The Founders

Wemyss has an excellent essay on the Founders’ geographical origins here ( link), placing Godric in the moors of the West Country, Salazar in the Fenlands of East Anglia, Helga as a Viking descendant in Wales, and Rowena as a Saxon whose family ended up in Scotland. I wonder a bit more about Salazar’s origins here ( LJ / DW). But this ( Read more... )

The questions meme from
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Thanks to terri_testing, I've been re-reading Jodel's essay on Wizard/Muggle relations, and a thought shook loose on how wizards might have gone about finding Muggleborns before the Hogwarts Quill came into operation ( Read more... )

I like trying to figure out wizarding history from the few clues we're given, and tying to use real history which seems to fit to fill in some of the gaps ( Read more... )

I was reading this article - Isaac Newton, World's Most Famous Alchemist - when an odd detail caught my eye. It says, "Principe notes that Newton suffered a mental breakdown a year after Boyle’s death [in 1691] and wonders if that episode might have been brought on by mercury poisoning... But Newman thinks that Newton’s breakdown is just as likely ( Read more... )

While looking over my bookshelf, I picked up Lyndal Roper's Witch Craze and leafed through the chapter on the "godless children" of the early 18th century. It struck me that this might fit very well into the history of the Potterverse ( Read more... )

I now have a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard! Only not really, because my mom took it back and wrapped it ( Read more... )

My grandmother sometimes sends me newspaper articles she thinks I'll find interesting. Most recently, she sent me one about the yew tree which mentions Voldemort and his wand at the beginning. It talks about yew's powers of regeneration and near-immortality, its poisonous qualities, its association with graveyards, and its hollowness, all very ( Read more... )