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May 19 - May 19, 2022
The history of magic is as long as time and as wide as the world. In every culture, in every age, in every place and, probably, in every heart, there is magic.
in the quest to discover magic, practitioners laid the foundations of science.
To become invisible, to make someone fall in love with you, to transform into another creature – these are all things that people have believed in, yearned for or feared throughout history. There’s nothing more magical than a magic charm.
‘Abracadabra’ is probably familiar to us all. But it has more sinister connotations as well. Londoners used to paint it on their doors to ward off the plague in the 17th century.
J.K. Rowling rooted Harry Potter in historical and folkloric traditions and brought it all into the modern world. She created a magic world that co-exists with our own, and specified the careful boundaries and techniques of how its magic worked. Her process was to figure this out visually as much as in the drafts of her writing, making the magic more vivid and real, and allowing us vanishing glimpses into what wizarding life might look like.
It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room — oh yes,’ he said, nodding gravely at Malfoy and Nott, both of whom were smirking sceptically. ‘When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love...’ Professor Slughorn – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
oysters strongly symbolise love.
In the 17th century and beyond, women were often disenfranchised and vulnerable within wider society, along with the disabled and mentally ill. They were easy targets and that’s what we’ve seen in the iconography of witchcraft ever since: the witch with a walking stick is really a vulnerable old woman.
The reasons why family, neighbours and acquaintances were accused have been debated many times over the centuries. Fear and paranoia played their part, but so did financial exploitation. In these close-knit communities, many people were related to each other and an accusation of witchcraft was a convenient way to bypass a line of inheritance. The misogyny of the period ensured a son never accused a father. Accusations of witchcraft were a way for societies to control what they viewed as ‘disruptive’ female behaviour. What often started as an opportunistic way of getting a woman out of the way
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The witches were also notable in this book for riding their brooms the ‘wrong’ way round, with the bristles facing forward. It’s only recently that we’ve seen the bristles facing backwards in illustrations of witches riding broomsticks. The rider looking over the bristles of this domestic item suggested an inversion of power, a world turned upside down, women all-powerful over men. Depicted in this way, they symbolised everything that men then feared.
the ultimate ability to do anything was granted by God.
Snakes have captured the imagination from the moment one slithered down a tree and tempted Eve with an apple. They have been worshipped and feared, sometimes defenders against the dark arts and sometimes instruments of it.
Snakes are mysterious and wonderful. They slither along the ground without limbs and regenerate whenever they shed their skin. They can be horrifying as well, opening their mouths so wide that they can swallow their prey whole. They have symbolised poison and they have represented medicine. In folklore and mythology, they represent the duality between good and evil, light and darkness.
The shedding of the snake’s skin represents rebirth, renewal and regeneration, while the coils of the snake portray the dualism in magic: good and bad, destruction and protection, life and death.
He knew that the greatest defence against Dark Magic was love.
