The Complete Idiot's Guide to the World of Harry Potter (9 page)

Fittingly, wizard Kappas are scaly, web-appendaged, monkeylike creatures who strangle anyone going into their body of water. As in Japanese culture, bowing to a Kappa tricks it into draining its strength.

Rats are the gerbils and hamsters of the wizarding world: rodents that are kept as pets. The fact that cats are also a common wizard pet does make for some awkward moments; a rat owner and a cat owner would probably not, for example, start dating. Rat pieces also sometimes make their way into potions (see Chapter 11).

Other wizard pets are what you might expect: rabbits; toads; snails; ravens; and owls. All have long associations with magic, witches, or wizards!

Wizard Re’em are huge, golden oxen whose blood—like that of the unicorn—gives the drinker great strength. However, unlike unicorn blood, Re’em blood will not curse one who drinks it.

The Old Testament refers to the Hebrew
re’em
, which translates to “wild ox,” although it has also been translated as “unicorn” and “rhinoceros.” Either way, this is an animal with a large horn in the center of its forehead.

Sometimes synonymous with “giant,” the troll originated in Scandinavian folklore as a creature who lives in a castle and terrorizes people. In later versions, trolls hang out in (or under) mountains and kidnap young maidens. Later, they camp out under bridges.

In the wizarding world, trolls are reported to live near Poland, and they are somewhat different from giants—shorter, for one, at just twelve feet high—although they do look rather similar. With exceedingly long arms that drag on the floor, wizarding trolls carry clubs that they swing around viciously.

Trolls—especially those that live under bridges—have been lurking in literature for ages. And take a close look at the trolls in both the
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
movie and
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
movie. Same troll? Brothers? Cousins? It’s eerie.

A vampire, or revenant, is a legendary shapeshifter (usually taking the form of a bat) that lives off the blood of humans and, after biting, turns them into vampires as well. According to legend, a vampire can be killed only when a wooden stake is driven into its heart. Long given attention in Gothic tales, the most famous vampire is Bram Stoker’s
Dracula,
which was turned into a movie in 1931. Anne Rice’s more recent novels, along with the
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
movie and TV series, have kept both the legend of and interest in vampires alive.

Although not often mentioned in the wizarding world, vampires do hang out in pubs and associate freely with the wizarding community. They’re not well liked, but they’re not attacked with Holy Water, crosses, and stakes, either.

Wila (also spelled Wili, Willi, and Vila, but always pronounced VEEL-uh) are Slavic and Polish mythological nymphs or water fairies who are stunningly beautiful, with entrancing voices. Their greatest danger is that they seduce men with their beauty, such that men forget to eat, drink, and sleep. Although they appear human, they are not, and they can turn vicious in a moment.

Beautiful women who cause men to forget themselves, and then turn vicious. Hmmm. These tales smack of sour grapes on the part of men who have loved beautiful women and been rebuffed, but the presence of these fairies persists in legend and folklore.

Wizarding veelas are strikingly similar; they dance and sing as a means of entrancing men, but can turn hideous when provoked.

The yeti, also known as the Abominable Snowman, is a twentieth-century legend of a Tibetan creature that appears to be part man, part beast and leaves large footprints in the snow. Yeti sightings were common in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. The creature is described as being covered with white hair and standing twice as tall as most humans. Pictures of this creature nearly always show him running, and such pictures have graced many a tabloid cover.

Wizards believe that the yeti is actually a troll, or at least is a close relative to the common troll.

The creatures in this section spring from the creative genius of J.K. Rowling. Although similar creatures may exist in literature, these creatures do not exist in this form and with these names in any other writings or traditions. Where appropriate, however, the possible origins of the names are discussed.

Acromantulas are enormous spiders, nearly identical in description to Tolkien’s Shelob the Great (in
The Two Towers
), a giant spider who drinks the blood of men and other creatures to keep her huge body fed. In the wizarding world, not just one but an entire population of such spiders exists in colonies, including in the Forbidden Forest. Their venom is valuable, but Acromantulas are difficult to kill and usually eat their dead, so the venom is nearly impossible to procure.

The origins of this word are debatable. The prefix
acro
(from the Greek
akros,
meaning point or top) means highest, thus alluding to the size of these spiders.
Mantula,
however, is not a known word, although many have postulated that it is derived from
tarantula
. However, just as likely, the name originated with a British sports car company, Marcos, which made, among other models, both the Mantula and the Spider. Both models were popular about the time Rowling was coming of age in Great Britain.

Bowtruckles are creatures who live in wizard wand-trees (see Chapter 3) and guard them fiercely, poking out the eyes of anyone who tries to take the wood from their trees without permission. They, therefore, protect the trees, a role of historical importance in Celtic mythology, when trees were considered sacred. Bowtruckles are the environmental activists of the wizarding world, the equivalent of someone building and living in a tree house for a few years to keep a development company from bulldozing a wooded or forested area.

Bow
likely comes from the Old English
bur,
meaning dwelling place and from which the word
bough
is derived. (A
bower
is an enclosure made of boughs or vines.)
Truckle
is from the Middle English
trocle,
which has come to have a meaning of servility or submission. Hence, “servant of the boughs.”

Dementors are unique to the wizarding world: they are the prison guards at Azkaban who quite literally suck the happiness right out of people just by their mere presence. And their Kiss is even worse: most people, devoid of hope and peace, die soon after such a Kiss. See Chapter 15 for more on dementors and Azkaban prison.

Dementors are described very much like the Grim Reaper: a cloaked and hooded skeletal figure that seems to almost glide along. With such a description, they also call to mind Tolkien’s ringwraiths, who are skeletal ghosts of men, too tormented to die, but still able to kill others and hunt down the One Ring that holds their power. The roles of the ringwraiths and dementors are quite different, however, as the ringwraiths live with the hope of returning to glory via the recapture of the Ring; dementors have no such goal and guard Azkaban because it gives them fresh resources (happiness, hope, and peace) to suck out and live on.

The Diricawl, although a minor wizarding creature, bears mention in this chapter because of its unique explanation of what Muggles call “extinction.” The Diricawl is, in fact, the same creature as the dodo bird, which Muggles believe no longer exists, hunted as it was in its prime. What Muggles fail to realize is that the dodo/Diricawl is actually a magical bird that can disappear at will. It isn’t extinct, but rather, hiding undercover for a while.

Doxies (also called Biting Fairies) have fairylike little bodies and wings, with an extra pair of arms, but there’s nothing cute about them: they’re fuzzy, with thick, dark hair and they lash out with poisonous bites. They hide out in curtains and must be disposed of with Doxycide (see Chapter 11).

From the Latin
inferi,
meaning “the dead,” Inferi (the plural of Inferius) are corpses that Dark Wizards have placed under a spell and used as part of an army. These are not creatures who have been brought back to life or given the ability to think or choose, but instead are used as a shield and a means of frightening the bejesus out of wizards. Inferi are somewhat similar to the bodies in the Dead Marshes in Tolkien’s
The Two Towers,
who look to be dead people with their eyes open, but humans who are alive are strangely drawn to them and can join them, if they’re not careful.

Inferi is, along with Hades, the name given to the underworld in Roman mythology. The gods of the underworld were known as Inferi Dii.

The Jobberknoll is a small, unusual bird that is barely noticed throughout its life but, upon its death, regurgitates, in backward order, every sound it has ever heard, in a high-pitched scream. The name may be literal, in that a “jobber” is a middle man, and, in a sense, this bird acts as a middleman for all that it hears in its life, taking in all the sounds and letting them all out again later. (A “knoll” is a small hill.) On the other hand, the name may simply be a tribute to Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwock, the monster of his poem “Jabberwocky.”

The Kneazle is a magical creature much like a cat, but with the tail of a lion. Kneazles are fiercely independent and intelligent, with the bonus of having a natural radar for devious behavior in wizards. Because they can be dangerous, wizard owners must be licensed to own a Kneazle.

The Lethifold (or Living Shroud) is a deadly magical creature resembling a black cloak that floats along the ground. No, really—it’s one of the scariest things ever invented! As if a wizard, vampire, or other such creature
wearing
a black cloak wouldn’t be scary enough, a Lethifold is just the cloak, but it’s deadly. It surrounds you, suffocates you, and then feasts on you. It’s repelled by a Patronus Charm, but you have to be alert enough to use it before you’re suffocated. Thankfully, this creature is rumored to exist only near the Equator.

The word Lethifold likely derives from lethal (meaning deadly) and fold (that thing you do when you put your clothes in a drawer). Lethe is also the river of forgetfulness that flowed through Hades—if you drink this water, you lose your memory.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the everyday lives of wizards is in this part. Here, you get the lowdown on basic wizard tools: wands, robes, quills, and other magical gadgetry. You also find out how wizards spend their days—from cooking and gardening to sending mail, getting around town, and playing games and sports, including Quidditch, wizard chess, and Gobstones. And don’t forget to read a bit about wizard and British cuisine!