J K Rowling - [Harry Potter Specials 03]

by The Tales of Beedle the Bard (v4. 0) (epub)

  THE TALE OF THE

  THREE BROTHERS

  There were once three brothers who were traveling 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 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 travelers usually drowned in the river. But Death was cunning. He pretended to congratulate 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.

  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 so, talking with wonder of the adventure they had had, and admiring Deaths gifts.

  In due course the brothers separated, each for his own destination.

  The first brother traveled on for a week or more, and reaching a distant village, 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 brothers throat.

  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 sad and cold, separated from him as 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 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 favorite 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 disappointment. 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 brother knows that taunting Death — by engaging in violence, like the first brother, or by meddling in the shadowy art of necromancy,20 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 forever — 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.

  We may smile, a little sadly, at what this tells us about human nature. The kindest interpretation would be: “Hope springs eternal.”21 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 Deaths Cloak is of a uniquely durable nature.22 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 descendants 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 have, of course, been attempted by Dark wizards, who have created Inferi,23 but these are ghastly puppets, not truly reawakened 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, tantalizingly both present and absent.24

  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 down the ages have claimed to possess a wand more powerful than the ordinary, even an “unbeatable” 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.

  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 h
ave persistently claimed that their own wands are made of elder, it is not a wood that is much favored among wandmakers.

  The first well-documented mention of a wand made of elder that had particularly strong and dangerous powers was owned by Emeric, commonly called “the Evil,” a short-lived but exceptionally aggressive wizard who terrorized 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 duelers was generally short. In the days before there was a Ministry of Magic to regulate the use of Dark Magic, dueling was usually fatal.

  A full century later, another unpleasant character, this time named Godelot, advanced the study of Dark Magic by writing a collection of dangerous spells with the help of a wand he described in his notebook as “my moste wicked and subtle friend, with bodie of ellhorn,25 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 wandlore26 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 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 secondhand 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 destroyed or buried, but has survived to accumulate 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 “Eldrun27 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 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 it28 has insisted that it is “unbeatable,” when the known facts of its passage through many owners’ hands demonstrate that has it not only 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 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 temptation 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.

  ABOUT THE CHILDREN’S

  HIGH LEVEL GROUP

  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 children.

  More than one 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 minorities. 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 institutionalized and marginalized 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.

  The CHLG aims to bring an end to the use of large institutions and promote ways that allow children to live with families — their own, foster, or national adoptive parents — or in small group homes.

  The campaign helps around a quarter of a million children each year. We fund a dedicated, independent, child help line that provides support and information to hundreds of thousands of children annually. We also run education activities, including the “Community Action” project in which young people from mainstream education work with special-needs children in institutions; and “Edelweiss,” which allows young people who are marginalized and institutionalized to express themselves through their creativity and talents. And in Romania, the 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 nongovernmental organizations in this field, namely working with governments and state institutions, civil society (not-for-profit and volunteer organizations, faith groups, child advocacy groups, and lobbyists), professionals, and practical providers of services at a grassroots level.

  CHLG aims to achieve full implementation of the UN 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 deinstitutionalization.

  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 children 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

  This book was edited by Arthur A. Levine and art directed by David Saylor. The art for the cover was created using pastels on toned printmaking paper. The art for the interiors was created using pen and ink on paper. The book was designed by Elizabeth B. Parisi and typeset by Brad Walrod. The text was set in Adobe Garamond Pro. The hook was printed and bound at Quebecor World in Martinsburg, West Virginia. The Managing Editor was Karyn Browne; the Continuity Editor was Cheryl Klein; and the Manufacturing Director was Meryl Wolfe.

  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-ti
me, 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.

  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

  4 [Non-British Muggles may be unfamiliar with the British tradition of plays presented at Christmastime, usually based on fairy tales and including music, comical characters, and audience participation (though not, generally, of the vigorous type described here). —JKR]

  5 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.

  6 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-paneled room, nor have an Engorgement Charm placed upon it.

  7 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.