The Tales of Beedle the Bard

qeb=

^ibp=lc=

bbaib=

eb=

^oa

Titles available in the Harry Potter series

(in reading order):

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Titles available in the Harry Potter series

(in Latin):

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

(in Welsh, Ancient Greek and Irish):

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Other titles available:

Quidditch Through the Ages

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

BLOOMSBURY

HIGH LEVEL GROUP

health, education, welfare

qeb=

^ibp=lc=

bbaib=

eb=

^oa=

Translated from the original

runes by Hermione Granger

gKhKoltifkd

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by the Children’s High Level Group,

45 Great Peter Street, London, SW1P 3LT,

in association with Bloomsbury Publishing Plc,

36 Soho Square, London, W1D 3QY

The Children’s High Level Group and the Children’s High

Level Group logo and associated logos are trademarks of

the Children’s High Level Group

The Children’s High Level Group (CHLG) is a charity established

under English law. Registered charity number 1112575

J. K. Rowling has asserted her moral rights

No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying

or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher

A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7475 9987 6

Stewardship Council A.C. (FSC) accreditation. The FSC promotes

environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically

viable management of the world’s forests.

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives Plc

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

www.chlg.org

www.bloomsbury.com/beedlebard

Mixed Sources

Product group from well-managed

forrests and other controlled sources

www.fsc.org Cert no. SGS-COC-2061

`lkqbkqp=

Introduction xi

eb=tfw^oa=^ka=qeb=elmmfkd=mlq=

eb=clrkq^fk=lc=c^fo=cloqrkb=

qeb=t^oil`hÛp=e^fov=eb^oq=

_^__fqqv=o^__fqqv=^ka=

ebo=`^`hifkd=pqrjm=

qeb=q^ib=lc=qeb=qeobb=_olqebop=

A Personal Message from

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne MEP

NMT

Introduction

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of

stories written for young wizards and witches.

They have been popular bedtime reading for

centuries, with the result that the Hopping Pot

and the Fountain of Fair Fortune are as familiar

to many of the students at Hogwarts as

Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are to Muggle

(non-magical) children.

Beedle’s stories resemble our fairy tales in

many respects; for instance, virtue is usually

rewarded and wickedness punished. However,

there is one very obvious difference. In Muggle

fairy tales, magic tends to lie at the root of the

hero or heroine’s troubles – the wicked witch has

poisoned the apple, or put the princess into a

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

xii

hundred years’ sleep, or turned the prince into a

hideous beast. In The Tales of Beedle the Bard, on

the other hand, we meet heroes and heroines

who can perform magic themselves, and yet find

it just as hard to solve their problems as we

do. Beedle’s stories have helped generations of

wizarding parents to explain this painful fact of

life to their young children: that magic causes

as much trouble as it cures.

Another notable difference between these

fables and their Muggle counterparts is that

Beedle’s witches are much more active in seeking

their fortunes than our fairy-tale heroines. Asha,

Altheda, Amata and Babbitty Rabbitty are all

witches who take their fate into their own hands,

rather than taking a prolonged nap or waiting

for someone to return a lost shoe. The exception

to this rule – the unnamed maiden of “The

Introduction

xiii

Warlock’s Hairy Heart” – acts more like our idea

of a storybook princess, but there is no “happily

ever after” at the end of her tale.

Beedle the Bard lived in the fifteenth century

and much of his life remains shrouded in mystery.

We know that he was born in Yorkshire, and the

only surviving woodcut shows that he had an

exceptionally luxuriant beard. If his stories accu-

rately reflect his opinions, he rather liked

Muggles, whom he regarded as ignorant rather

than malevolent; he mistrusted Dark Magic, and

he believed that the worst excesses of wizardkind

sprang from the all-too-human traits of cruelty,

apathy or arrogant misapplication of their own

talents. The heroes and heroines who triumph in

his stories are not those with the most powerful

magic, but rather those who demonstrate the

most kindness, common sense and ingenuity.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

xiv

One modern-day wizard who held very similar

views was, of course, Professor Albus Percival

Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Order of Merlin

(First Class), Headmaster of Hogwarts School of

Witchcraft and Wizardry, Supreme Mugwump of

the International Confederation of Wizards, and

Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. This similarity

of outlook notwithstanding, it was a surprise to

discover a set of notes on The Tales of Beedle the

Bard among the many papers that Dumbledore

left in his will to the Hogwarts Archives.

Whether this commentary was written for his own

satisfaction, or for future publication, we shall never

know; however, we have been graciously granted

permission by Professor Minerva McGonagall, now

Headmistress of Hogwarts, to print Professor

Dumbledore’s notes here, alongside a brand new

translation of the tales by Hermione Granger. We

Introduction

hope that Professor Dumbledore’s insights, which

include observations on wizarding history, per-

sonal reminiscences and enlightening information

on key elements of each story, will help a new

generation of both wizarding and Muggle readers

appreciate The Tales of Beedle the Bard. It is the

belief of all who knew him personally that

Professor Dumbledore would have been delighted

to lend his support to this project, given that all

royalties are to be donated to the Children’s High

Level Group, which works to benefit children in

desperate need of a voice.

It seems only right to make one small, addi-

tional comment on Professor Dumbledore’s notes.

As far as we can tell, the notes were completed

around eighteen months before the tragic events

that took place at the top of Hogwarts’ Astronomy

Tower. Those familiar with the history of the most

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

xvi

recent wizarding war (everyone who has read all

seven volumes on the life of Harry Potter, for

instance) will be aware that Professor Dumbledore

reveals a little less than he knows – or suspects –

about the final story in this book. The reason for

any omission lies, perhaps, in what Dumbledore

said about truth, many years ago, to his favourite

and most famous pupil:

“It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should

therefore be treated with great caution.”

Whether we agree with him or not, we can

perhaps excuse Professor Dumbledore for wishing

to protect future readers from the temptations to

which he himself had fallen prey, and for which he

paid so terrible a price.

J K Rowling

2008

A Note on the Footnotes

xvii

Professor Dumbledore appears to have been

writing for a wizarding audience, so I have occa-

sionally inserted an explanation of a term or fact

that might need clarification for Muggle readers.

JKR

eb=

fw^oa=^ka=qeb

lmmfkd=

There was once a kindly old wizard who used his

magic generously and wisely for the benefit of his

neighbours. Rather than reveal the true source of

his power, he pretended that his potions, charms

and antidotes sprang ready-made from the little

cauldron he called his lucky cooking pot. From

miles around people came to him with their

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

troubles, and the wizard was pleased to give his

pot a stir and put things right.

This well-beloved wizard lived to a goodly

age, then died, leaving all his chattels to his only

son. This son was of a very different disposition

to his gentle father. Those who could not work

magic were, to the son’s mind, worthless, and he

had often quarrelled with his father’s habit of

dispensing magical aid to their neighbours.

Upon the father’s death, the son found hidden

inside the old cooking pot a small package

bearing his name. He opened it, hoping for gold,

but found instead a soft, thick slipper, much too

small to wear, and with no pair. A fragment of

parchment within the slipper bore the words “In

the fond hope, my son, that you will never need

it.”

The son cursed his father’s age-softened mind,

The Wizard and the Hopping Pot

then threw the slipper back into the cauldron,

resolving to use it henceforth as a rubbish pail.

That very night a peasant woman knocked on

the front door.

“My granddaughter is afflicted by a crop of

warts, sir,” she told him. “Your father used to mix

a special poultice in that old cooking pot –”

“Begone!” cried the son. “What care I for your

brat’s warts?”

And he slammed the door in the old woman’s

face.

At once there came a loud clanging and

banging from his kitchen. The wizard lit his

wand and opened the door, and there, to his

amazement, he saw his father’s old cooking pot:

it had sprouted a single foot of brass, and was

hopping on the spot, in the middle of the floor,

making a fearful noise upon the flagstones. The

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

wizard approached it in wonder, but fell back

hurriedly when he saw that the whole of the

pot’s surface was covered in warts.

“Disgusting object!” he cried, and he tried

firstly to Vanish the pot, then to clean it by

magic, and finally to force it out of the house.

None of his spells worked, however, and he was

unable to prevent the pot hopping after him out

of the kitchen, and then following him up to

bed, clanging and banging loudly on every

wooden stair.

The wizard could not sleep all night for the

banging of the warty old pot by his bedside, and

next morning the pot insisted upon hopping

after him to the breakfast table. Clang, clang,

clang, went the brass-footed pot, and the wizard

had not even started his porridge when there

came another knock on the door.

The Wizard and the Hopping Pot

An old man stood on the doorstep.

“’Tis my old donkey, sir,” he explained. “Lost,

she is, or stolen, and without her I cannot take

my wares to market, and my family will go

hungry tonight.”

“And I am hungry now!” roared the wizard,

and he slammed the door upon the old man.

Clang, clang, clang, went the cooking pot’s

single brass foot upon the floor, but now its

clamour was mixed with the brays of a donkey

and human groans of hunger, echoing from the

depths of the pot.

“Be still. Be silent!” shrieked the wizard, but

not all his magical powers could quieten the

warty pot, which hopped at his heels all day,

braying and groaning and clanging, no matter

where he went or what he did.

That evening there came a third knock upon

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

the door, and there on the threshold stood a

young woman sobbing as though her heart

would break.

“My baby is grievously ill,” she said. “Won’t

you please help us? Your father bade me come if

troubled –”

But the wizard slammed the door on her.

And now the tormenting pot filled to the

brim with salt water, and slopped tears all over

the floor as it hopped, and brayed, and groaned,

and sprouted more warts.

Though no more villagers came to seek help at

the wizard’s cottage for the rest of the week, the

pot kept him informed of their many ills.

Within a few days, it was not only braying and

groaning and slopping and hopping and sprout-

ing warts, it was also choking and retching,

crying like a baby, whining like a dog, and

The Wizard and the Hopping Pot

spewing out bad cheese and sour milk and a

plague of hungry slugs.

The wizard could not sleep or eat with the pot

beside him, but the pot refused to leave, and he

could not silence it or force it to be still.

At last the wizard could bear it no more.

“Bring me all your problems, all your troubles

and your woes!” he screamed, fleeing into the

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

night, with the pot hopping behind him along

the road into the village. “Come! Let me cure

you, mend you and comfort you! I have my

father’s cooking pot, and I shall make you well!”

And with the foul pot still bounding along

behind him, he ran up the street, casting spells

in every direction.

Inside one house the little girl’s warts van-

ished as she slept; the lost donkey was

Summoned from a distant briar patch and set

down softly in its stable; the sick baby was

doused in dittany and woke, well and rosy. At

every house of sickness and sorrow, the wizard

did his best, and gradually the cooking pot

beside him stopped groaning and retching, and

became quiet, shiny and clean.

“Well, Pot?” asked the trembling wizard, as

the sun began to rise.

The Wizard and the Hopping Pot

The pot burped out the single slipper he had

thrown into it, and permitted him to fit it on to

the brass foot. Together, they set off back to the

wizard’s house, the pot’s footstep muffled at last.

But from that day forward, the wizard helped

the villagers like his father before him, lest the

pot cast off its slipper, and begin to hop once

more.

Albus Dumbledore on

“The Wizard and the Hopping Pot”

A kind old wizard decides to teach his hard-

hearted son a lesson by giving him a taste of the

local Muggles’ misery. The young wizard’s con-

science awakes, and he agrees to use his magic for

the benefit of his non-magical neighbours. A

simple and heart-warming fable, one might think

– in which case, one would reveal oneself to be

an innocent nincompoop. A pro-Muggle story

showing a Muggle-loving father as superior in

magic to a Muggle-hating son? It is nothing short

of amazing that any copies of the original version

of this tale survived the flames to which they

were so often consigned.

Beedle was somewhat out of step with his times

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

in preaching a message of brotherly love for

Muggles. The persecution of witches and wizards

was gathering pace all over Europe in the early fif-

teenth century. Many in the magical community

felt, and with good reason, that offering to cast a

spell on the Muggle-next-door’s sickly pig was

tantamount to volunteering to fetch the firewood

for one’s own funeral pyre.

“Let the Muggles

manage without us!” was the cry, as the wizards

drew further and further apart from their

non-magical brethren, culminating with the insti-

tution of the International Statute of Wizarding

1 It is true, of course, that genuine witches and wizards were reasonably

adept at escaping the stake, block and noose (see my comments about

Lisette de Lapin in the commentary on “Babbitty Rabbitty and her

Cackling Stump”). However, a number of deaths did occur: Sir Nicholas

de Mimsy-Porpington (a wizard at the royal court in his lifetime, and in

his death-time, ghost of Gryffindor Tower) was stripped of his wand

before being locked in a dungeon, and was unable to magic himself out

of his execution; and wizarding families were particularly prone to losing

younger members, whose inability to control their own magic made them

noticeable, and vulnerable, to Muggle witch-hunters.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Secrecy in 1689, when wizardkind voluntarily

went underground.

Children being children, however, the grotesque

Hopping Pot had taken hold of their imaginations.

The solution was to jettison the pro-Muggle moral

but keep the warty cauldron, so by the middle of

the sixteenth century a different version of the tale

was in wide circulation among wizarding families.

In the revised story, the Hopping Pot protects an

innocent wizard from his torch-bearing, pitchfork-

toting neighbours by chasing them away from the

wizard’s cottage, catching them and swallowing

them whole. At the end of the story, by which

time the Pot has consumed most of his neigh-

bours, the wizard gains a promise from the few

remaining villagers that he will be left in peace to

practise magic. In return, he instructs the Pot to

render up its victims, who are duly burped out of

its depths, slightly mangled. To this day, some

wizarding children are only told the revised

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

version of the story by their (generally anti-

Muggle) parents, and the original, if and when

they ever read it, comes as a great surprise.

As I have already hinted, however, its pro-

Muggle sentiment was not the only reason that

“The Wizard and the Hopping Pot” attracted

anger. As the witch-hunts grew ever fiercer, wiz-

arding families began to live double lives, using

charms of concealment to protect themselves and

their families. By the seventeenth century, any

witch or wizard who chose to fraternise with

Muggles became suspect, even an outcast in his or

her own community. Among the many insults

hurled at pro-Muggle witches and wizards (such

fruity epithets as “Mudwallower”, “Dunglicker” and

“Scumsucker” date from this period), was the

charge of having weak or inferior magic.

Influential wizards of the day, such as Brutus

Malfoy, editor of Warlock at War, an anti-Muggle

periodical, perpetuated the stereotype that a

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Muggle-lover was about as magical as a Squib.

1675, Brutus wrote:

This we may state with certainty: any wizard

who shows fondness for the society of Muggles is

of low intelligence, with magic so feeble and

pitiful that he can only feel himself superior if

surrounded by Muggle pigmen.

Nothing is a surer sign of weak magic than a

weakness for non-magical company.

This prejudice eventually died out in the face of

overwhelming evidence that some of the world’s

most brilliant wizards

were, to use the common

phrase, “Muggle-lovers”.

The final objection to “The Wizard and the

2 [A Squib is a person born to magical parents, but who has no magical

powers. Such an occurrence is rare. Muggle-born witches and wizards are

much more common. JKR]

3 Such as myself.

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

Hopping Pot” remains alive in certain quarters

today. It was summed up best, perhaps, by Beatrix

Bloxam (1794-1910), author of the infamous

Toadstool Tales. Mrs Bloxam believed that The

Tales of Beedle the Bard were damaging to child-

ren because of what she called “their unhealthy

preoccupation with the most horrid subjects, such

as death, disease, bloodshed, wicked magic,

unwholesome characters and bodily effusions and

eruptions of the most disgusting kind”. Mrs

Bloxam took a variety of old stories, including

several of Beedle’s, and rewrote them according to

her ideals, which she expressed as “filling the pure

minds of our little angels with healthy, happy

thoughts, keeping their sweet slumber free of

wicked dreams and protecting the precious flower

of their innocence”.

The final paragraph of Mrs Bloxam’s pure and

precious reworking of “The Wizard and the

Hopping Pot” reads:

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Then the little golden pot danced with delight –

hoppitty hoppitty hop! – on its tiny rosy toes! Wee

Willykins had cured all the dollies of their poorly

tum-tums, and the little pot was so happy that it

filled up with sweeties for Wee Willykins and the

dollies!

“But don’t forget to brush your teethy-pegs!” cried

the pot.

And Wee Willykins kissed and huggled the hop-

pitty pot and promised always to help the dollies

and never to be an old grumpy-wumpkins again.

Mrs Bloxam’s tale has met the same response from

generations of wizarding children: uncontrollable

retching, followed by an immediate demand to

have the book taken from them and mashed into

pulp.

eb=

lrkq^fk=lc=

^fo

loqrkb

High on a hill in an enchanted garden, enclosed

by tall walls and protected by strong magic,

flowed the Fountain of Fair Fortune.

Once a year, between the hours of sunrise and

sunset on the longest day, a single unfortunate

was given the chance to fight their way to the

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Fountain, bathe in its waters and receive Fair

Fortune for evermore.

On the appointed day, hundreds of people

travelled from all over the kingdom to reach the

garden walls before dawn. Male and female, rich

and poor, young and old, of magical means and

without, they gathered in the darkness, each

hoping that they would be the one to gain

entrance to the garden.

Three witches, each with her burden of

woe, met on the outskirts of the crowd, and told

one another their sorrows as they waited for

sunrise.

The first, by name Asha, was sick of a malady

no Healer could cure. She hoped that the

Fountain would banish her symptoms and grant

her a long and happy life.

The second, by name Altheda, had been

The Fountain of Fair Fortune

robbed of her home, her gold and her wand

by an evil sorcerer. She hoped that the

Fountain might relieve her of powerlessness and

poverty.

The third, by name Amata, had been deserted

by a man whom she loved dearly, and she

thought her heart would never mend. She hoped

that the Fountain would relieve her of her grief

and longing.

Pitying each other, the three women

agreed that, should the chance befall them, they

would unite and try to reach the Fountain

together.

The sky was rent with the first ray of sun, and

a chink in the wall opened. The crowd surged

forward, each of them shrieking their claim for

the Fountain’s benison. Creepers from the garden

beyond snaked through the pressing mass, and

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

twisted themselves around the first witch, Asha.

She grasped the wrist of the second witch,

Altheda, who seized tight upon the robes of the

third witch, Amata.

And Amata became caught upon the armour

of a dismal-looking knight who was seated on a

bone-thin horse.

The creepers tugged the three witches

through the chink in the wall, and the knight

was dragged off his steed after them.

The furious screams of the disappointed

throng rose upon the morning air, then fell

silent as the garden walls sealed once more.

Asha and Altheda were angry with Amata,

who had accidentally brought along the knight.

“Only one can bathe in the Fountain! It will

be hard enough to decide which of us it will be,

without adding another!”

The Fountain of Fair Fortune

Now, Sir Luckless, as the knight was known

in the land outside the walls, observed that these

were witches, and, having no magic, nor any

great skill at jousting or duelling with swords,

nor anything that distinguished the non-magical

man, was sure that he had no hope of beating the

three women to the Fountain. He therefore

declared his intention of withdrawing outside

the walls again.

At this, Amata became angry too.

“Faint heart!” she chided him. “Draw your

sword, Knight, and help us reach our goal!”

And so the three witches and the forlorn

knight ventured forth into the enchanted

garden, where rare herbs, fruit and flowers grew

in abundance on either side of the sunlit paths.

They met no obstacle until they reached the

foot of the hill on which the Fountain stood.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The Fountain of Fair Fortune

There, however, wrapped around the base of

the hill, was a monstrous white Worm, bloated

and blind. At their approach, it turned a foul

face upon them, and uttered the following

words:

“Pay me the proof of your pain.”

Sir Luckless drew his sword and attempted to

kill the beast, but his blade snapped. Then

Altheda cast rocks at the Worm, while Asha and

Amata essayed every spell that might subdue or

entrance it, but the power of their wands was no

more effective than their friend’s stone, or the

knight’s steel: the Worm would not let them

pass.

The sun rose higher and higher in the sky, and

Asha, despairing, began to weep.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Then the great Worm placed its face upon

hers and drank the tears from her cheeks. Its

thirst assuaged, the Worm slithered aside, and

vanished into a hole in the ground.

Rejoicing at the Worm’s disappearance, the

three witches and the knight began to climb the

hill, sure that they would reach the Fountain

before noon.

Halfway up the steep slope, however, they came

across words cut into the ground before them.

Pay me the fruit of your labours.

Sir Luckless took out his only coin, and placed it

upon the grassy hillside, but it rolled away and

was lost. The three witches and the knight

continued to climb, but though they walked for

The Fountain of Fair Fortune

hours more, they advanced not a step; the

summit came no nearer, and still the inscription

lay in the earth before them.

All were discouraged as the sun rose over their

heads and began to sink towards the far horizon,

but Altheda walked faster and harder than any of

them, and exhorted the others to follow her

example, though she moved no further up the

enchanted hill.

“Courage, friends, and do not yield!” she cried,

wiping the sweat from her brow.

As the drops fell glittering on to the earth, the

inscription blocking their path vanished, and

they found that they were able to move upwards

once more.

Delighted by the removal of this second

obstacle, they hurried towards the summit as

fast as they could, until at last they glimpsed the

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Fountain, glittering like crystal in a bower of

flowers and trees.

Before they could reach it, however, they came

to a stream that ran round the hilltop, barring

their way. In the depths of the clear water lay a

smooth stone bearing the words:

Pay me the treasure of your past.

Sir Luckless attempted to float across the stream

on his shield, but it sank. The three witches

pulled him from the water, then tried to leap the

brook themselves, but it would not let them

cross, and all the while the sun was sinking

lower in the sky.

So they fell to pondering the meaning of

the stone’s message, and Amata was the first

The Fountain of Fair Fortune

to understand. Taking her wand, she drew

from her mind all the memories of happy times

she had spent with her vanished lover, and

dropped them into the rushing waters. The

stream swept them away, and stepping stones

appeared, and the three witches and the knight

were able to pass at last on to the summit of

the hill.

The Fountain shimmered before them, set

amidst herbs and flowers rarer and more beauti-

ful than any they had yet seen. The sky burned

ruby, and it was time to decide which of them

would bathe.

Before they could make their decision,

however, frail Asha fell to the ground. Exhausted

by their struggle to the summit, she was close

to death.

Her three friends would have carried her to

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The Fountain of Fair Fortune

the Fountain, but Asha was in mortal agony and

begged them not to touch her.

Then Altheda hastened to pick all those herbs

she thought most hopeful, and mixed them in

Sir Luckless’s gourd of water, and poured the

potion into Asha’s mouth.

At once, Asha was able to stand. What was

more, all symptoms of her dread malady had

vanished.

“I am cured!” she cried. “I have no need of

the Fountain – let Altheda bathe!”

But Altheda was busy collecting more herbs

in her apron.

“If I can cure this disease, I shall earn gold

aplenty! Let Amata bathe!”

Sir Luckless bowed, and gestured Amata

towards the Fountain, but she shook her head.

The stream had washed away all regret for her

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

lover, and she saw now that he had been cruel

and faithless, and that it was happiness enough

to be rid of him.

“Good sir, you must bathe, as a reward for all

your chivalry!” she told Sir Luckless.

So the knight clanked forth in the last rays of

the setting sun, and bathed in the Fountain of

Fair Fortune, astonished that he was the chosen

one of hundreds and giddy with his incredible

luck.

As the sun fell below the horizon, Sir Luckless

emerged from the waters with the glory of his

triumph upon him, and flung himself in his

rusted armour at the feet of Amata, who was the

kindest and most beautiful woman he had ever

beheld. Flushed with success, he begged for her

hand and her heart, and Amata, no less

The Fountain of Fair Fortune

delighted, realised that she had found a man

worthy of them.

The three witches and the knight set off down

the hill together, arm in arm, and all four led

long and happy lives, and none of them ever

knew or suspected that the Fountain’s waters

carried no enchantment at all.

Albus Dumbledore on

“The Fountain of Fair Fortune”

“The Fountain of Fair Fortune” is a perennial

favourite, so much so that it was the subject of the

sole attempt to introduce a Christmas pantomime

to Hogwarts’ festive celebrations.

Our then Herbology master, Professor Herbert

Beery,

an enthusiastic devotee of amateur dramat-

ics, proposed an adaptation of this well-beloved

children’s tale as a Yuletide treat for staff and stu-

dents. I was then a young Transfiguration teacher,

and Herbert assigned me to “special effects”, which

1 Professor Beery eventually left Hogwarts to teach at W.A.D.A.

(Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts), where, he once confessed to

me, he maintained a strong aversion to mounting performances of this

particular story, believing it to be unlucky.

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

included providing a fully functioning Fountain of

Fair Fortune and a miniature grassy hill, up which

our three heroines and hero would appear to

march, while it sank slowly into the stage and out

of sight.

I think I may say, without vanity, that both my

Fountain and my Hill performed the parts allotted

to them with simple goodwill. Alas, that the same

could not be said of the rest of the cast. Ignoring

for a moment the antics of the gigantic “Worm”

provided by our Care of Magical Creatures teacher,

Professor Silvanus Kettleburn, the human element

proved disastrous to the show. Professor Beery, in

his role of director, had been dangerously oblivious

to the emotional entanglements seething under his

very nose. Little did he know that the students

playing Amata and Sir Luckless had been

boyfriend and girlfriend until one hour before the

curtain rose, at which point “Sir Luckless” trans-

ferred his affections to “Asha”.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Suffice it to say that our seekers after Fair

Fortune never made it to the top of the Hill. The

curtain had barely risen when Professor

Kettleburn’s “Worm” – now revealed to be an

Ashwinder

with an Engorgement Charm upon it

– exploded in a shower of hot sparks and dust,

filling the Great Hall with smoke and fragments of

scenery. While the enormous fiery eggs it had laid

at the foot of my Hill ignited the floorboards,

“Amata” and “Asha” turned upon each other,

duelling so fiercely that Professor Beery was

caught in the crossfire, and staff had to evacuate

the Hall, as the inferno now raging onstage

threatened to engulf the place. The night’s enter-

tainment concluded with a packed hospital wing;

it was several months before the Great Hall lost its

2 See Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for a definitive description of

this curious beast. It ought never to be voluntarily introduced into a

wood-panelled room, nor have an Engorgement Charm placed upon it.

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

pungent aroma of wood smoke, and even longer

before Professor Beery’s head reassumed its normal

proportions, and Professor Kettleburn was taken

off probation.

Headmaster Armando Dippet

imposed a blanket ban on future pantomimes, a

proud non-theatrical tradition that Hogwarts con-

tinues to this day.

Our dramatic fiasco notwithstanding, “The

Fountain of Fair Fortune” is probably the most

popular of Beedle’s tales, although, just like “The

Wizard and the Hopping Pot”, it has its detractors.

More than one parent has demanded the removal

of this particular tale from the Hogwarts library,

3 Professor Kettleburn survived no fewer than sixty-two periods of

probation during his employment as Care of Magical Creatures

teacher. His relations with my predecessor at Hogwarts, Professor Dippet,

were always strained, Professor Dippet considering him to be somewhat

reckless. By the time I became Headmaster, however, Professor

Kettleburn had mellowed considerably, although there were always those

who took the cynical view that with only one and a half of his original

limbs remaining to him, he was forced to take life at a quieter pace.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

including, by coincidence, a descendant of Brutus

Malfoy and one-time member of the Hogwarts

Board of Governors, Mr Lucius Malfoy. Mr Malfoy

submitted his demand for a ban on the story in

writing:

Any work of fiction or non-fiction that depicts

interbreeding between wizards and Muggles should

be banned from the bookshelves of Hogwarts. I do

not wish my son to be influenced into sullying the

purity of his bloodline by reading stories that

promote wizard–Muggle marriage.

My refusal to remove the book from the library

was backed by a majority of the Board of

Governors. I wrote back to Mr Malfoy, explaining

my decision:

So-called pure-blood families maintain their

alleged purity by disowning, banishing or lying

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

about Muggles or Muggle-borns on their family

trees. They then attempt to foist their hypocrisy

upon the rest of us by asking us to ban works

dealing with the truths they deny. There is not a

witch or wizard in existence whose blood has not

mingled with that of Muggles, and I should there-

fore consider it both illogical and immoral to

remove works dealing with the subject from our stu-

dents’ store of knowledge.

This exchange marked the beginning of Mr

Malfoy’s long campaign to have me removed from

my post as Headmaster of Hogwarts, and of mine

to have him removed from his position as Lord

Voldemort’s Favourite Death Eater.

4 My response prompted several further letters from Mr Malfoy, but as they

consisted mainly of opprobrious remarks on my sanity, parentage and

hygiene, their relevance to this commentary is remote.

eb=

^oil`h

^fov

b^oq

There was once a handsome, rich and talented

young warlock, who observed that his friends

grew foolish when they fell in love, gambolling

and preening, losing their appetites and their

dignity. The young warlock resolved never to fall

prey to such weakness, and employed Dark Arts

to ensure his immunity.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Unaware of his secret, the warlock’s family

laughed to see him so aloof and cold.

“All will change,” they prophesied, “when a

maid catches his fancy!”

But the young warlock’s fancy remained

untouched. Though many a maiden was

intrigued by his haughty mien, and employed

her most subtle arts to please him, none suc-

ceeded in touching his heart. The warlock

gloried in his indifference and the sagacity that

had produced it.

The first freshness of youth waned, and the

warlock’s peers began to wed, and then to bring

forth children.

“Their hearts must be husks,” he sneered

inwardly, as he observed the antics of the young

parents around him, “shrivelled by the demands

of these mewling offspring!”

The Warlock’s Hairy Heart

And once again he congratulated himself upon

the wisdom of his early choice.

In due course, the warlock’s aged parents died.

Their son did not mourn them; on the contrary,

he considered himself blessed by their demise.

Now he reigned alone in their castle. Having

transferred his greatest treasure to the deepest

dungeon, he gave himself over to a life of ease

and plenty, his comfort the only aim of his many

servants.

The warlock was sure that he must be an object

of immense envy to all who beheld his splendid

and untroubled solitude. Fierce were his anger

and chagrin, therefore, when he overheard two of

his lackeys discussing their master one day.

The first servant expressed pity for the warlock

who, with all his wealth and power, was yet

beloved by nobody.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

But his companion jeered, asking why a man

with so much gold and a palatial castle to his

name had been unable to attract a wife.

Their words dealt dreadful blows to the

listening warlock’s pride.

He resolved at once to take a wife, and that

she would be a wife superior to all others. She

would possess astounding beauty, exciting envy

and desire in every man who beheld her; she

would spring from magical lineage, so that their

offspring would inherit outstanding magical

gifts; and she would have wealth at least equal

to his own, so that his comfortable existence

would be assured, in spite of additions to his

household.

It might have taken the warlock fifty years to

find such a woman, yet it so happened that

the very day after he decided to seek her, a

The Warlock’s Hairy Heart

maiden answering his every wish arrived in the

neighbourhood to visit her kinsfolk.

She was a witch of prodigious skill and pos-

sessed of much gold. Her beauty was such that it

tugged at the heart of every man who set eyes on

her; of every man, that is, except one. The

warlock’s heart felt nothing at all. Nevertheless,

she was the prize he sought, so he began to pay

her court.

All who noticed the warlock’s change in

manners were amazed, and told the maiden

that she had succeeded where a hundred had

failed.

The young woman herself was both fascinated

and repelled by the warlock’s attentions. She

sensed the coldness that lay behind the warmth

of his flattery, and had never met a man so

strange and remote. Her kinsfolk, however,

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

deemed theirs a most suitable match and,

eager to promote it, accepted the warlock’s

invitation to a great feast in the maiden’s

honour.

The table was laden with silver and

gold bearing the finest wines and most

sumptuous foods. Minstrels strummed on

silk-stringed lutes and sang of a love their

master had never felt. The maiden sat upon a

throne beside the warlock, who spake low,

employing words of tenderness he had stolen

from the poets, without any idea of their true

meaning.

The maiden listened, puzzled, and finally

replied, “You speak well, Warlock, and I would

be delighted by your attentions, if only I

thought you had a heart!”

The warlock smiled, and told her that she

The Warlock’s Hairy Heart

need not fear on that

score. Bidding her follow,

he led her from the feast,

and down to the locked

dungeon where he kept his

greatest treasure.

Here, in an enchanted

crystal casket, was the warlock’s

beating heart.

Long since disconnected from eyes, ears

and fingers, it had never fallen prey to beauty, or

to a musical voice, to the feel of silken skin. The

maiden was terrified by the sight of it, for the

heart was shrunken and covered in long black

hair.

“Oh, what have you done?” she lamented. “Put

it back where it belongs, I beseech you!”

Seeing that this was necessary to please her,

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

the warlock drew his wand, unlocked the crystal

casket, sliced open his own breast and replaced

the hairy heart in the empty cavity it had once

occupied.

“Now you are healed and will know true

love!” cried the maiden, and she embraced

him.

The touch of her soft white arms, the sound of

her breath in his ear, the scent of her heavy gold

hair: all pierced the newly awakened heart like

spears. But it had grown strange during its long

exile, blind and savage in the darkness to which

it had been condemned, and its appetites had

grown powerful and perverse.

The guests at the feast had noticed the absence

of their host and the maiden. At first un-

troubled, they grew anxious as the hours passed,

and finally began to search the castle.

The Warlock’s Hairy Heart

They found the dungeon at last, and a most

dreadful sight awaited them there.

The maiden lay dead upon the floor, her

breast cut open, and beside her crouched the

mad warlock, holding in one bloody hand a

great, smooth, shining scarlet heart, which he

licked and stroked, vowing to exchange it for

his own.

In his other hand, he held his wand, trying to

coax from his own chest the shrivelled, hairy

heart. But the hairy heart was stronger than he

was, and refused to relinquish its hold upon his

senses or to return to the coffin in which it had

been locked for so long.

Before the horror-struck eyes of his guests, the

warlock cast aside his wand, and seized a silver

dagger. Vowing never to be mastered by his own

heart, he hacked it from his chest.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

For one moment, the warlock knelt tri-

umphant, with a heart clutched in each hand;

then he fell across the maiden’s body, and died.

Albus Dumbledore on

“The Warlock’s Hairy Heart”

As we have already seen, Beedle’s first two

tales attracted criticism of their themes of generos-

ity, tolerance and love. “The Warlock’s Hairy

Heart”, however, does not appear to have been

modified or much criticised in the hundreds of

years since it was first written; the story as I even-

tually read it in the original runes was almost

exactly that which my mother had told me. That

said, “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart” is by far the

most gruesome of Beedle’s offerings, and many

parents do not share it with their children

until they think they are old enough not to suffer

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

nightmares.

Why, then, the survival of this grisly tale? I

would argue that “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart”

has survived intact through the centuries because

it speaks to the dark depths in all of us.

It addresses one of the greatest, and least

acknowledged, temptations of magic: the quest for

invulnerability.

Of course, such a quest is nothing more or less

than a foolish fantasy. No man or woman alive,

1 According to her own diary, Beatrix Bloxam never recovered from over-

hearing this story being told by her aunt to her older cousins. “Quite by

accident, my little ear fell against the keyhole. I can only imagine that I

must have been paralysed with horror, for I inadvertently heard the whole

of the disgusting story, not to mention ghastly details of the dreadfully

unsavoury affair of my uncle Nobby, the local hag and a sack of Bouncing

Bulbs. The shock almost killed me; I was in bed for a week, and so deeply

traumatised was I that I developed the habit of sleepwalking back to the

same keyhole every night, until at last my dear papa, with only my best

interests at heart, put a Sticking Charm on my door at bedtime.”

Apparently Beatrix could find no way to make “The Warlock’s Hairy

Heart” suitable for children’s sensitive ears, as she never rewrote it for The

Toadstool Tales.

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

magical or not, has ever escaped some form of

injury, whether physical, mental or emotional. To

hurt is as human as to breathe. Nevertheless, we

wizards seem particularly prone to the idea that we

can bend the nature of existence to our will. The

young warlock

in this story, for instance, decides

that falling in love would adversely affect his

comfort and security. He sees love as a humilia-

tion, a weakness, a drain on a person’s emotional

and material resources.

Of course, the centuries-old trade in love

potions shows that our fictional wizard is

2 [The term “warlock” is a very old one. Although it is sometimes used as

interchangeable with “wizard”, it originally denoted one learned in

duelling and all martial magic. It was also given as a title to wizards who

had performed feats of bravery, rather as Muggles were sometimes

knighted for acts of valour. By calling the young wizard in this story a

warlock, Beedle indicates that he has already been recognised as especially

skilful at offensive magic. These days wizards use “warlock” in one of two

ways: to describe a wizard of unusually fierce appearance, or as a title

denoting particular skill or achievement. Thus, Dumbledore himself was

Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. JKR]

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

hardly alone in seeking to control the unpre-

dictable course of love. The search for a true

love potion

continues to this day, but no such

elixir has yet been created, and leading potioneers

doubt that it is possible.

The hero in this tale, however, is not even inter-

ested in a simulacrum of love that he can create or

destroy at will. He wants to remain for ever

uninfected by what he regards as a kind of sick-

ness, and therefore performs a piece of Dark Magic

that would not be possible outside a storybook: he

locks away his own heart.

The resemblance of this action to the creation of

a Horcrux has been noted by many writers.

Although Beedle’s hero is not seeking to avoid

3 Hector Dagworth-Granger, founder of the Most Extraordinary Society

of Potioneers, explains: “Powerful infatuations can be induced by the

skilful potioneer, but never yet has anyone managed to create the truly

unbreakable, eternal, unconditional attachment that alone can be called

Love.”

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

death, he is dividing what was clearly not meant to

be divided – body and heart, rather than soul –

and in doing so, he is falling foul of the first of

Adalbert Waffling’s Fundamental Laws of Magic:

Tamper with the deepest mysteries – the source of

life, the essence of self – only if prepared for conse-

quences of the most extreme and dangerous kind.

And sure enough, in seeking to become super-

human this foolhardy young man renders himself

inhuman. The heart he has locked away slowly

shrivels and grows hair, symbolising his own

descent to beasthood. He is finally reduced to a

violent animal who takes what he wants by force,

and he dies in a futile attempt to regain what is

now for ever beyond his reach – a human heart.

Though somewhat dated, the expression

“to have a hairy heart” has passed into everyday

wizarding language to describe a cold or unfeeling

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

witch or wizard. My maiden aunt, Honoria, always

alleged that she called off her engagement to a

wizard in the Improper Use of Magic Office

because she discovered in time that “he had a hairy

heart”. (It was rumoured, however, that she actu-

ally discovered him in the act of fondling some

Horklumps,

which she found deeply shocking.)

More recently, the self-help book The Hairy Heart:

A Guide to Wizards Who Won’t Commit

has topped

bestseller lists.

4 Horklumps are pink, bristly mushroom-like creatures. It is very difficult

to see why anyone would want to fondle them. For further information,

see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

5 Not to be confused with Hairy Snout, Human Heart, a heart-rending

account of one man’s struggle with lycanthropy.

^__fqqv

^__fqqv=^ka=

ebo=

^`hifkd=

qrjm

A long time ago, in a far-off land, there lived a

foolish king who decided that he alone should

have the power of magic.

He therefore commanded the head of his army

to form a Brigade of Witch-Hunters, and issued

them with a pack of ferocious black hounds. At

the same time, the King caused proclamations to

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

be read in every village and town across the land:

“Wanted by the King, an Instructor in Magic.”

No true witch or wizard dared volunteer for

the post, for they were all in hiding from the

Brigade of Witch-Hunters.

However, a cunning charlatan with no magical

power saw a chance of enriching himself, and

arrived at the palace, claiming to be a wizard of

enormous skill. The charlatan performed a few

simple tricks, which convinced the foolish King

of his magical powers, and was immediately

appointed Grand Sorcerer in Chief, the King’s

Private Magic Master.

The charlatan bade the King give him a large

sack of gold, so that he might purchase wands

and other magical necessities. He also requested

several large rubies, to be used in the casting of

curative charms, and a silver chalice or two, for

Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump

the storing and maturing of potions. All these

things the foolish King supplied.

The charlatan stowed the treasure safely in his

own house and returned to the palace grounds.

He did not know that he was being watched

by an old woman who lived in a hovel on the

edge of the grounds. Her name was Babbitty,

and she was the washerwoman who kept the

palace linens soft, fragrant and white. Peeping

from behind her drying sheets, Babbitty saw the

charlatan snap two twigs from one of the King’s

trees and disappear into the palace.

The charlatan gave one of the twigs to the

King and assured him that it was a wand of

tremendous power.

“It will only work, however,” said the charla-

tan, “when you are worthy of it.”

Every morning the charlatan and the foolish

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

King walked out into the palace grounds,

where they waved their wands and shouted

nonsense at the sky. The charlatan was careful to

perform more tricks, so that the King remained

convinced of his Grand Sorcerer’s skill, and

of the power of the wands that had cost so

much gold.

One morning, as the charlatan and the foolish

King were twirling their twigs, and hopping in

circles, and chanting meaningless rhymes, a loud

cackling reached the King’s ears. Babbitty the

washerwoman was watching the King and the

charlatan from the window of her tiny cottage,

and was laughing so hard she soon sank out of

sight, too weak to stand.

“I must look most undignified, to make the

old washerwoman laugh so!” said the King. He

ceased his hopping and twig twirling, and

Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump

frowned. “I grow weary of practice! When shall

I be ready to perform real spells in front of my

subjects, Sorcerer?”

The charlatan tried to soothe his pupil,

assuring him that he would soon be capable

of astonishing feats of magic, but Babbitty’s

cackling had stung the foolish King more than

the charlatan knew.

“Tomorrow,” said the King, “we shall invite our

court to watch their King perform magic!”

The charlatan saw that the time had come to

take his treasure and flee.

“Alas, Your Majesty, it is impossible! I had

forgotten to tell Your Majesty that I must set

out on a long journey tomorrow –”

“If you leave this palace without my permis-

sion, Sorcerer, my Brigade of Witch-Hunters

will hunt you down with their hounds!

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Tomorrow morning you will assist me to

perform magic for the benefit of my lords and

ladies, and if anybody laughs at me, I shall have

you beheaded!”

The King stormed back to the palace, leaving

the charlatan alone and afraid. Not all his

cunning could save him now, for he could not

run away, nor could he help the King with

magic that neither of them knew.

Seeking a vent for his fear and his anger, the

charlatan approached the window of Babbitty

the washerwoman. Peering inside, he saw the

little old lady sitting at her table, polishing a

wand. In a corner behind her, the King’s sheets

were washing themselves in a wooden tub.

The charlatan understood at once that

Babbitty was a true witch, and that she who had

given him his awful problem could also solve it.

Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump

“Crone!” roared the charlatan. “Your cackling

has cost me dear! If you fail to help me, I shall

denounce you as a witch, and it will be you who

is torn apart by the King’s hounds!”

Old Babbitty smiled at the charlatan and

assured him that she would do everything in her

power to help.

The charlatan instructed her to conceal herself

inside a bush while the King gave his magical

display, and to perform the King’s spells for him,

without his knowledge. Babbitty agreed to the

plan but asked one question.

“What, sir, if the King attempts a spell

Babbitty cannot perform?”

The charlatan scoffed.

“Your magic is more than equal to that fool’s

imagination,” he assured her, and he retired to

the castle, well pleased with his own cleverness.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The following morning all the lords and ladies

of the kingdom assembled in the palace grounds.

The King climbed on to a stage in front of them,

with the charlatan by his side.

“I shall firstly make this lady’s hat disappear!”

cried the King, pointing his twig at a noble-

woman.

From inside a bush nearby, Babbitty pointed

her wand at the hat and caused it to vanish.

Great was the astonishment and admiration

of the crowd, and loud their applause for the

jubilant King.

“Next, I shall make that horse fly!” cried the

King, pointing his twig at his own steed.

From inside the bush, Babbitty pointed

her wand at the horse and it rose high into

the air.

The crowd was still more thrilled and amazed,

Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

and they roared their appreciation of their

magical King.

“And now,” said the King, looking all around

for an idea; and the Captain of his Brigade of

Witch-Hunters ran forwards.

“Your Majesty,” said the Captain, “this very

morning, Sabre died of eating a poisonous

toadstool! Bring him back to life, Your Majesty,

with your wand!”

And the Captain heaved on to the stage the

lifeless body of the largest of the witch-hunting

hounds.

The foolish King brandished his twig

and pointed it at the dead dog. But inside the

bush, Babbitty smiled, and did not trouble

to lift her wand, for no magic can raise the

dead.

When the dog did not stir, the crowd began

Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump

first to whisper, and then to laugh. They

suspected that the King’s first two feats had

been mere tricks after all.

“Why doesn’t it work?” the King screamed at

the charlatan, who bethought himself of the

only ruse left to him.

“There, Your Majesty, there!” he shouted,

pointing at the bush where Babbitty sat

concealed. “I see her plain, a wicked witch who

is blocking your magic with her own evil

spells! Seize her, somebody, seize her!”

Babbitty fled from the bush, and the Brigade

of Witch-Hunters set off in pursuit, unleashing

their hounds, who bayed for Babbitty’s blood.

But as she reached a low hedge, the little witch

vanished from sight, and when the King, the

charlatan and all the courtiers gained the other

side, they found the pack of witch-hunting

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

hounds barking and scrabbling around a bent

and aged tree.

“She has turned herself into a tree!” screamed

the charlatan and, dreading lest Babbitty turn

back into a woman and denounce him, he added,

“Cut her down, Your Majesty, that is the way to

treat evil witches!”

An axe was brought at once, and the old tree

was felled to loud cheers from the courtiers and

the charlatan.

However, as they were making ready to return

to the palace, the sound of loud cackling stopped

them in their tracks.

“Fools!” cried Babbitty’s voice from the stump

they had left behind.

“No witch or wizard can be killed by being cut

in half! Take the axe, if you do not believe me,

and cut the Grand Sorcerer in two!”

Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump

The Captain of the Brigade of Witch-Hunters

was eager to make the experiment, but as he

raised the axe the charlatan fell to his knees,

screaming for mercy and confessing all his

wickedness. As he was dragged away to the

dungeons, the tree stump cackled more loudly

than ever.

“By cutting a witch in half, you have

unleashed a dreadful curse upon your kingdom!”

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

it told the petrified King. “Henceforth, every

stroke of harm that you inflict upon my fellow

witches and wizards will feel like an axe stroke

in your own side, until you will wish you could

die of it!”

At that, the King fell to his knees too, and

told the stump that he would issue a proclama-

tion at once, protecting all the witches and

wizards of the kingdom, and allowing them to

practise their magic in peace.

“Very good,” said the stump, “but you have not

yet made amends to Babbitty!”

“Anything, anything at all!” cried the foolish

King, wringing his hands before the stump.

“You will erect a statue of Babbitty upon me,

in memory of your poor washerwoman, and to

remind you for ever of your own foolishness!”

said the stump.

Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump

The King agreed to it at once, and promised

to engage the foremost sculptor in the land, and

have the statue made of pure gold. Then the

shamed King and all the noblemen and women

returned to the palace, leaving the tree stump

cackling behind them.

When the grounds were deserted once more,

there wriggled from a hole between the roots

of the tree stump a stout and whiskery old

rabbit with a wand clamped between her

teeth. Babbitty hopped out of the grounds and

far away, and ever after a golden statue of the

washerwoman stood upon the tree stump, and

no witch or wizard was ever persecuted in

the kingdom again.

Albus Dumbledore on

“Babbitty Rabbitty and her

Cackling Stump”

The story of “Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling

Stump” is, in many ways, the most “real” of Beedle’s

tales, in that the magic described in the story

conforms, almost entirely, to known magical

laws.

It was through this story that many of us first

discovered that magic could not bring back the

dead – and a great disappointment and shock it

was, convinced as we had been, as young children,

that our parents would be able to awaken our dead

rats and cats with one wave of their wands.

Though some six centuries have elapsed since

Beedle wrote this tale, and while we have devised

innumerable ways of maintaining the illusion of

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

our loved ones’ continuing presence,

wizards still

have not found a way of reuniting body and soul

once death has occurred. As the eminent wizarding

philosopher Bertrand de Pensées-Profondes writes

in his celebrated work A Study into the Possibility of

Reversing the Actual and Metaphysical Effects of

Natural Death, with Particular Regard to the

Reintegration of Essence and Matter: “Give it up. It’s

never going to happen.”

The tale of Babbitty Rabbitty does, however,

give us one of the earliest literary mentions of an

Animagus, for Babbitty the washerwoman is pos-

sessed of the rare magical ability to transform into

an animal at will.

Animagi make up a small fraction of the

1 [Wizarding photographs and portraits move and (in the case of the latter)

talk just like their subjects. Other rare objects, such as the Mirror of

Erised, may also reveal more than a static image of a lost loved one.

Ghosts are transparent, moving, talking and thinking versions of wizards

and witches who wished, for whatever reason, to remain on earth. JKR]

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

wizarding population. Achieving perfect, sponta-

neous human to animal transformation requires

much study and practice, and many witches and

wizards consider that their time might be better

employed in other ways. Certainly, the application

of such a talent is limited unless one has a great

need of disguise or concealment. It is for this

reason that the Ministry of Magic has insisted

upon a register of Animagi, for there can be

no doubt that this kind of magic is of greatest use

to those engaged in surreptitious, covert or even

criminal activity.

Whether there was ever a washerwoman who

was able to transform into a rabbit is open to

doubt; however, some magical historians have

2 [Professor McGonagall, Headmisrress of Hogwarts, has asked me to make

clear that she became an Animagus merely as a result of her extensive

researches into all fields of Transfiguration, and that she has never used

the ability to turn into a tabby cat for any surreptitious purpose, setting

aside legitimate business on behalf of the Order of the Phoenix where

secrecy and concealment were imperative. JKR]

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

suggested that Beedle modelled Babbitty on the

famous French sorceress Lisette de Lapin, who was

convicted of witchcraft in Paris in 1422. To the

astonishment of her Muggle guards, who were

later tried for helping the witch to escape, Lisette

vanished from her prison cell the night before she

was due to be executed. Although it has never

been proven that Lisette was an Animagus who

managed to squeeze through the bars of her cell

window, a large white rabbit was subsequently

seen crossing the English Channel in a cauldron

with a sail fitted to it, and a similar rabbit later

became a trusted advisor at the court of King

Henry VI.

The King in Beedle’s story is a foolish Muggle

who both covets and fears magic. He believes

that he can become a wizard simply by learning

3 This may have contributed to that Muggle King’s reputation for mental

instability.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

incantations and waving a wand.

He is completely

ignorant of the true nature of magic and wizards,

and therefore swallows the preposterous sugges-

tions of both the charlatan and Babbitty. This is

certainly typical of a particular type of Muggle

thinking: in their ignorance, they are prepared to

accept all sorts of impossibilities about magic,

including the proposition that Babbitty has turned

herself into a tree that can still think and talk. (It

is worth noting at this point, however, that while

Beedle uses the talking-tree device to show us how

4 As intensive studies in the Department of Mysteries demonstrated as far

back as 1672, wizards and witches are born, not created. While the

“rogue” ability to perform magic sometimes appears in those of apparent

non-magical descent (though several later studies have suggested that

there will have been a witch or wizard somewhere on the family tree),

Muggles cannot perform magic. The best - or worst - they could hope

for are random and uncontrollable effects generated by a genuine magical

wand, which, as an instrument through which magic is supposed to be

channelled, sometimes holds residual power that it may discharge at odd

moments – see also the notes on wandlore for “The Tale of the Three

Brothers”.

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

ignorant the Muggle King is, he also asks us to

believe that Babbitty can talk while she is a rabbit.

This might be poetic licence, but I think it more

likely that Beedle had only heard about Animagi,

and never met one, for this is the only liberty that

he takes with magical laws in the story. Animagi

do not retain the power of human speech while in

their animal form, although they keep all their

human thinking and reasoning powers. This, as

every schoolchild knows, is the fundamental

difference between being an Animagus, and

Transfiguring oneself into an animal. In the case

of the latter, one would become the animal

entirely, with the consequence that one would

know no magic, be unaware that one had ever

been a wizard, and would need somebody else to

Transfigure one back to one’s original form.)

I think it possible that in choosing to make his

heroine pretend to turn into a tree, and threaten

the King with pain like an axe stroke in his own

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

side, Beedle was inspired by real magical traditions

and practices. Trees with wand-quality wood have

always been fiercely protected by the wandmakers

who tend them, and cutting down such trees to

steal them risks incurring not only the malice

of the Bowtruckles

usually nesting there, but also

the ill effect of any protective curses placed around

them by their owners. In Beedle’s time, the

Cruciatus Curse had not yet been made illegal by

the Ministry of Magic,

and could have produced

precisely the sensation with which Babbitty

threatens the King.

5 For a full description of these curious little tree-dwellers, see Fantastic

Beasts and Where to Find Them.

6 The Cruciatus, Imperius and Avada Kedavra Curses were first classified as

Unforgivable in 1717, with the strictest penalties attached to their use.

eb=

^ib=lc=qeb=

eobb

olqebop

There were once three brothers who were travel-

ling along a lonely, winding road at twilight. In

time, the brothers reached a river too deep to

wade through and too dangerous to swim across.

However, these brothers were learned in the

magical arts, and so they simply waved their

wands and made a bridge appear across the

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The Tale of the Three Brothers

treacherous water. They were halfway across it

when they found their path blocked by a hooded

figure.

And Death spoke to them. He was angry that

he had been cheated out of three new victims,

for travellers usually drowned in the river. But

Death was cunning. He pretended to congratu-

late the three brothers upon their magic, and

said that each had earned a prize for having been

clever enough to evade him.

So the oldest brother, who was a combative

man, asked for a wand more powerful than any

in existence: a wand that must always win duels

for its owner, a wand worthy of a wizard who

had conquered Death! So Death crossed to an

elder tree on the banks of the river, fashioned a

wand from a branch that hung there, and gave it

to the oldest brother.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

Then the second brother, who was an arrogant

man, decided that he wanted to humiliate Death

still further, and asked for the power to recall

others from Death. So Death picked up a stone

from the riverbank and gave it to the second

brother, and told him that the stone would have

the power to bring back the dead.

And then Death asked the third and youngest

brother what he would like. The youngest

brother was the humblest and also the wisest

of the brothers, and he did not trust Death.

So he asked for something that would enable

him to go forth from that place without

being followed by Death. And Death, most

unwillingly, handed over his own Cloak of

Invisibility.

Then Death stood aside and allowed the three

brothers to continue on their way and they did

The Tale of the Three Brothers

so, talking with wonder of the adventure they

had had, and admiring Death’s gifts.

In due course the brothers separated, each for

his own destination.

The first brother travelled on for a week or

more, and reaching a distant village, he sought

out a fellow wizard with whom he had a quarrel.

Naturally, with the Elder Wand as his weapon,

he could not fail to win the duel that followed.

Leaving his enemy dead upon the floor, the

oldest brother proceeded to an inn, where he

boasted loudly of the powerful wand he had

snatched from Death himself, and of how it

made him invincible.

That very night, another wizard crept upon

the oldest brother as he lay, wine-sodden, upon

his bed. The thief took the wand and, for good

measure, slit the oldest brother’s throat.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

And so Death took the first brother for his

own.

Meanwhile, the second brother journeyed to

his own home, where he lived alone. Here he

took out the stone that had the power to recall

the dead, and turned it thrice in his hand. To his

amazement and his delight, the figure of the girl

he had once hoped to marry before her untimely

death appeared at once before him.

Yet she was silent and cold, separated from

him as though by a veil. Though she had

returned to the mortal world, she did not truly

belong there and suffered. Finally, the second

brother, driven mad with hopeless longing,

killed himself so as truly to join her.

And so Death took the second brother for his

own.

But though Death searched for the third

The Tale of the Three Brothers

brother for many years, he was never able to find

him. It was only when he had attained a great

age that the youngest brother finally took off the

Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son. And

then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went

with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this

life.

Albus Dumbledore on

“The Tale of the Three Brothers”

This story made a profound impression on me as a

boy. I heard it first from my mother, and it soon

became the tale I requested more often than any

other at bedtime. This frequently led to arguments

with my younger brother, Aberforth, whose

favourite story was “Grumble the Grubby Goat”.

The moral of “The Tale of the Three Brothers”

could not be any clearer: human efforts to evade

or overcome death are always doomed to dis-

appointment. The third brother in the story (“the

humblest and also the wisest”) is the only one who

understands that, having narrowly escaped Death

once, the best he can hope for is to postpone their

next meeting for as long as possible. This youngest

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

brother knows that taunting Death – by engaging

in violence, like the first brother, or by meddling

in the shadowy art of necromancy,

like the second

brother - means pitting oneself against a wily

enemy who cannot lose.

The irony is that a curious legend has grown up

around this story, which precisely contradicts the

message of the original. This legend holds that the

gifts Death gives the brothers – an unbeatable

wand, a stone that can bring back the dead, and an

Invisibility Cloak that endures for ever – are

genuine objects that exist in the real world. The

legend goes further: if any person becomes the

rightful owner of all three, then he or she will

become “master of Death”, which has usually been

understood to mean that they will be invulnerable,

even immortal.

1 [Necromancy is the Dark Art of raising the dead. It is a branch of magic

that has never worked, as this story makes clear. JKR]

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

We may smile, a little sadly, at what this tells us

about human nature. The kindest interpretation

would be: “Hope springs eternal”.

In spite of the

fact that, according to Beedle, two of the three

objects are highly dangerous, in spite of the clear

message that Death comes for us all in the end, a

tiny minority of the wizarding community persists

in believing that Beedle was sending them a coded

message, which is the exact reverse of the one set

down in ink, and that they alone are clever enough

to understand it.

Their theory (or perhaps “desperate hope” might

be a more accurate term) is supported by little

actual evidence. True Invisibility Cloaks, though

rare, exist in this world of ours; however, the story

makes it clear that Death’s Cloak is of a uniquely

2 [This quotation demonstrates that Albus Dumbledore was not only

exceptionally well read in wizarding terms, but also that he was familiar

with the writings of Muggle poet Alexander Pope. JKR]

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

durable nature.

Through all the centuries that

have intervened between Beedle’s day and our

own, nobody has ever claimed to have found

Death’s Cloak. This is explained away by true

believers thus: either the third brother’s descen-

dants do not know where their Cloak came from,

or they know and are determined to show their

ancestor’s wisdom by not trumpeting the fact.

Naturally enough, the stone has never been

found, either. As I have already noted in the

commentary for “Babbitty Rabbitty and her

Cackling Stump”, we remain incapable of raising

the dead, and there is every reason to suppose

that this will never happen. Vile substitutions

3 [Invisibility Cloaks are not, generally, infallible. They may rip or grow

opaque with age, of the charms placed upon them may wear off, or be

countered by charms of revealment. This is why witches and wizards

usually turn, in the first instance, to Disillusionment Charms for

self-camouflage or concealment. Albus Dumbledore was known to be able

to perform a Disillusionment Charm so powerful as to render himself

invisible without the need for a Cloak. JKR]

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

have, of course, been attempted by Dark wizards,

who have created Inferi,

but these are ghastly

puppets, not truly reawoken humans. What is

more, Beedle’s story is quite explicit about the fact

that the second brother’s lost love has not really

returned from the dead. She has been sent by

Death to lure the second brother into Death’s

clutches, and is therefore cold, remote, tantalis-

ingly both present and absent.

This leaves us with the wand, and here the

obstinate believers in Beedle’s hidden message

have at least some historical evidence to back up

their wild claims. For it is the case – whether

because they liked to glorify themselves, or to

intimidate possible attackers, or because they truly

believed what they were saying – that wizards

4 [Inferi are corpses reanimated by Dark Magic. JKR]

5 Many critics believe that Beedle was inspired by the Philosopher’s Stone,

which makes the immortality-inducing Elixir of Life, when creating this

stone that can raise the dead.

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

down the ages have claimed to possess a wand

more powerful than the ordinary, even an “unbeat-

able” wand. Some of these wizards have gone so far

as to claim that their wand is made of elder, like

the wand supposedly made by Death. Such wands

have been given many names, among them “the

Wand of Destiny” and “the Deathstick”.

It is hardly surprising that old superstitions

have grown up around our wands, which are, after

all, our most important magical tools and

weapons. Certain wands (and therefore their

owners) are supposed to be incompatible:

When his wand’s oak and hers is holly,

Then to marry would be folly

or to denote flaws in the owner’s character:

Rowan gossips, chestnut drones,

Ash is stubborn, hazel moans.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

100

And sure enough, within this category of unproven

sayings we find:

Wand of elder, never prosper.

Whether because of the fact that Death makes the

fictional wand out of elder in Beedle’s story, or

because power-hungry or violent wizards have per-

sistently claimed that their own wands are made of

elder, it is not a wood that is much favoured

among wandmakers.

The first well-documented mention of a wand

made of elder that had particularly strong and dan-

gerous powers was owned by Emeric, commonly

called “the Evil”, a short-lived but exceptionally

aggressive wizard who terrorised the South of

England in the early Middle Ages. He died as he

had lived, in a ferocious duel with a wizard known

as Egbert. What became of Egbert is unknown,

although the life expectancy of medieval duellers

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

101

was generally short. In the days before there was a

Ministry of Magic to regulate the use of Dark

Magic, duelling was usually fatal.

A full century later, another unpleasant charac-

ter, this time named Godelot, advanced the study

of Dark Magic by writing a collection of danger-

ous spells with the help of a wand he described in

his notebook as “my moste wicked and subtle

friend, with bodie of Ellhorn,

who knowes ways of

magick moste evile”. (Magick Moste Evile became

the title of Godelot’s masterwork.)

As can be seen, Godelot considers his wand to

be a helpmeet, almost an instructor. Those who are

knowledgeable about wandlore

will agree that

wands do indeed absorb the expertise of those who

use them, though this is an unpredictable and

imperfect business; one must consider all kinds of

6 An old name for “elder”.

7 Such as myself.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

102

additional factors, such as the relationship between

the wand and the user, to understand how well it

is likely to perform with any particular individual.

Nevertheless, a hypothetical wand that had passed

through the hands of many Dark wizards would be

likely to have, at the very least, a marked affinity

for the most dangerous kinds of magic.

Most witches and wizards prefer a wand that has

“chosen” them to any kind of second-hand wand,

precisely because the latter is likely to have learned

habits from its previous owner that might not be

compatible with the new user’s style of magic. The

general practice of burying (or burning) the wand

with its owner, once he or she has died, also tends

to prevent any individual wand learning from too

many masters. Believers in the Elder Wand,

however, hold that because of the way in which it

has always passed allegiance between owners – the

next master overcoming the first, usually by

killing him – the Elder Wand has never been

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

103

destroyed or buried, but has survived to accumu-

late wisdom, strength and power far beyond the

ordinary.

Godelot is known to have perished in his own

cellar, where he was locked by his mad son,

Hereward. We must assume that Hereward took

his father’s wand, or the latter would have been

able to escape, but what Hereward did with the

wand after that we cannot be sure. All that is

certain is that a wand called “the Eldrun

Wand” by

its owner, Barnabas Deverill, appeared in the early

eighteenth century, and that Deverill used it to

carve himself out a reputation as a fearsome

warlock, until his reign of terror was ended by the

equally notorious Loxias, who took the wand,

rechristened it “the Deathstick”, and used it to lay

waste to anyone who displeased him. It is difficult

to trace the subsequent history of Loxias’s wand, as

8 Also an old name for “elder”.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

104

many claimed to have finished him off, including

his own mother.

What must strike any intelligent witch or

wizard on studying the so-called history of the

Elder Wand is that every man who claims to have

owned it

has insisted that it is “unbeatable”, when

the known facts of its passage through many

owners’ hands demonstrate that not only has it

been beaten hundreds of times, but that it also

attracts trouble as Grumble the Grubby Goat

attracted flies. Ultimately, the quest for the Elder

Wand merely supports an observation I have

had occasion to make many times over the course

of my long life: that humans have a knack of

choosing precisely those things that are worst for

them.

But which of us would have shown the wisdom

9 No witch has ever claimed to own the Elder Wand. Make of that what

you will.

Professor Dumbledore’s Notes

105

of the third brother, if offered the pick of Death’s

gifts? Wizards and Muggles alike are imbued with

a lust for power; how many would resist “the Wand

of Destiny”? Which human being, having lost

someone they loved, could withstand the tempta-

tion of the Resurrection Stone? Even I, Albus

Dumbledore, would find it easiest to refuse the

Invisibility Cloak; which only goes to show that,

clever as I am, I remain just as big a fool as anyone

else.

HIGH LEVEL GROUP

health, education, welfare.

107

Dear Reader,

Thank you very much for buying this unique and

special book. I wanted to take this opportunity to

explain just how your support will help us to make a

real difference to the lives of so many vulnerable chil-

dren.

More than 1 million children live in large residential

institutions across Europe. Contrary to popular belief,

most of them are not orphans, but are in care because

their families are poor, disabled or from ethnic minori-

ties. Many of these children have disabilities and

handicaps, but often remain without any health or

educational interventions. In some cases they do not

receive life’s basics, such as adequate food. Almost

always they are without human or emotional contact

and stimulation.

To change the lives of institutionalised and margin-

alised children, and try to make sure that no future

generation suffers in this way, J K Rowling and I set up

the Children’s High Level Group (CHLG) charity in

2005. We wanted to give these abandoned children a

voice: to allow their stories to be heard.

CHLG aims to bring an end to the use of large institu-

tions and promote ways that allow children to live with

108

families – their own, foster or national adoptive parents

– or in small group homes.

The campaign helps around a quarter of a million chil-

dren each year. We fund a dedicated, independent child

helpline that provides support and information to hun-

dreds of thousands of children annually. We also run

education activities, including the “Community Action”

project, in which young people from mainstream edu-

cation work with special needs children in institutions;

and “Edelweiss”, which allows young people who are

marginalised and institutionalised to express them-

selves through their creativity and talents. And in

Romania, CHLG has created a national children’s

council to represent the rights of children, and which

allows them to speak out about their own experiences.

But our reach goes only so far. We need funds to

scale up and replicate our work, to reach out into more

countries and help even more children who are in such

desperate need.

CHLG has a unique character amongst non-

governmental organisations in this field, namely

working with governments and state institutions, civil

society, professionals and voluntary organisations, as

well as practical providers of services on the ground.

109

CHLG aims to achieve full implementation of the

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

across Europe and, ultimately, around the world. In

only two years, we have already assisted governments to

develop strategies to prevent the abandonment of

babies in hospitals and to improve the care of children

with disabilities and handicaps, and have developed a

manual of best practice in de-institutionalisation.

We are truly grateful for your support in buying this

book. These vital funds will allow CHLG to continue

our activities, giving hundreds of thousands more chil-

dren the chance of a decent and healthy life.

To find out more about us, and how you can get further

involved, please visit: www.chlg.org.

Thank you,

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne MEP

Co-Chair of CHLG