestowed on is only a means towards an end. For instance, take Peter Pettigrew. He never loved his three Marauder companions, but he used them to get protection. In the second type of ‘friendship’, the person who bestows his ‘friendship’ on someone wants to derive something pleasant out of it, still not considering the feelings of the other. That could be, for instance, the kind of relationship Romilda Vane would like to have with Harry, or again Pettigrew and the Marauders. A complete friendship means that the person desires positive things for their friend, for their sake and not their own. It’s valuing the friend for themselves, and not as a tool. Usually, in analysis of the Harry Potter series, only the friendship between Harry, Ron and Hermione is viewed in this light (Mogg & Tully, 2012). That might be because it indeed develops over seven years, involves living together not only in the comfort of Hogwarts or the Burrow, but in a tent (granted, with all comforts as well), on the run, on a mission, not really knowing where they are going. As Mogg & Tully put it, the evolution of friendship in Harry, Ron and Hermione goes from being a working group of complementary units to sharing and learning from each other and supporting each other’s psychological development.

Yet, I question this exclusivity in the sense that Luna’s character makes her a good candidate for that kind of friendship. She might not tick each box, but I’ll explore the concept, as well as try and state that Luna is NOT a MPDG among other reasons because of her take on friendship and loyalty. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe not. That’s the excitement of research, isn’t it?

Empathy

Empathy is a fashionable word nowadays, so it tends to be used to convey many things. However, primarily, it means the ability one person has to feel ‘in the stead’ of another, to step into their shoes and feel ‘with’ them. It is a central concept to the building of human societies, because it allows people to create bonds with one another. Empathy can lead to altruistic motivation, meaning that one who feels empathy towards others might want to help them. In the Sandford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stueber (2019) says that according to one of the philosophers who currently studies empathy, Batson, the predominant trait of empaths is selfishness (sic), that the altruistic bit of empathy is not the most common, and what determines if a person will help another or not depends on how strong they are personally, and what the cost of helping the other would be. To be truly altruistic, moreover (and quite obviously), the helping behaviour must not be directed towards a personal goal. That’s sort of logical, given the name is ‘altruistic’, but again, there are different forms of help. Other researchers (Ciladini et al., in Stueber, 2019) state that when in extreme conditions, this altruistic behaviour stems from a sense of oneness between the actors, the emergency or extremity of the situation leading them to behave as one body, therefore saving limbs rather than individuals. Empathy could go that far.

Of course I chose to mention those bits of the article because they serve my purpose, my question being Luna and empathy. I guess one could write books about all those three topics, but what is given here will be enough to shed some light on Luna.

A Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

For those who are into sociology and pop culture, the term is familiar. For those who are not, it requires a definition. The phrase was coined in 2007 by Nathan Rabin (in Nilson, 2020) but this type of characters actually were always there in pop culture in various forms. However, Rabin said that since this character was growing more and more common in films, it might be useful to coin a concept, and so he did: a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a female character whose only role in the plot is to guide a soulful young male character towards embracing life and its mysteries. My inner feminism starts at such a phrase and all sorts of arguments come to mind to destroy it. After all, I am Louhi, The Witch Of Pohjola. However, it is true that MPDG characters exist and must be taken into account. Now the question is, what defines a MPDG?

A MPDG is a character who, at first, seems to have none. She stands out of the crowd, and represents something mythical or otherworldly at first, for the males around. That makes the MPDG attractive, along with some sort of dreaminess. Among the other ‘symptoms’ of the MPDG (Pasola, 2014) are innocent bluntness, lack of self-consciousness, and a propensity to desert conversations she doesn’t find interesting. There is even a ‘test’ (Bechdell-Wallace test) to assess MPDG-ness in a female character, and it consists of three statements: 1) the plot must contain at least two women, 2) who talk to each other and 3) discuss something else than men. This test has apparently been widely used to analyse films and culture (quick google scholar search… didn’t have time to read) since its appearance in 2005. Bechdell says that if a female character fails that test then she can be deemed a MPDG. I think it is a bit too straightforward.

Appearances… can be misleading. Therefore, while Luna fails the test (Pasola, 2014), there’s more to see than meets the eye, and Luna is worth the analysis. So, my stance is that Luna is NOT a MPDG, however much she looks the character at first sight.

Luna: what about her, then?

Luna is sort of vapoury, has a mythical or mystical je-ne-sais-quoi about her, conveyed by her waist-long blonde hair, protuberant eyes that give her ‘a permanently surprised look’ (OoP, Chapter Ten), and her rather peculiar choice of jewellery (butterbeer-cork necklace or radish-earrings). In the films, this effect is carried on further by Evanna Lynch’s voice, which gives Luna an ethereal quality. Therefore she physically sort of fits the MPDG trope. Moreover, according to literature, as said before, she fails the Bechdell test.

BUT. I don’t agree Luna is anywhere near a MPDG.

Let’s start with the definition of a MPDG. According to it, Luna should be a sort of muse to a man and guide him to embrace life and its mysteries. Well. Er… aha. There’s already a problem here. Because Luna guides nobody to embrace life and its mysteries. She sometimes says things that are just plain true and takes a rather original stance when it comes to relationships with others. She doesn’t guide anyone. She never seeks people to help them or offer any kind of advice. If she happens to be there at a moment when she can say something that seems relevant to her, then she’d do it. That’s not guiding. It’s a chance meeting. At least that’s how I see them. You could argue that she guides Harry. Why yes, but the bias is that we see the whole story from Harry’s point of view, so there’s no way we can be sure Luna doesn’t give the odd piece of her mind to anybody outside Harry’s presence. She doesn’t act like a muse either. Harry doesn’t daydream about her, his thoughts don’t get back to Luna every now and then. He basically doesn’t give a damn about her, at least at first, and if he occasionally does, it’s either by chance or for lack of a better option, like when he invites her to Slughorn’s Christmas party, or when he has no choice but to take her along to the Ministry. After that last adventure, though, his attitude towards Luna changes, she has grown on him, but in no respect is she a muse to him. He’s too much entangled with his love life, his loyalty to his parents, the Order and Dumbledore, and his need to save the world every now and then, to care much about others. To add to this, nowhere in papers analysing MPDGs do the words friendship, empathy and loyalty appear to describe the characters. And Luna can feel all three, and shows them throughout her appearances in the Potter saga.

Luna is empathetic, though in her own way. She can sense how others feel and offer comfort, yet it’s not the usual kind. ‘You’re just as sane as I am’ (OoP, Chapter Ten) is not exactly comforting at first to Harry, when he thinks he’s being mental, seeing the Hogwarts carriages being pulled by winged skeletal horses. He has just seen how unusual Luna is, reading the Quibbler upside down and believing the cock-and-bull stories her father prints about Fudge’s army of Heliopaths. However, at the end of the same book, they discuss Sirius’ and Luna’s mum’s deaths, and ‘as [Harry] watched her go, he found that the terrible weight in his stomach seemed to have lessened slightly’ (OoP, Chapter Thirty-Eight); Luna sort of comforts Harry in spite of herself with her optimism, and she couldn’t do that without being empathetic. In Deathly Hallows Luna is the one person who keeps Ollivander alive while both are imprisoned in the cellar at Malfoy Manor, as he acknowledges to her on leaving Shell Cottage: ‘I’m going to miss you, Mr Ollivander’, said Luna, approaching the old man. ‘And I you, my dear,’ said Ollivander, patting her on the shoulder. ‘You were an inexpressible comfort to me in that terrible place.’

Luna doesn’t seem to ‘need’ friends. As in, she’s not actively looking for friends. She probably has a whole world in her head that fills her. That doesn’t mean she’s not happy having some friends, as the mural in her bedroom at home is proof enough of. When she acknowledges friends, then she’s loyal to them. Had she not been so, she wouldn’t have stood alongside her dad and advocated Harry’s interview to be printed in the Quibbler. She wouldn’t have fought with Neville in the renewed Dumbledore’s Army in Deathly Hallows. She wouldn’t have stood to the Malfoys while being held captive. In return of her loyalty, one of the next offspring in the Potter family is called Lily Luna. I think we can reasonably say, along Aristotle in Mogg & Tully (2012), that when Luna bestows her friendship on someone, it is a complete one. She doesn’t want to change people, doesn’t want to use them, just wants the best for them, whatever the cost for her.

Luna doesn’t question her feelings. What she gives, she does fully. To the Trio, Neville, Ginny, and also Ollivander and Dobby. That leads her to not talk about her friendships, and therefore, maybe, people to think that she doesn’t have any. However, she expresses them in sometimes odd ways verbally, like when she agrees to go ‘as friends’ to Sulghorn’s Party with Harry (HBP, Chapter Fifteen), and sometimes in hidden ways, like in that ceiling painting she did in her room back home, and that the trio discovers when visiting Xenophilius during their hunt for clues about the Hallows (DH, Chapter Twenty-One).

Luna doesn’t forgive. She doesn’t need to. She’s so detached that it sounds like she’s not hurt by people being mean to her. A fine example of this is the finale of OoP, when Harry meets her on his non-way to the End-of-Year Feast, and Luna is looking for her possessions (OoP, Chapter Thirty-Eight). She doesn’t hold a grudge towards her fellow Ravenclaws for being mean to her. Therefore, she doesn’t need to forgive either.

Some people have suggested Luna could have autistic traits (Belcher & Stevenson, 2011; Guha, 2020). There are indeed traits that could lead into that direction, and the web is full of people discussing that possibility. However, Rowling has denied that (it’s all over the web, but I cannot get my hands on the place I read that bit of interview…). Luna is just… Luna, the moon girl, whose name is maybe only the moon, or, as Le Callet (2018) suggests, a tribute to an Assyrian satirist from the 2nd century AD, Lucian of Samosata, who wrote A True Story, a fantastic tale about creatures like tree-women, or Selenites living on the moon and grilling frogs (moonfrogs, ring a bell?), breathing the vapour that wafts from them. He was also a known critic of the belief in the paranormal and of religious superstitions. Then part of him stands in opposition to Luna’s: she does believe in weird stuff, has odd superstitions (Nargle infested mistletoe and all that), which she eventually has to give up (like Crumple-Horned Snorckacks). Luna’s name might also be a tribute to Cyrano de Bergerac, the French 17th century author of Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon which is a classic in the field of early French science-fiction (see illustration below, by Henriot, 1900, Cyrano in front of the Moon). After all, Rowling is learnt in French and French literature, so we cannot rule this hypothesis out. In this book, Cyrano travels to the Moon using rockets powered by firecrackers… The inhabitants of the Moon are four-legged creatures who have talking earrings which are used to teach children.

All in all, all well considered, there is not much to back up the idea of Luna being a MPDG, and I am quite relieved to see that my small researches and musings have led me to that conclusion. You could say I am biased, wanting my conclusions to fit my hypothesis. Who wouldn’t? However, it is reassuring to find that one’s mind goes not astray, somehow. I find, after all this thinking, that we can learn a huge lot from Luna, even if she appears only sporadically in the story: human values that make people strong in a moral sense: resilience, trust, loyalty, friendship, self-confidence.

Now this has been done, I want to delve further into Luna’s character by exploring the job of Magical Naturalist (that appeals to me a lot, being a biologist myself, with specialisations in botany, zoology and ecology), as well as exploring her relation to Death, comparing it to how the other characters embrace it (or not). But these are completely different stories.

Thanks to Little My, Purple, Andromeda, Kikimora, Dawn, and Thetis, for sharing their opinion of Luna with me.

Sources:

https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-original-forty  

https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/thestrals

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-resiliency-of-luna-lovegood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian

Belcher, C. L., & Stephenson, B. H. (2011). Entering the Forbidden Forest: Teaching Fiction and Fantasy in Urban Special Education. In Teaching Harry Potter. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. 121-142.

Chaillan, M. (2016). Harry Potter et Berkeley. In Harry Potter à l’école des philosophes, Philosophie Magazine, Hors série n°31, novembre - décembre 2016. 70-71.

Granger, J. & Bassham, G. (2016). Just in Your Head? J.K. Rowling on Separating Reality from Illusion. In Bassham, G. (2016, Eds.). The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy, Hogwarts for Muggles. Wiley Eds. 185-197

Guha, S. (2020). Luna Lovegood or Loony Lovegood? - Reading Luna Lovegood as a victim of Asperger’s Syndrome. In P Barry, N Pederson, L Kang (2020, Eds.) Proceedings of the Two-Day Conference: Questioning Attitudes and Labels: Mental Health Versus Madness,  St. Mira’s College for Girls, Pune, 45-48.

Kleinig, J. (2017), “Loyalty”, in Zalta, E. N. (2017, Ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/loyalty/  

Le Callet, B. (2018), Le Monde Antique de Harry Potter, Stock, Paris.

Pasola, K. (2014). The Integrity of Luna Lovegood: How JK Rowling Subverts the ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’ Trope. In Martín Alegre, S. (2014, Ed.). Charming and Bewitching: Considering the Harry Potter Series. 153-161.

Mogg, J., & Tully, K. (2012). Harry gets by with a little help from his friends: An Aristotelian reading of virtue and friendship in harry Potter. Reasons Papers, 34(1), 77-88.

Nadal, C. (2014). Magical Science: Luna Lovegood’s Beliefs, Discoveries and Truth. In Martín Alegre, S., Arms, C., Blasco Solís, L., Calvo Zafra, L., Campos, R., Canals Sánchez, M., … & García Jordà, L. (2014). Charming and bewitching: considering the Harry Potter series. 148-153.

Nilson, M. (2020). A Magic Manic Pixie Dream Girl?: Luna Lovegood and the Concept of Postfeminism. In Jarazo-Alvarez, R. & Alderete-Diez, P. (2020, Eds.). Cultural Politics in Harry Potter: Life, Death and the Politics of Fear.  32-41. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

Rowling, J. K. (1997). Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2005). Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Bloomsbury, London.

Scamander, N. (2001; 2018; [1927][J.K. Rowling]). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Bloomsbury, London, in association with Obscurus Books, 18a Diagon Alley, London.

Basic dough (Murutaikina in Finnish - crumb dough)

Makes about forty 5 cm (2 in) diameter round biscuits.

Ing List

200 g soft unsalted butter (I’ll try with half salted and I’ll keep you updated)

1-1.5 dl sugar (I’d go for 1 dl if you’re not fond of sweet stuff, or are planning to add chocolate, caramel or candied fruit)

1 egg

1 tsp baking powder

4 dl flour

If you really crave for plain sweet you can add 0.5-2 tsp vanilla sugar

Working the Magic 1: Basic Biscuits

You need to be quick, because there’s a lot of butter.

Mix together the soft butter and sugar until well combined and fluffy.

Add the egg, mix until well combined.

Add all dry ingredients (including chopped candied fruit, chocolate chips, or whatever you like) and mix quickly until smooth. It might feel a bit sticky at this point, but remember there’s a lot of butter. Don’t add too much flour over the prescribed 4 dl, because otherwise you’ll get rock cakes… and we know how those go down.

Put into the fridge to set for half an hour.

Heat the oven to 175 °C.

Roll the dough into a tube and cut into as many biscuits you want to make. Roll each bit between your palms and flatten, then put on a lined baking tray. Warning, those little devils tend to at least double in size in my oven... #bakingpowderpower but just remember to set them well apart on the tray.

Bake for about 10 minutes, or until nicely golden. Remove the biscuits from the tray and let harden and cool. Store in an air-tight container.

Working the Magic 2: How Can You Customize?

Up to 1 dl of any dried fruit or candied peel, chopped into small bits, or chocolate chips, bits of caramel, salted or not

Cinnamon

Swap 1-2 tbsp of flour for 1-2 tbsp cocoa powder (unsweetened)

Swap some flour for an equal volume of another flour (rye, spelt...) or oats

Mixed spice

Whatever comes to your mind and sounds yummy.

You can also decide to go for just topping them with icing (lemon juice + powder sugar)

I suppose matcha powder could also work (never tested though)

Or anything you feel like adding :) 

Enjoy your experimentations, and tell us about them!

Cooking time: +/- 30 minutes plus 8 hours in yoghurt machine

Servings: 7 (200 ml each)

Ingredients:

Two cups (400 ml) of oats

4 dates

1100 ml of water

Pinch of salt

Yoghurt bacteria/Natural vegan yoghurt with no additionals/Last bit of your previous home-made yoghurt

Process:

Blend the oats to produce a fine powder like flour.

Cut the dates into small pieces.

Put the oats, dates, water and a pinch of salt in a pot and blend again for at least a minute.

Then heat the pot gently, stirring the whole time. When it becomes more dense, turn the heat down and let it cool to the temperature of 42 degrees Celsius (it should be warm but not hot when you put a finger in it, if you don’t have a kitchen thermometer).

Add 4 tablespoons of a previously home-made yoghurt/vegan store yoghurt or portion of yoghurt bacteria and mix thoroughly.

Separate the yoghurt into 7 small 200 ml jars, close them and put the yoghurt in the machine/oven that can keep the temperature of 42 degrees Celcius for 8 hours.

After that, put the jars in the fridge and after the yoghurt becomes cool it is ready to be enjoyed with some fruits, nuts, seeds or cereals :)

You can make new parts of yoghurt from the leftovers of the first part up to around 20 times.

Enjoy!

Yeast Bread (from the Finnish hiivaleipä)

For 2 loaves (top pic of the title picture):

0.5 l water (or part water part milk; a dl or so of milk helps the bread get nicely golden) 

25 g yeast (some people put 35-50g) 

1 tsp salt 

1 tbsp sugar (or treacle; you can up to triple that amount, but I don’t like it sweet) 

12 dl flour (usually 3 dl rye and the rest 'basic') 

Baking the Magic

Warm the liquid to hand-temperature, and dissolve the yeast. 

Stir in the salt, treacle/sugar and rye flour.

Add the rest of the flour by hand until the dough isn't sticking to the bowl or your hands. It must have a bounce though, otherwise it might end up hard as Hagrid’s Rock Cookies. 

Leave to double volume under a towel in a warm and dry place without draughts.  

Knead the dough well on a floured surface, divide it in two and make two loaves. 

Pick the loaves with a fork or knitting needle. 

Bake at 200°C in the lower part of the oven for half an hour.

Use-Your-Leftover-Mash Flatbread (Perunarieska)

This flatbread is a traditional Finnish thing called rieska. You can make it out of flour too with the addition of crème fraîche. 

For the potato ones (bottom picture of the title one -not mine, and just above, my latest perunarieska):

Makes 2-4 flatbreads

2.5 dl mashed potatoes (this must contain enough milk to make it useable)

Salt

1 egg

2.5 dl flour (-ish, meaning it roughly depends on how much potatoes you have and what variety they are) + some to sprinkle on the lining paper

Baking the Magic

Mix everything together. You might want to add the flour in batches, as the texture you want to reach depends on the potato variety and the chilliness of your mash.

Flatten the dough into 2-4 round thin rieska on a lined baking tray (I just realized most of you have never seen rieska before. They are about 12 cm in diameter and 4-5 mm thick). I sprinkle flour on the paper, and flatten straight on the paper set on the tray. You might want to use more flour to make it non sticky, depending on the variety of potatoes used. 

Pick with a fork.

Bake at 250°C for 10-15 minutes until the rieska get brown flecks. In my oven, 10 minutes are enough. So check, because it would be sad to burn them.

Wrap the rieska for a short moment in a piece of cloth or towel to soften.

Serve warm with any topping you want (from jam to reindeer stew; my last batch I made because I had leftover mash and had it with leftover coronation chicken and bloody hell that was good. Unexpected meeting of cultures, I can tell you, but successful.).

Enjoy :) 

Short ID

Name: Luna Lovegood (originally she was called Lily Moon, because it gave Rowling the idea of a dreamy girl - Original Writings for PM, The Original Forty)

Born: 13th February (J.K. Rowling, Twitter, 17th July 2015) and we can suppose it’s 1981 because Luna went to Hogwarts one year after Harry (born on 31st July 1980).

Post-Hogwarts Occupation: Wizarding naturalist (as Rowling called her originally)

Particularities: odd beliefs, and she was able to see Thestrals very soon after her mother’s accidental death, when Luna was nine. Unusually perceptive and creative. Bloody bright.

School: Hogwarts, Ravenclaw

Marital Status: Married to Rolf Scamander (Newt’s grandson)

Children: 2 sons, Lorcan and Lysander

Other Family: Dad Xenophilius Lovegood (Editor of the Quibbler), mum Pandora Lovegood (dead)

Odd Species: Blibbering Humdinger, Nargles, Wrackspurts, Crumple-Horned Snorkack. According to Rowling (Bloomsbury Chat, 30.7.2007), Luna went on discovering and naming many new species, but had to eventually give up on the Snorkack being a real creature.

First Impressions - Hogwarts: from Loony to Luna

She had straggly, waist-length dirty blonde hair, very pale eyebrows and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look. [...]The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of Butterbeer caps, or that she was reading a magazine upside down.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter Ten, Luna Lovegood

That’s how we are introduced to Luna (in the book). Well… dunno what you think, but she is introduced as a weirdo all right. She’s reading a magazine, The Quibbler, upside down, and that she seems to find that perfectly normal (we do learn some pages later that it’s a thing about reading runes but even if there wasn’t any rational explanation I wouldn’t put it past Luna to read something upside down). You cannot deny that Luna is intriguing. There are many reactions one can have on meeting her for the first time, but there will be reactions, either because she’s so far from what the reader holds dear as values, or because she’s so close. One cannot be indifferent to Luna.

Besides, there’s that strange thing that she can see Thestrals, and thinks they are nothing but normal creatures. Who doesn’t remember the ‘You’re just sane as I am’ line? And who wouldn’t doubt their sanity at such a statement? I’m glad they kept the line in the film.

So from the very beginning of our acquaintance with Luna, we know that she’s different, but not yet why, that she is blunt without being rude, that she knows who she is, and that she has some sort of interest in the natural world. We can also imagine from her Butterbeer necklace that she’s not from a wealthy family, her dad running a not-so-mainstream magazine, The Quibbler. We have another bit of evidence for that in the World Cup (see below). The other possibility -which, knowing all the books, sounds at least as true as the first one- is that she’s from a very creative family. However, at that point of the story, we don’t know about Nargles and Crumple-Horned Snorckacks. Yet. As for Luna’s Hogwarts allegiance, Wit Beyond Measure is Man’s Greatest Treasure, and The Circle Has No Beginning,  she’s in Ginny’s year, one year below Harry, and she’s a Ravenclaw.

First Mention

Luna is not mentioned by first name until Ginny introduces her in Order of the Phoenix, Chapter Ten. However, Rowling introduces the Lovegoods in Goblet of Fire, Chapter Six. They are just mentioned, en passant, by Amos Diggory, while he and Cedric and the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione are waiting for their Portkey on Stoatshead Hill (seven past five, and old wellington boot) to get them to the Quidditch World Cup. Amos says the Lovegoods aren’t using the Portkey because they’ve been on the World Cup Site for a week since they couldn’t afford it another way. They live near the Weasleys, the Diggorys and the Fawcetts, somewhere near Ottery St Catchpole (Deathly Hallows, Chapter Twenty).

First Meeting

‘There’s only Loony Lovegood in there.’ This statement by Ginny is the first mention of Luna in the whole series. She’s met Neville who is looking for a compartment on the Hogwarts Express and can’t find one because ‘everywhere’s full’. ‘Don’t be silly, she’s all right’, answers Ginny. (OoP, Chapter Ten).

Straight in: ‘Loony’ is ‘all right’. Contradiction, but also completely true. Luna is a loony if you look at her with the eyes of conventional society and the norms it has set. She is all right, which means Ginny has taken trouble to get acquainted and knows she’s no loony, and at least never uses her ‘nickname’ straight in her face (contrary to Hermione’s line in the film…. which I hate, so much not in character. Is that the girl who started SPEW?). Ginny puts things straight from the beginning, yet she’s struggling to repress her fit of the giggles in the compartment, later, when Luna states Ravenclaw’s motto in a sing-song voice. Luna doesn’t seem to care what people think, and she’s pretty straightforward in her statements, though not in a mean way. For instance, when she tells Harry, still in the same scene in the Hogwarts Express compartment, that Parvati didn’t enjoy the Yule Ball with him because he hadn’t cared to dance with her, it’s just a statement, not a judgement. Luna doesn’t do judgement. I must admit that the feelings, at reading this train scene for the first time, are mixed. You perceive that Luna is someone special who is rather unbothered by others’ opinion because she knows herself and is in a way more mature than her fellow classmates. You basically wonder if she’s got some autistic traits. On the other hand, the series of articles in the magazine she’s reading - and obviously taking seriously - show an openness of mind and fantasy that are quite unusual. How Far Would Fudge Go to Gain Gringotts? or Sirius Black - Villain or Victim? Notorious Mass Murderer or Innocent Singing Sensation? are just two of the titles in the issue of The Quibbler that Luna is reading (see picture below). 

The first impressions are tested further because once the lot get off the train, there’s the Thestrals. Harry has never been able to see them before, because he had never understood death before seeing Cedric murdered during the Third Task. He’s completely stunned by those skeletal winged horses. Luna isn’t, and simply explains they’ve always been there. Not at all reassured and still thinking he’s having hallucinations, Harry climbs up behind Luna into the carriage, not sure if he wants to disclose this to his best mates.

This is the first meeting with Luna. You cannot deny the impression is strong. Personally I did like her from the start. She then just grew on me.

Reality? Berkeley? Aristotle? 

Believing in things that nobody can see… mental, Luna? Or just aware of the world in a way few modern people are able to? Just more open to nature and unusually perceptive or living on another planet? I reckon anything but mental. Luna is a character who questions our perception and definition of reality throughout the three books she appears in.

Traditionally, if we follow Aristotle (On Interpretation), a statement can be true if both the sentence and the reality it aims at describing match. There must be no contradiction and the statement must be in adequation with reality. Like saying, while standing in front of the Hogwarts Express, ‘the steam engine is scarlet’. It’s the, say, rational way. And it is the way it works in the wizarding world, yet the roots are different from the Muggle one. Magic is the scientific framework in which the wizarding world evolves, and in that world magic is a science in the Muggle sense: it can be studied, divided into subjects, tested (Nadal, 2014).

However, on the other end of the spectrum, there’s another way of seeing things that are less black or white, and it was explained by Irish philosopher George Berkeley (1685 - 1753). Berkeley, to put it shortly, states that what one sees is, from the moment it’s apprehended by anything connected with the brain, an interpretation of reality. He says that reality per se doesn’t exist and that the things we see, as a dimension of reality conceived out of the mind, is a mere illusion (Chaillan, 2016; Granger & Bassham, 2016). Seen in that light, Harry’s meeting with Dumbledore at the end of Deathly Hallows is full of sense. So is Luna’s relationship with the world around her. The case of Nargles, Wrackspurts and Crumple-Horned Snorckacks are proof enough. Luna questions our relationship with the norms the world has built around what is considered real and what is not. Can you believe something exists while you’ve never seen it? Well… just ask everyone who believes in any kind of god, magic or whatever. They’ve never seen the source, have they. Still, they do believe it exists. The difference with Luna is that while religion is something built by, and therefore admitted as real, by society (the norm, or one of the possible norms), Nargles and Wrackspurts are not. 

If we look at the zoological side of things, the Muggle world has Science (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning), and Cryptozoology. Science proves, tests, confronts, questions. Cryptozoology is the branch of zoology that deals with imaginary species. So there is a society-approved branch of Natural History that deals with what legends and history have given us. Those two sides, in Luna’s world, are, for the ‘official part’, the Ministry Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, Scamander’s book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (notice that the title holds the word ‘fantastic’? What irony…) and Hagrid and Grubbly-Plank as Care of Magical Creatures Teachers. Oh and we could add Charlie Weasley as a Dragon Keeper. The other side of this is The Quibbler and Xenophilius Lovegood (and Luna). So while both worlds have two instances to deal with two parts of the natural world, and while the Muggle world has both sides coexisting rather peacefully because society-approved, the wizarding world is in tension because no official body has ever given any credit to The Quibbler or Xenophilius’s weird ideas. I’ll discuss Magical Natural Sciences later in a bit more depth. What I wanted to showcase here is that this comparison about how Natural Sciences and CryptoSciences are dealt with in both worlds further supports the distinction between Aristotelian and Berkeleyan ways of seeing reality, and supports the idea that the Lovegoods are more Berkeleyan, but therefore also the fact that the Wizarding world is even more normative that the Muggle one, and that’s saying something (for instance there’s only one school and one teacher for each subject for the whole of the UK and Ireland; if that is not normative, I don’t know what is).

Luna openly states stuff that is completely bonkers, which makes her sort of -pardon me- unbelievable. Though it fits with Berkeley. I mean who knows if Rufus Scrimgeour is really a vampire or not? Or who knows if Fudge really has an army of Heliopaths? On the other hand, she was raised by An Eccentric if there ever was one. I mean old Xenophilius (incidentally, ‘xenophilius’ means ‘love of the strange’). We first meet him at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, at the start of Deathly Hallows. ‘Slightly cross-eyed, with shoulder-length white hair the texture of candyfloss, he wore a cap whose tassel dangled in front of his nose and robes of an eye-watering shade of egg-yolk yellow. An odd symbol, rather like a triangular eye, glistened from a golden chain around his neck.’ (DH, Chapter Eight) Xenophilius goes one praising the gnome infestation in the Weasleys’ garden, and the wisdom of those creatures. Not exactly your conventional wizard. He looks even stranger than that wizard wearing a lady’s dressing-gown at the Quidditch World Cup.  Thing is, the Lovegoods are taking a step back looking at the conventional world they were made to live in. They don’t fit in because their reality is unproven and therefore not believable in an Aristotelian world. However, Luna has her own boundaries of truth. Somehow they meet Dumbledore’s. He believed the Deathly Hallows existed, as did Xenophilius, and finally Harry. For most witches and wizards, including Ron and Hermione until the last moment, the Hallows are only an artefact in a children’s story, The Tale of the Three Brothers.

Luna’s mum died when Luna was nine; a spell Pandora was experimenting on backfired. Luna witnessed that and has since been able to see Thestrals. Luna’s mum was probably the one who was more perceptive and passed that to Luna (reminds me of Fiver in Watership Down passing his own sixth sense on to the next generation). Luna stays as she is, but eventually, according to Rowling, gives up on Snorkacks as her dad’s inventions (Bloomsbury Chat, 30.7.2007).

I reckon Luna would fit more in a Berkeleyan world than in the normative world our ‘civilized’ societies have built, be they magical or Muggle. Of course every society has norms. Thing is, how much constraint they set upon members makes all the difference. Luna is not a Loony (even etymologically, in my opinion, because loony is short for lunatic, which means mentally ill, from the moon - see all the tales and beliefs surrounding full moon for instance, mostly negative in a normative Aristotelian world). Luna is the positive form of Loony, I’d say. She’s seen as a loony by people whose norms are those of the society they grew up in. With a wee bit of openness of mind, Luna is a great character, a philosophical free-lancer, a mirror in which we can question our society and beliefs about reality.

PS: I want to explore friendship and loyalty in Luna briefly too. Soon... confinement helps the writer :P The wizarding community is at risk too! Stay at home!

Sources:

https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-original-forty  

https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/thestrals

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html 

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-resiliency-of-luna-lovegood

Aristotle, De Interpretatione (English translation), retrieved from http://www.bocc.ubi.pt/pag/Aristotle-interpretation.pdf

Adams, R. (1972). Watership Down. Penguin.

Chaillan, M. (2016). Harry Potter et Berkeley. In Harry Potter à l’école des philosophes, Philosophie Magazine, Hors série n°31, novembre - décembre 2016. 70-71.

Granger, J. & Bassham, G. (2016). Just in Your Head? J.K. Rowling on Separating Reality from Illusion. In Bassham, G. (2016, Eds.). The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy, Hogwarts for Muggles. Wiley Eds. 185-197

Nadal, C. (2014). Magical Science: Luna Lovegood’s Beliefs, Discoveries and Truth. In Martín Alegre, S., Arms, C., Blasco Solís, L., Calvo Zafra, L., Campos, R., Canals Sánchez, M., ... & García Jordà, L. (2014). Charming and bewitching: considering the Harry Potter series. 148-153.

Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Bloomsbury, London.

Feel free to change anything in this recipe. That’s the whole point: what do you have in your kitchen/veggie basket/fridge/larder/pantry…. And use it.

For one person (so just do the Maths.... )

Kreacher’s ingredients

¾ dl rice (whichever you like -white, brown, red, black, long grain, round -  as long as it’s not sticky)

1 big clove of garlic, finely chopped

Same volume of fresh ginger root, finely chopped

1 big spring onion, chopped

1 egg, beaten

3 slices of lardy bacon stripes, sliced (optional; gammon is a good substitute, but we didn’t have any, or stripes of tofu)

A handful or two of peas (frozen, fresh (the best obv.) or tinned)

3-4 tbsp oil (rapeseed is good but peanut is nice as well, and you might not need that much oil, it will depend on your meat and your pan)

(fresh herbs like coriander)

Working the Elf-Magic

Cook the rice as instructed on the package or the cooker or whatever you’re using.

In the meantime, chop all ings.

In a frying pan, pour some oil and add the meat/tofu if you’re using any, fry gently for a couple of minutes, then add the garlic, spring onion and ginger. Fry on medium heat until it smells nice, but the garlic is not burnt (otherwise it goes meh and gives a nasty taste to your food). 

Add the beaten egg and scramble everything together until the egg bits don’t stick to each other. Add the peas and heat them, stirring regularly.

Add the rice and if necessary, oil. Fry gently for a small while, or until you reach the fryness you like.

Eat and enjoy.

He decided to bake biscuits. We love Kreacher’s chocolate biscuits, because they are full lush. Scrumptious (as Gollum would say). Mainly because of the wee bit of salt that adds to the chocolaty fullness and chocolate chips that are just melted in the biscuits and make the actual chocolaty fullness. 

Preparation time: half an hour

Cooking: 20-25 minutes

Serves: makes about 20 regular cookies, but I make smaller ones (1.5 inches, 5 cm), so I usually get about 30-35.

Ing list

100 g dark chocolate (don't use over 85% though, or add a bit more butter)

70 g unsalted butter

1 egg

70 g chocolate bites (or whatever you call them chips)

100 g sugar

120 g flour

1 tablespoon cocoa powder (unsweetened)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon soda

pinch of salt

Working the magic

1. Melt the 100 g dark chocolate on very low heat. When it's melted, add the butter, stir and let cool.

2. Add the beaten egg and the rest of the ing +  a pinch of salt. Mix until the dough is homogenous.

3. Roll into a ball, wrap in cling-film or grease-proof paper and let sit in the freezer for 15 minutes.

4. Preheat the oven at 140 °C and put a baking tray in the oven.

5. Divide the dough into as many cookies you want to make. Roll the bits into balls, and place them on a sheet of parchment the size of your tray. Leave space between the balls, because they will spread during baking.

6. Slide the parchment onto the tray and put it all in the oven for 20-25 minutes, according to the size of your cookies.

7. Wait till they are completely cooled to remove them from the tray.

Enjoy.

Have you ever wondered at how extraordinary the smell of dried mushrooms is? It’s the summer forest in Finland where they were plucked with love under birch trees along the lake, or the forest ditch slopes where they grew up next to a bear poo, along with the blueberries and wild strawberries you ate on the way. It’s the magical old forests of Northern Lapland where you can feel the age and other worlds collide and mix with ours. Kreacher has always welcomed my return from my northern abode with eyes sparkling with excitement because he knows that when I come back, I bring along goodies that cannot be found in Grimmauld Place amidst the dog poos (see, bear poos are much better for growing mushrooms, because bears feed on natural stuff lol) and waste that people don’t bother carrying to the bin that stands a couple of yards away. So since we cannot go outside, let alone abroad, abroad must come to us.

Here’s Kreacher’s Mushroom Pie recipe:

You can buy a ready-made dough but given the circumstances you can make your own, it’s easy, quick and way better tasting. Plus you can use whatever flour you want to give a nice taste balance to your pie.

Serves 6-8

You need a 28 cm diameter pie mould (that’s 11 inches), a big bowl, a frying pan

Cooking time: 40-50 minutes

Preparation time: pastry 10 minutes with a machine, 20 minutes without, + 30 minutes in the fridge, during which time you make the filling.

Pastry

125 g chilled butter, chopped

3 dl flour (I used a spelt-rye-linen seed mix, but you can use whatever you want)

½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

50 g finely grated cheese (whatever you have, I used old mature cheddar)

2 tbsp cold water (I used the water I had the dried mushrooms soak in)

Filling

500 g fresh mushrooms 

OR

200 g fresh mushrooms

5 dl dried mushrooms (I used half chanterelles and half funnel chanterelles, but again, use what you have)

OR 

8 dl dried mushrooms

1 chopped onion (the bigger the better)

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp dry white wine (a big glog lol)

¾ tsp salt

¼ tsp black pepper (I mix with white, the taste is interesting when you have tasty mushrooms)

200 g crème fraîche (I didn’t have crème fraîche due to human stupidity and selfishness in war time, so I used about 1 dl thick unskimmed cream)

3 eggs

100 g grated cheese (this can be bigger chunks than in the pastry, obviously)

1 dl chopped chives (dry or fresh)

Working the Magic 

1. If using dried mushrooms, soak them in water while you’re making the pastry. The longer the better.

2. To make the dough, mix the butter, flour, baking powder and salt. If you have a suitable electronic device, use the cutter there to mix the ingredients until you get the consistency of breadcrumbs. Alternatively do it by hand.

3. Add the cheese and water (I used water from soaking the mushrooms) and mix until well combined. Don’t mix too much, it’d melt the butter and make the pastry soggy; you don’t want that.

4. Butter a pie mould (diameter 28 cm, 11 inches).

5. Roll the dough on a floured surface or on greaseproof paper and lower the pastry into the mould. Store in the fridge for about half an hour.

6. In the meantime make the filling. Chop the fresh mushrooms, and sieve and chop the dried ones.

7. Cook the mushrooms and chopped onion on a dry frying pan, until most of the moisture has evaporated. 

8. Add the butter, wine and spices. Let it cook until the consistency is lush. Take off the heat and let cool.

9. Heat the oven to 200°C (390°F).

10. With a fork, pick the bottom of the pastry and blind bake in the bottom layer of the oven for 10 minutes.

11. Meanwhile, mix the cream and eggs in a bowl, add the grated cheese, chives and cooled mushroom mixture.

12. Spread the filling onto the pastry and bake it for another half hour -ish, depending on the oven, and how brown you want your pie. If you used a smaller mould and that therefore the pie is higher than the usual 2.5cm/one inch, it’ll take a wee bit longer.

Let the pie cool down a while before serving, with a salad, and/or bacon strips :P 

This makes a nice captivity lunch, if you are alone you can freeze slices or share with your neighbours who cannot go out.

Enjoy!

I won’t develop more than the first two points. I guess there’s not enough evidence for or against the Credence is a real Dumbledore thingy to make a fair point, yet there are a lot of theories out on the web. And the last point, well, it speaks for itself. So either Production and Rowling changed the canon, which means reprint books with the right dates and review all the data about McGonagall, or admit the film bit with her is crap. Plus she’s so much out of character that it’s just a joke anyway.

1. Grindelwald’s Escape Mess and the Blood Pact Business 

When I watched the beginning of the film, it made no sense to me. Unless, as it dawned on me right after it, Abernathy and Grindelwald had already swapped bodies before the transfer took place, and Abernathy would be the one in the carriage, the Grindelwald without a tongue. SWAPPED BODIES. Yeh. Not used Polyjuice Potion, but actually Transfigured into the other. We know that Grindelwald is a fearfully skilled bloke, but that’s something we haven’t seen yet. I mean he spent a lot of time as Percival Graves, but that was only Transfiguring himself. 

Anyway, had the plan not backfired, Grindelwald would be free and Abernathy would have been tried in London and probably sent to Azkaban since the UK Wizarding Community has no death penalty. Still, that would have given Grindelwald the freedom to act in the shadows and eventually reach his goal, changing the script rather thoroughly.

Now why didn’t this trick work? Why did Grindelwald have to get inside the carriage eventually? Because of the Bloody Blood Pact.

What is a blood pact?

A blood pact, or blood oath, is an agreement between the parties that is traditionally sealed with a mixing of blood from all who take the oath. It sometimes involves spilling the blood, or drinking it. It can also be a more allegorical description of an oath. The most common is blood-brotherhood, or any kind of pact of non-agression and boundless loyalty between parties. According to some academic sources, blood pacts have been considered from the 12th century onwards as satanic, or primitive and non Christian (what a surprise), thus helping the building of the construct of the barbarian in the Middle Ages. And besides, that makes me smile because what else is the foundation of Christian religion but a blood pact of sorts between Jesus getting crucified and his followers? Pact which is, moreover, re-enacted during every mass by Catholics?

History has many instances of blood pacts recorded. One of them is part of Hungarian history, when the heads of seven tribes swore a blood oath to one amongst them, thus acknowledging him as their leader. It was around 830 AD. The blood was kept in a vessel.

I read that in East Africa, among the Maasai, blood oaths were made to form blood brotherhood, and they meant that no harm could be done among the brothers. That is rather close to what Dumbledore and Grindelwald made. 

In early Mongolia and China, blood brotherhood was seen as something more intertribal than individual. Whole societies were bound together by the oath of two people. It is said that Genghis Khan’s dad was blood brother with his friend, and that the young Genghis Khan himself, when he was still called Temujin, had a sworn brother since childhood.

Some historical events also happened with a ‘blood oath’ that was only so called because of its seriousness, but not involving any real bloodshed. For instance, in 1842, Joseph Smith instituted the endowment ritual in Nauvoo, Illinois, USA. It was later known as the penalty, in Mormonism, and the words and gestures were removed from the rituals in 1990. Critics call it a blood oath because of the words of the actual oath, that speak of bloodshed (like cutting the throat). Similar vows are found in Freemasonry at the beginning of the 19th century.

This side of the Pond, Norsemen used blood oaths to become foster-brothers. That happens for instance in the Icelandic story of Gisli the Outlaw, where the taking of the oath is described in detail. The four men in the story end up not carrying on. They do shed blood on turf together, but at the moment of tying hands, withdraw. Blood-brotherhood is something rather common in Norse mythology too. For example, Loki and Thor are said to have shared blood in the days of old, which is one of the reasons why Loki would be tolerated at all by the Gods.

So apparently, Grindelwald and Dumbledore did something of the like, and they also did, as some cultures would have done  keep the blood in a vessel (and that would include the Holy Grail... no comment) .

Why did Grindelwald need a blood pact in the first place and why is it he who keeps it and not Dumbledore?

Theories are flooding the wizarding network. One of them is that Grindelwald was nice and happy when he came to visit his auntie in Godric’s Hollow (see pic; from https://www.pottermore.com/features/the-life-and-times-of-albus-dumbledore). Come on, folks. He was already gathering followers in Durmstrang, was expelled for using Dark Magic and was already in quest of the Hallows. I personally think that Grindelwald never was caring and affectionate towards Dumbledore, but always the manipulative, ambitious and unscrupulous bloke we know. A former Voldermort, without Horcruxes. 

Second thing. According to Rowling, Grindelwald was a Seer. Remember that letter in Rita Skeeter’s The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore ? Here it is:

Gellert-

 Your point about wizard dominance being FOR THE MUGGLE’S OWN GOOD - this, I think, is the crucial point. Yes, we have been given power and, yes, that power gives us the right to rule, but it also gives us responsibilities over the rules. We must stress this point, it will be the foundation stone upon which we build. Where we are opposed, as we surely will be, this must be the basis of all our counter-arguments. We seize control FOR THE GREATER GOOD. And from this follows that we meet resistance, we must see only the force that is necessary and no more. (This was your mistake at Durmstrang! But I do not complain, because if you had not been expelled, we would never have met.)

Albus

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, chapter 18, pp. 395-396

Well. Here’s a theory based on this: How come Grindelwald went to meet Dumbledore just after the latter graduated from Hogwarts? How come he suddenly discovered Bathilda was family? Bathilda who lived across the road from the Dumbledores in Godric’s Hollow. If Grindelwald was a Seer, he might have Seen that Dumbledore was the man to thwart him in the future. He might also have Seen this letter. So would he want to finish his education in Durmstrang or get to the man who was to be his downfall but who was to fall in love with him? The other most powerful wizard of his generation? Maybe Grindelwald actually got himself expelled intentionally, to be free. I argue it’s Grindelwald’s ambition, fear and cunning that drove him to Godric’s Hollow, that he never had the slightest bit of positive feeling towards Dumbledore, and that he came intentionally to find a way to keep Dumbledore out of his way: the Blood Pact. 

BUT. Love is one of the main themes in Rowling’s wizarding world. Love as a means of protection. I therefore argue that the Blood Pact is NOT the thing that actually prevents the two men from fighting each other. It would only work as a magical artifact if both wizards’ intentions were pure and positive. So Grindelwald used Dumbledore as a weapon against Dumbledore himself. His love for Grindelwald is the thing that prevents Dumbledore from attacking, not the Pact. I think the pact acts like a Prophecy: it only works because one makes it work. So Grindelwald relies on Dumbledore’s love as a protection. Dumbledore was completely besotted with Grindelwald and Grindelwald used that as much as he could. That is also why Grindelwald had to keep the Pact and not Dumbledore: because it had no affective value for him, and he most certainly would not seek to destroy it, whilst Dumbledore might, once he realised he had been manipulated. That might also account for the pretty thorough bit of thinking that Dumbledore must have made about Love and about Prophecies… and that he shares with Harry in Half-Blood Prince, for instance.

So basically the Pact is Grindelwald’s ultimate protection against Dumbledore because Dumbledore loves Grindelwald. All right. Now how come, if that is the case, that by the end of the film Grindelwald hasn’t noticed that the thing had disappeared (remember, Newt’s Niffler nicked it during the Père Lachaise rally)? He was so keen on getting it back at the beginning, in the flooded carriage… I mean normal people would check their possessions after a meeting like the Père Lachaise one. Moreover, I don’t think that they only just arrived in Nurmengard when the final scene takes place. So why not worry about the Pact? Is the feeling of completion of having Credence finally in his grip so overwhelming that the pact is forgotten? A bit like Voldy doesn’t feel it when the first Horcruxes are destroyed?

I’m also curious about how the Pact is going to be destroyed and why it does take another 18 years. Provided it is destroyed. Fighting without destroying the Pact might get us back to the Dumbledore-Aberforth-Grindelwald duel that resulted in the death of Ariana. I don’t think any of the three wizards killed her, but her death might have impressed upon Dumbledore the power of Grindelwald, his unscrupulousness, and the might of the Pact as an obstacle to their confrontation.

2. The For-The-Greater-Good-Narghile-Projector-Skull, 1898

My first impression on seeing this skull in the hands of Grindelwald’s assistant Rosier made me think of a Muggle magic show. Impress people, show them stuff they don’t or can’t grasp. Lure them. Pure Grindelwald. Pure any dictator.

The Skull is a human one, without the lower jaw. It is engraved with Grindelwald’s symbol, the double G that reminds me so much of a swastika. It also has a date, 1898, and a German inscription: ‘Für das Größere Wohl’, which translates to ‘For the Greater Good’, and which is supposedly Grindelwald’s motto. It was also used by Dumbledore in that letter he sent his ‘friend’ in 1899 when they met in Godric’s Hollow (see above). People all over the internet tend to say Dumbledore invented the phrase. Well he did not. It was coined way earlier, and for instance it was used by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) who was a British jurist, philosopher and advocate of utilitarianism and animal rights. In the ideological duel that opposed Dumbledore and Grindelwald, using a phrase from utilitarianism is full of sense. Utilitarianism is a moral theory that explores the ethical reasons of action. An action can be morally acceptable or not, depending on its consequences. In our situation it’s the debate about why wizardkind should rule the Muggles. The reason for seizing power is different in both men. Dumbledore has positive ideas, Grindelwald thinks domination.

Many theories are out in the wild about the date on the skull. 1898 is one year before Grindelwald and Dumbledore met. If we stick to the idea that Grindelwald had a vision of the letter mentioned above, then he could have taken the phrase from there to use it and lure Dumbledore. He might also have simply come across it, but he doesn’t seem to me like someone who’d delve into philosophy books, nor care about what people thought. Using the quote is proof he’s manipulating people around him, for sure, and maybe he used the letter, maybe not. 

The weirdest bit to me is the narghile-projector. The Skull appears to be an object used by Grindelwald to project his visions so that other people can see them. A bit like a Pensieve, but with the show-off factor. The thoughts are actually blown into it via the mouth, whilst in the Pensieve, it is quite rational that they would come from the head and not the lungs. They are blown through a hose that is actually connected to the back of the skull, not the Foramen Magnum (the hole where the spinal marrow reaches the brain and only hole sizeable enough in a skull, apart from the eyes, nasal cavities and mouth). So I guess the skull was damaged to attach the hose. I mention this because it’s again showing how much respect Grindelwald has for anything. 

Grindelwald is a Seer, according to Rowling. So when he projects images of WW2 during his meeting in the Lestrange Vault in the Cimetière du Père Lachaise, he’s actually using this incredibly powerful way to get people to rally his cause: fear. Using the threat of a second war after peoples having barely recovered from the first, and economy being on the brink of implosion, is a very cunning move. Fear has always been the main vehicles of the rise to power of dictators. They need to be feared because the usually fear everyone. I won’t be analysing this too much here, because I’m planning another paper about that very issue.

To summarise, we can simply say the Skull is a way to show off and intimidate people. Next to that, even Circus Arcanus is schoolyard stuff.

3. The Phoenix

I’m not willing to discuss weather Credence is Aurelius and where he would be from. I don’t reckon there is enough evidence to make a point. However, I want to have a look into the phoenix, as a bird.

Let’s start with basics for beginners: Newt’s book. It is said that the Phoenix is the only creature that Newt might not have encountered on his travels. Might be he saw one in Dumbledore’s office, who knows when he got Fawkes. Ministry of Magic rating for the Phoenix is XXXX, which is ‘dangerous’. A footnote in the book mentions that the rating is not due to the fact the bird would be dangerous, which it is not, but to the fact that few wizards are known who have tamed one. According to Scamander, Phoenixes are found in Egypt, China and India, are peaceful and gentle, and have never been known to kill. They eat only herbs. 

The most notable fact about Phoenixes is their capacity to die by bursting into flames and regenerate from their own ashes, their ability to disappear and reappear at will (a power they share with Diricawls), and the fact that their tears have extraordinary healing powers, and can act against venoms as potent as Basilisk’s. Oh. Phoenix songs are magical too: they give the pure of heart courage and increases the fear of the impure.

Scamander’s allegations about Phoenixes being found in Egypt are confirmed by Muggle archaeology: Egyptians in Heliopolis worshipped a solar heron-like bird called Bennu (see picture above), but the information about this bird is scarce and subject to much controversy. The Chinese culture has a phoenix too, indeed, who is called fènghuáng. It shares some characteristics with our European phoenix. In China, its qualities are, besides being the female part of the dragon-phoenix yin-yang duo (see picture below), symbols of fire, the sun, justice, obedience, and fidelity. Remember Dumbledore speaking about Fawkes? ‘He’s really very handsome most of the time: wonderful red and gold plumage. Fascinating creatures, phoenixes. They can carry immensely heavy loads, their tears have healing powers and they make highly faithful pets.’ (Chamber of Secrets, chapter 12, p.225). Faithfulness going to the point that if someone is faithful enough to their master, they can help them out of tricky situations, as we saw in Chamber of Secrets. 

Other cultures have phoenixes or phoenix-like birds: the Russians have the Firebird, the Japansese the Hō-ō, northern America the Thunderbird from Native American traditions (and Newt’s book). The Native American Thunderbird is part of the North West Coast (pic below, from https://pnsn.org/outreach/native-american-stories/thunderbird-and-whale/thunderbird-and-whale-stories/list-of-stories ) and Midwest Plain cultures, and has different statuses in each region. However, the notions of power, protection and strength are common to all. For instance, in Algonquian culture, the Thunderbird rules the upper world, while the earth part is the kingdom of the underwater panther or Great Horned Serpent (rings a bell? :P ). In Menominee culture, there is also this opposition between the Thunderbird and the Great Horned Serpent, but it is more of an actual manicheistic fight: the Thunderbird prevents the Great Serpent from overrunning the earth, and it controls rain and hail. However, in Menominee culture, Thunderbirds are the messengers of the Sun. So this draws a parallel with the Egyptian Bennu. Other cultures also feature the fight with the underwater spirits. In Ojibwe culture, for instance. They also state that the Thunderbird was created by Nanabozho especially for this purpose. Ok I think I’ll stop here and plan a paper about the Thunderbird. But what can be said is that somehow I feel like the Thunderbird is a sort of equivalent of our Eurasian Phoenix variations.

The phoenix is also an alchemical symbol. It symbolises the perfection of Quintessence (the fifth element, also called Ether). It also symbolises the Three Principles (Tria Prima: salt, mercury and sulphur, which relate to any triad in the world, like for instance energy, matter and entropy). Paracelsus adds that it refers to the fundamental matter, also called energy, dark energy, creative chaos, or the formless essence that defines all matter. Some authors go as far as saying that this means the phoenix is ‘the completely healed, perfected human being’, the one that has integrated himself so much that they don’t need their physical body anymore. All this talk about perfection and all that also means that eventually, phoenixes are related to the ultimate goals of Alchemy, which, in addition to healing and perfection, are the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher’s Stone… rings a bell?

Now all this makes Phoenixes quite special and, let’s face it, sort of the perfect birds for a bloke like Albus Dumbledore. Still. Why would phoenixes be the Dumbledores’ birds? In Crimes of Grindelwald, Dumbledore states that in their family, a phoenix will always appear to one who is in dire need of help. Why single Dumbledores out? And anyway, how and when did Fawkes come to Dumbledore? The only answer we have for sure about that last question is that it came before 1938 and was grown enough at that time to give two tail feathers to Ollivander to use as wand cores. As we know, one of them ended in Tom Riddle’s yew wand, which he got in 1938, and the other in Harry Potter’s holly wand. About the other questions, it’s a big ‘search me’. For the moment.

PS: Any comments, questions, critics or additional info welcome! :)

Online Sources

Blood pact:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magyar_tribes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_oath_(Hungarians)

https://dailynewshungary.com/mythical-blood-oath-this-is-what-the-leaders-of-the-7-hu-tribes-said/

Phoenix:

https://www.boutique-of-arts.com/the-alchemical-phoenix/ 

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/alcbirds.html 

Thunderbird:

http://www.native-languages.org/thunderbird.htm 

https://pnsn.org/outreach/native-american-stories/thunderbird-and-whale/thunderbird-and-whale-stories/list-of-stories

Books and Papers

Baabar (2018, 2nd ed.). Almanac History of Mongolia. Nepko Publishing. Ulaanbaatar.

Gaiman, N. (2017). Norse Mythology. Bloomsbury Publishing. London.

Hughes, L. (2006). Blood Oaths, Boundaries and Brothers. In: Moving the Maasai. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Klossowski de Rola, S. (1973; 2013). The arcane doctrine of alchemy. Thames and Hudson, London.

Oschema, K. (2006). Blood-brothers: a ritual of friendship and the construction of the imagined barbarian in the middle ages. Journal of Medieval History, 32(3), 275-301.

Rowling, J.K. (1998). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Bloomsbury Publishing, London.

Rowling, J.K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury Publishing, London.

Rowling, J.K. (2005). Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Bloomsbury Publishing. London.

Rowling, J.K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury Publishing, London.