After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Harry Potter Monsters: The Ancient Origins

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

***Spoiler Alert: this episode contains spoilers for the Harry Potter books and films***Giant snakes, winged horses and hooded demons. The world of Harry Potter is full of bizarre and terrifying beasts... but what are the origins of these mythical creatures? To discuss this, Anthony and Maddy met with Ceri Houlbrook, folklorist and lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire.Produced and edited by Tom Delargy. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/ You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hello and welcome to After Dark. Now this week we need you to go through the sorting process at Hogwarts because today we are going to be learning all about the monsters and mayhem of creatures that infiltrate the magical world of Harry Potter. The island is shrouded in darkness, its jagged cliffs battered relentlessly by the raging storm. Amid the tempest, the imposing jail fortress of Azkaban stands tall, its towering walls a testament to the despair that lies within. Inside the fortress, a prisoner huddles in the corner of his cell, his thin robes offering little warmth. A bone-chilling cold creeps into the cell. He knows only too well what this means. A visit from one of Azkaban's guards. His cell door opens with a long creak, and in the doorway is the unmistakable

shape of a Dementor. The prisoner's heart pounds with fear, his breaths shallow and ragged as the Dementor draws closer. The creature stops, towering above its prey. It pauses, then reaches up with a decaying, skeletal hand and lowers its hood. At this moment, all hope flees from the prisoner's heart, replaced by a numbing despair and the embrace of the Dementor's kiss. Hello and welcome to After Dark. My name is Anthony. And I'm Maddie. And today joining us in After Dark Towers is Kerry Holbrook, who is our guest. Now, Kerry lectures in folklore and history at the University of Hertfordshire, and they have an incredible MA on folklore there. So this is right up our street in

After Dark, as well as for this particular episode. And Kerry's debut novel, Winter's Wishful, was published last October. Now, if you're joining us on YouTube, you will be able to see that there's a fourth person. I think this is the first time there's been a fourth person in the After Dark studios. And we also have Tom, producer Tom, who is here with us today in After Dark Towers. He's usually sitting in the other room watching, making sure that we're not doing anything ridiculous or he's editing out all our mistakes. But today he has joined us in the studio and Tom is a committed Potterhead. This is what it says in my notes, Tom, so I'm just going to say it. That is my official job title.

And he has also produced this episode. So apparently, and the three of us, myself, Kerry and Tom, do not know what this is maddie has some secret information and we are kicking off with uh my blood is running cold we are kicking off with a quiz okay okay let's brace ourselves we're about to find out let you know if how do how do we answer like we don't have buzzers um i was gonna say raise your hand but this is primarily a podcast. We'll say our names. Shout your name out.

Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Okay, so this is a quiz about Harry Potter. We're going to find out who is a real fan, who is not. So I'm looking at you. I've read all the books, but it's been a while. Okay, okay. Okay, right.

Question number one. okay right question number one what kind of creature has eight eyes eight legs with a span of up to 15 feet and highly toxic venom worth 100 galleons a pint in 1996 tom is immediately in there okay tom shut your own name why not it's an acromantula it is it is a big spider i don't know yeah i know but you need to give the proper things i'll give you half a point no i can't don't give me if you can name the big spider in harry potter um hagrid likes him and he takes pity on him oh no i'm never gonna remember what what is it tom it's aragog very Very good it is. That's yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, moving on. Question number two. What kind of dragon is Norbert?

Tom. Tom is on it again. Tom, go on. This is how this quiz is going. Okay, Tom. Okay. Is it a Norwegian Ridgeback? That is correct.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Another point to Tom. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah. Okay, next question. What creature attacked Fleur de Lacour during the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, described as a small horned water demon? I'm out on this one.

I have no idea. Carrie? Go for it. Is it a Grindylow? It is. Point to Carrie. Well done. I told you I'm losing.

Have you read these books? I have. I have a terrible memory, though. Okay. Which animal's egg do you need to create a basilisk? Tom? Oh, no! Guess who didn't try it?

Okay, I feel that Terry was slightly... Terry! Terry was the amalgamation of both. Kerry was slightly quicker there, I'm afraid. Kerry, go on. A rooster? I've got a chicken. A rooster. It's pretty close. Tom, what were you gonna say? I was gonna got a chicken oh okay it's pretty close Tom what were you going to say I was going to say

chicken oh yeah you can share the point you can share the point it's just a chicken's egg though wait what came first the chicken

or the muffalus okay hold on no let's not delve too much into this okay go don't question the magic okay final question

which magical beast lures travellers off their paths at night into treacherous bogs and wetlands ah here see this is making me think

of Lord of the Rings when the hobbits and Gollum I can't remember that either oh god right we have some reading to do we need to have a

Spice Girls quiz someday somebody I'll get all of those questions but anyway sorry read that question again not that I know the answer

which magical beast lures travelers off their paths at night into treacherous bogs and wetlands I've wanted JK Rowling no

okay no sorry shots fire I guessed Tom Tom go on I really don't is it like a red cap

or a hinky punk or something it is a hinky punk shut up a hinky encyclopedic knowledge absolutely i have no idea what it looks like i've just heard it i remember nice nice and there concludes the harry potter quiz can we get a blitz tally oh she wasn't keeping score i think on minus 1000 is dr anth Anthony Delaney. Thank you, that PhD and Harry Potter. Quickly, I think second place, we're probably saying Kerry.

Yeah, I think, yeah, yeah. And I think, no surprises, Tom, our resident Potterhead, has won the quiz. Well done. It was set up, it was fixed. Thank you. Get out, Tom. Get out.

I mean that in the nicest way possible. Tom needs to go back to producing now okay okay so let's talk about some of these animals these creatures these monsters that we've had a little bit of hint of in the quiz um we're joined by kerry holbrook kerry welcome to after dark thank you very much for having me on you're very well sorry i did so badly in the quiz. We're joined by Kerry Holbrook. Kerry, welcome to After Dark. Thank you very much for having me on. You're very welcome. Sorry I did so badly in that quiz. Really, really let the side down. Yeah, I feel like.

Oh, wait, wait, Tom's on the history hit side. So Tom didn't let the side down. Anyway, look, this is good because now I get to brush up on the things I do nothing about. So Kerry, before we get into some of these monsters, I'm so fascinated by the fact that you lecture in folklore amongst many other things. That seems like a rare thing to teach at a UK university. Is there growing interest in this in higher education? There is growing interest, actually. So it is the only one in England.

There's some in Scotland and Wales and Ireland. And it's interesting because folklore is essentially an English creation in terms of the term. some in Scotland and Wales and Ireland. And it's interesting because folklore is essentially an English creation in terms of the term. English scholars have been studying folklore for 100 years. And it just feels like now is a really good time to be interested in it because suddenly kind of heritage places and writers and movie makers are all interested in folklore and magic and monsters. And and podcasts and podcasts yeah can i ask is it being fed do you think that interest being fed by things like harry potter

has that because that generation is now in their 20s 30s okay they've probably gone through uni the first cycle but they're still coming up do you think these type of books have really informed interest in that i think so because every year we have students who love Harry Potter. Normally have quite a big debate. There are some who hate Harry Potter and then some who absolutely love it. But it's definitely still on people's radar and it's definitely informing children's knowledge of magic and creatures. So, yeah. What's your relationship to Harry Potter, Kerry?

I'm his cousin. You know him personally. I devoured it when I was a child. Absolutely loved it. So it definitely informed my interest. And now I have a little boy who loves it. So, yeah, I'm still, I wouldn't say I'm nowhere near as good as Tom. I don't know it inside out.

That might not be a bad thing. But, yeah, no, I enjoy the magical world that's created. Definitely. Yeah, absolutely. So let's dive a little bit deeper into that. So in the narrative at the beginning of this episode, we heard about the Dementors at Azkaban. Now, I have always assumed that they have some kind of folkloric origin, some roots in other stories beyond Harry Potter, but they are actually an invention of J.K. Rowling. Is that right? Yeah. So some of the creatures come from folklore directly and some are inventions. The Dementors are interesting because they are drawing on imagery from folklore and myth, but they are a J.K. Rowling invention.

And I think that she's been quite upfront about them representing a time when she was depressed. And she used those feelings and the effects of depression to create these creatures, which are essentially a combination of the terms tormenta and dement. So already the terminology represents something quite dark. But in terms of where they've come from in the imagination, there are so many folkloric creatures who are dark, shrouded in darkness, suck the life, suck the soul out of people. Some are quite specific. So Native American Choctaws have the Impa Shaloop, who are dark cloaked beings who come and suck the life out of anybody who's feeling depressed.

So actually quite resonates there. But then you have vampires, succubus, all these supernatural creatures who just suck the life energy out of people. So yeah, there is a lot of history in folklore that she's drawing on in the creation. Can I just ask, is that unusual in terms of the formation of a folkloric trope in that we have such a personal connection to the author there about their own experiences of depression and that translating then into the novel? I would imagine that given the kind of deep roots of folklore, it's very difficult to pinpoint another folkloric invention to such a specific person and emotion yeah it's interesting that we can really make that link explicitly and because the author the creator of that creature has told us for the vast majority of folkloric creatures we have no idea of the origins and we've stopped trying yes yeah it's really fascinating to have i mean i know that it's a fictional creation but it has entered folklore so yeah yeah you talk about kerry about

vampires and sucky buses and this idea of sucking someone's soul or their energy their happiness out of them but with the dementors it's specifically a kiss and in the the films and indeed in the book the sort of mouth of the dementor is this thing that's shrouded and kept hidden until the last moment what do you think is going on there in terms of the kiss? Is that something that we see elsewhere? Can we compare it to something like a vampire sucking blood from someone's neck, say, or someone's wrist? Is it a similar idea?

There's something about human mouths or the mouths of animals. Is there any resonance there? Yeah, I think the mouth is really connected to soul eaters in folklore. The succubus kisses and sucks the energy and the life source out of the victim through the kiss. So yeah, I do wonder whether that was partly her inspiration. Yeah, and it seems so unsympathetic, these creatures in the context of the Harry Potter story, that they are kissing people who are condemned to die or rather condemned to lose their soul, let's say, prisoners, people who've supposedly committed crimes. And there's something so intimate about

a kiss in most cultures across the globe and a sort of a kindness associated with that. And it's the sort of inverse here, which I find fascinating. It's reminding me as well that when we speak about those kind of early days of the author starting out on the journey of writing these books we know that there is links to domestic violence we know that there's links to people men specifically coming into a space where they belittle and they take away and they cost you something and to a certain extent sure metaphorically but a life to a certain extent and that kiss that intimacy that proximity to the person and then the cause of course being a depression or a depressive feeling is also a very human thing as well that people can occupy these spaces you know yeah it's very personal it's very human it's very intimate

and yeah to turn it around into something that's so threatening yeah maybe we can see another link there to the author and i also think it's interesting the way you tackle a dementor is with a happy memory so drawing on the happy memory um and chocolate yeah so yeah is that really a thing chocolate in, in the books? After you've kind of encountered a Dementor, having a bit of chocolate helps to recover. Professor Lupin gives Harry chocolate when he passes out after being saved from a Dementor.

I wish I could remember, but yes, hold on. There we go. Right, but that's really human in its... And silly, right? It's a kind of silliness, and that may be as well, thinking about J.K. Rowling's obvious inheritances from other children's literature. Think of something like Willy Wonka or a Roald Dahl story where chocolate is fun. It's silly. It's a form of rebellion against

an oppressive outside world. That's so interesting. Let's move on now and talk about another creature from the books. I want to talk about Thestrals. Now, Kerry, can you just give us an idea of what this creature looks like? We do have a picture that I'm going to make Anthony describe, but can you just give us a sense of what these are, how they operate in the Harry Potter world? Yep. So these are another rolling invention, and they are horse-like creatures that are only visible to people who've witnessed death. By that, is the distinction witness somebody at the point of life leaving them or seen a body? That's an interesting question, actually.

Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, yeah. I would say, I'm trying to think of the characters who can see them, and I would say they've all witnessed deaths. The point of? The point of death, I would say, rather than witnessed deaths the point of point of death i would say okay rather than a body potentially you want me to describe this thing yeah before we get into them describe so this this is a piece of fan art that we've got tom's very kindly dug this up for us so i recognize it from the film so essentially the basis is a horse but skeletal there is probably

flesh on there but it's essentially bone and sinew and you know it's not a fleshy horse it has like the tail of a big cat almost it's quite whip like i say it's horse like and it is but the face the head is slightly distorted into something that's even more angular seems to have even little horns although they might be ears on top of the head and then of course the striking thing is these huge dragon-like wings that have the thumb of a claw sticking out from one of the wings it's like bat wings for all intents and purposes just huge i didn't realize that she invented these as well i think i knew about the dementors but this is in some ways these are so visually striking mind you the dementors are too and they do seem to sit in the same world but they're actually quite different from what i remember right these aren't

purely bad no no because they're connected with death in that they're only visible to someone who's witnessed it they're seen as kind of bad omens but really it's just how they are and i think that hagrid makes that distinction that, you know, they have a bad reputation, even though they're carnivorous, which is a distinction with horses. Yeah, they're not bad creatures. One thing that has always fascinated me about these, and I found Thestrals to be the most moving part of the books, actually, even when I was little reading them, they really fascinated me because I think the idea that you can only see them and interact with them if you have had an experience that's changed you in some way you have to have witnessed as we say I think it's the point of death someone close to you dying in order to see them that it seems

remarkable and I'm wondering if that's a trope in wider folklore again this idea of only being able to access certain creatures or certain worlds, certain portals, certain layers of reality, if you've had an experience that's changed you? Is she drawing on a broader idea there? I'm not aware of one that's like that. In a lot of cases, folkloric creatures are only witnessed if they want to be. So they might appear to you, but they might not appear to anybody else. And it might be about kind of how you treat them if you treat them well or if you treat them badly but i can't think of any another example where it's someone's had a life-changing experience so suddenly they can see um these creatures so i may be wrong but that may be another rolling invention and it talks as well

to that kind of almost dichotomy in the books, I guess, where there's this sort of magical world of the magical practice, magic that you can learn, magic that you can perform, that you get to do in school, that you can be taught. And then there's a sort of other layer of magic, which is almost life and death. I'm thinking about the protection that Lily affords Harry by dying to protect him, or the fact that you can only see the Thestrals if you've witnessed death it's a sort of a magic that you can only access through experience or through the most extreme moments of living and dying not through anything that you can practice and I've always found that interesting about the books that there's these two almost separate worlds of magic

that obviously overlap in terms of how Rowling tells the story but I think to me that feels like her nod to a more ancient kind of magic that she's maybe drawing on in those stories and a sort of foundation for the novels in a way. Speaking of that foundation and those kind of ancient origins is there you spoke about Dementors having kind of an amalgam of names that we can draw meaning from. Is it the same with Thestral, or is that just totally invented and has no real meaning behind it? Well, there are lots of deaf horses in folklore and myth.

So lots of horses that if you see them, then they might foretell death, or horses that are the only things able to see malevolent spirits. And they're also used in a lot of world mythologies as the transporters. So they take someone to the afterlife. They take someone to the underworld. So they are kind of heavily associated with death. And then obviously you have Pegasus, the Greek horse with the wings. So that's probably where the inspiration for the winged horse came

from but obviously very very different in terms of the word it just sounds like kestrel and they are quite bird-like yeah right i mean you described in that picture anthony the the face is sort of distorted and it is bird-like they have a i imagine that they would weigh nothing like a bird of prey that they'd have hollow bones they feel like that yeah substance to me so i think in terms of when we meet the thestrals in the first books at least we have the perspective of the rest of the hogwarts students and not harry in that we get this sense of the characters being pulled by nothing and it's only as we go deeper into the story and the experiences of some of the characters that we realize that some can see them i think you were a bigger harry potter fan than i this is old knowledge coming up

book three i'd be like i don't even remember what book three was i liked them when i read them book three was my first introduction to harry potter i'd poo-pooed it because i was a lord of the rings girl my dad had lord of the rings to me when i was in school and i was like i'm lord of the rings none of this new harry potter rubbish and then picked up the third one and was like oh this is actually you started with the third one started with the third one and then obviously had to go back and i was like what is going on yeah yeah that makes me anxious that's all out of order okay so we've we've talked about thestrals and their connection to death let's move on now to i think it's fair to say a creature that has a little bit more of a

foundation in mythology beyond the Harry Potter world, and that's the Hippogriff. Okay, so this is an extract from the third book, Anthony, The Prisoner of Azkaban. Okay. Actually, Maddy, it's from chapter six, called Talons and Tea Leaves. Oh, you've remembered that off the top of your head, have you? Off the top of my head, it's definitely not in my notes right now. It's definitely not right in front of us. Okay. Oh, you've remembered that off the top of your head, Harry? Off the top of my head. It's definitely not on my notes right in front of me.

It's definitely not right in front of us. Okay. Trotting toward them were a dozen of the most bizarre creatures Harry had ever seen. They had the bodies, hind legs, and the tails of horses, but the front legs, wings, and heads of what seemed to be giant eagles with cruel steel-coloured beaks and large, brilliantly orange eyes. The talons on their front legs were half a foot long and deadly looking. So Kerry, these are not necessarily friendly, fluffy creatures, are they? No, they're dangerous if they want to be. But Hagrid has a big soft spot for them, for one in particular, Bookbeak, who is a character in himself really

and i guess they're like most wild animals that you know you've got to be respectful and they can turn and they can do a lot of damage if they decide to but as long as you treat them well then they will treat you well and i love that again it's about bringing something of yourself to the interaction with the magical creature a little bit like the thestrals where it represents the access that you have to them is all about the experience that you've had in your own life and here you have to bring a sense of as you say respect and calm to these creatures so the combination of a horse an eagle a griffin so what is a not a hippopotamus i'm sad that there's not a hippopotamus in there i don't even know what that would look like i don't know what any of these look like

apart from the pictures so the term hippogriff comes from the 16th century um so an italian poet kind of created the creature hippogriff for a poem as a very fast-flying creature who was born of a mare, a horse, and a griffin. So the griffin has a long history. It goes back to classical times. Pliny the Elder wrote about them as the head of an eagle but the body of a lion. So apparently one of these griffins mated with a horse, quite impossibly. Why not? And you get the hippogriff.

So believed to be able to fly very, very fast, fly around the world. Some very, very early versions describe it as flying to the moon. So yeah, they've got a solid basis in folklore and myth. So in terms of belief, when it comes to folklore, and I think it's important to establish that folklore has always had a folkloric place in people's mindset. And by that, I mean, people haven't always necessarily believed in these things. They've always occupied a storytelling function. Nonetheless, you mentioned, was it the 17th century or 16th century? 16th. 16th century for the Hippogriff. Was there any belief system there around that, that this could have actually been an actual creature, or did it solely ground itself in storytelling and myth building? I think probably by then it was more about storytelling.

But when the classical writers were describing them, they were talking about unfamiliar creatures from distant lands. So there probably was belief, and we'll probably come back to this with the basilisk, these creatures that they've never encountered before, and they describe them in a certain way that becomes quite fantastical. So yeah, there will be belief that these creatures just lived a different continent somewhere. And does their function, thinking specifically about the hippogriff, does its function change from the ancient world through the medieval world, maybe into the early modern world in terms of certainly the image of it, if not the story as

well. Is it changing how people interact with it? Does it have the same adventures, the same function? Do people hunt it and kill it? Do they respect it like they do in Harry Potter? What is it for? How does it appear in people's stories? In the 16th century, when the hippogriff was first invented from the griffin, it was really used as a steed, something to ride, something to tame, something to capture, and something that could help you become a hero, a lot like Pegasus in Greek mythology. When the classical writers were writing about griffins and things like that,

it was more, here's a description of a mysterious creature that some sailors spotted on a distant land. So it's not about human encounters. But yeah, certainly while you go through the medieval period and into the present, it becomes much more about how humans interact, how they can use them. And I know that Bookbeak is respected and there's a lot of affection for him, but essentially he is used for writing. And he's tamed by harry in particular um you know he attacks malfoy harry's nemesis and there's a sense that harry is worthy of the relationship with book beak because he's able to bring that respect and to tame him that way and then later on uses him

to ride and to help his uncle escape that's fascinating, that idea of the hero and the animal, which of course we see in the medieval times in terms of dragons as well and that sort of conquering, but in that case they usually kill them rather than work with these creatures. And actually Harry becomes a hero, almost a medieval hero then, by being able to tame Bugbeak, if that's fair.

Yeah, definitely. It's like showing yourself worthy, worthy of something to be a hero, definitely. It's like showing yourself worthy, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr. Six wives, six lives. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, I'm joined by a host of experts to tell the stories of the six queens of Henry VIII, who shaped and changed England forever. Subscribe to and follow Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

We're going to hear a second narrative now, and this is about, I think, my favourite creature from Harry Potter, because I just think the possibilities with it are endless. In a deep, deep dell in Lancashire, in the north-west of England, trouble was brewing among the hazel and beech trees. A mischievous spirit, a boggart, was plaguing the Cheetham family in their old farmhouse, disturbing their peace with unseen hands and shrill laughter. One winter's eve, young Robert Cheetham dared to jest with the boggart. That night, he and his brother found themselves tangled in their bedsheets, tossed about by an invisible force, while a shrill voice echoed through the house. Little tyke indeed, little

tyke they sell. Ho ho ho, I'll have my laugh now. Ho, ho, ho! Desperate for peace, the Cheethams moved the children into the cart house, hoping that the boggart would not follow. But it did, and the mischief spread. Bread and butter were snatched from hands, milk was dashed to the ground, and if the youngest child was left alone for a minute, they would soon be screaming in terror. When the torment became too much to bear, the Cheethams made plans to flee their haunted home. But when the day came for them to leave, along with the last of their belongings on a cart, they met a neighbour. The neighbour asked if this was them moving house or flitting,

as it was known in those parts. Before the farmer could answer, a familiar voice came out from inside one of the milk pails on the cart. Hi, hi, neighbour, we're flitting, you see. Resigned to their fate, the family turned their cart around. A shout out to Anthony's amazing acting skills there. Thanks very much, guys. Yeah, I was really bad in the quiz, so I decided I'd contribute something. I would like to just say to listeners that Anthony had to do that because I refused to do the voice.

So I'm very grateful. So we've heard a story there, obviously not from Harry Potter. So Kerry, give us a sense of where this story comes from. And I have something that I want to add about it, but let's hear first of all, what is a Boggart? Where is this story from? What's its history? Yeah, I love Boggarts. I'm a bit obsessed um i grew up next to a park called boggart hallclough which want that story that you told was about so boggart's kind of a catch-all phrase for mischievous spirits or hobgoblins or fairies that are either connected to a house or a specific place in the landscape and they they're not overtly evil, but they do tend to behave badly and they cause as much mischief as they can. Sometimes they're described as kind of poltergeists,

so you can't see them, you can just hear them moving things around. Other times they're like little squat hobgoblin type creatures. You get a lot of places in the Northwest, particularly Lancashire and Greater Manchester, that are named after boggarts, that have their boggart hauntings from history. There is one reference that I found from the 19th century that is similar to J.K. Rowling's description of a boggart that can shapeshift and turn into something that's scary. Yeah, and we'll get into that in a second because, I mean, that's fascinating. But tell us about this example that you found. So that is one of the examples that's closer to her version of it, right? Yeah, so most of them don't describe the boggart as something

that can shapeshift. It is just a creature. It's a type of fairy, a type of mischievous fairy, that tends to make life difficult for families or make particular roads unsafe to travel at night. But yeah, this 19th century reference describes it as a creature that can turn into particular animals or into something more fearful. It doesn't describe it as something that can turn into what you fear, but as something that shapeshifts. That's a rolling invention later on. That's so interesting. It's fascinating to me that you mentioned the Northwest because I used to live on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. And I'm pretty sure, and I'm saying this from memory, so if there's anyone listening who lives on the North York Moors, write in and to leave because of a fairy I mean I don't think the word boggart is used but you know a fairy an elf an imp some kind of mischievous creature in the house has been offended by the second wife of the farmer the first wife used to leave treats out for them

she's died the second wife comes in refuses to leave the butter the milk the biscuits whatever it is out for these creatures so they start to play tricks and when they try leave, it turns out that the creatures are moving with them. So they just go right back to the farm and have to work out how to get rid of them. So it's fascinating that that's spread across the Pennines, actually, and across the north of England. Let's talk a little bit about the J.K. Rowling version of these. So we meet these, again, I think it's in the third book. Am I right? I think it's in The Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry is subjected to I mean questionable teaching methods Professor Lupin subjects all of his students to a boggart and they have to face quite literally their worst fear the boggart takes the form of your worst fear and they have to use their magical training to dismiss the boggart and to sort of

defeat it it's a really scary concept that and actually in a school classroom situation for your schoolmates to see your worst fear and to see you struggle with it it's it's really quite dark it's a dark twist on something that's quite playful i think yeah yeah i mean fears are so personal and you know some of them you can see really affect the characters. But then he turns it around by having it, you know, turn it into something funny, turn it into something playful. And that's why you get Snape turning into, well, you know, in old lady clothes, and the giant spider on roller skates. And yeah, obviously, Harry's worst fear in the image in my mind from the film of the Dementor coming out. It's a great scene in the film. Yeah, and I think so Harry's fear is fear itself because he fears the Dementors. He fears that feeling of depression and things draining away from him. And then Lupin has to step in when he can't face his fear and the bog is still coming at him.

And of course course we see lupin's greatest fear is a moon because and it's foreshadowing of the fact that he's a werewolf which you find out later on in the in the book but he turns the moon into a balloon that sort of farts away in the air and it's again thinking about the chocolate as a way to revive someone from experiencing the dementors there's this idea of silliness as a counteraction against dark magic, dark ideas, dark monsters. Yeah, absolutely. There are so many deep, dark things in Harry Potter, but that element of whimsy just makes it suitable for children. And also, I think, teaches you how to face those dark parts of life and try and tackle them with

something, good memories or turning it into something that you can laugh at. And that's what folklore is ultimately about, right? Sort of understanding the world around you and making sense of it in a fantastical way. But actually, it's about life and death. It's about love and loss and all of those things, but told in a way that makes it palatable and memorable and so that you can face it, I suppose. Yeah, definitely. One of the most iconic creatures then is probably, and you mentioned this creature already, is the basilisk.

Obviously, in the book, this is a creature that hatches from another chicken egg that's underneath a toad. Why not? And is the king of the serpents. What is the history of this mythological creature? Because there is a history with this one, right? It's another one of those ones that's based in actual mythology. Yeah. So this is probably one of the oldest creatures in the Harry Potter universe. So it goes back to first century AD. Pliny the Elder, a Roman author, was describing basilisks as snakes from Libya, described as a small snake, 12 fingers long, but as one that's venom is so

powerful that it doesn't need to bite you. All it needs to do is bite something that's touching you and you will die. So if you stab it with a spear, the poison will go up the spear and into the person. So really fearsome creatures, but they're small. Basilisk means little king. So they're little snakes that are just very, very deadly. Probably cobras. So probably their description of what a cobra was. So they're based in some kind of tree. Yeah. That idea of kind of them being able to maintain an upright position, their ability to kind of spit venom Yeah, that idea of them being able to maintain an upright position, their ability to spit venom, the fact that they have the hood describing them as a king.

So based on real snakes that they were just unfamiliar with during that time in Rome. And then over the centuries, descriptions of them became more and more fantastical, so they became bigger. They became more deadly. It became like if you heard its voice then you would die so jk rowling is certainly not the first person to use the basilisk in this way so bram stoker drew on the basilisk in his description of dracula dracula's gaze the basilisk appears in Shakespeare, in Pope, in Shelley. So lots of poets and writers using it. And J.K. Rowling is one of the more recent ones, make it a big prominent part of that

book and make it huge, actually. So it becomes a lot bigger than those earlier descriptions. Two things to say. One is I never understand how the basilisk moves around the castle when it is as big as it is it's meant to move around in the plumbing apparently i mean how big are these pipes in hogwarts the other thing to say is just to pick up on this idea of its voice being so powerful because of course in the chamber of secrets harry he is the basilisk and he can't work out why no one else can hear it. And it's because little does he realise he speaks snake language, which is something that he's accidentally inherited from Voldemort as a baby during the moment when

Voldemort tries to kill him and that's sort of transferred to him. Is Rowling drawing on a particular version of the Basilisk and using that voice do you think she keeps within the sort of folkloric rules of what its voice can do or does she draw it out into something and make it her own i think she's making her own in that obviously because it's a snake harry has the ability to hear it the voice is more just an indication of what it is, I guess. And it torments Harry in a way, but it doesn't do damage. It's the gaze. And I think there are some references to it in the past. So it's not a J.K. Rowling invention that its gaze will kill or petrify.

But I think she was the one who made it the most prominent feature of the Basilisk. It used to be more about its voice and its venom. But obviously its venom. But obviously, its venom is deadly in Harry Potter as well. I think only the tears of a phoenix can cure. Which conveniently, of course, Hogwarts has a phoenix, so it's fine. Happy accident, yeah. Happy accident, yeah. And we don't, unfortunately, have time to talk about phoenixes in this, actually, because they would be a great subject. Before we do wrap up, I just want to mention something that I think would be remiss

to not have a conversation about this when we're talking about the real monsters of Harry Potter. And I'd be interested to get your take on this, Kerry, because I am not aware of a folklorist in the way that the author of the Harry Potter books has somewhat become in terms of inventing and contributing and advancing folklore. I'm not aware of another folklorist taking on,

for some people in society, the mantle of a monster themselves. And I'm wondering what that might say about the power to inform, the power to then disappoint the light and shade of folklore, and how that's informing real people's lives at this particular time. My point, I suppose, being is that this folklore was something that buoyed so many people at certain periods of time and gave them hope and gave them comfort. And so many of them now, specifically within the LGBT community, obviously enough is what I'm speaking of, so many of them now feel betrayed and themselves dismissed and made to feel potentially like the author did when she describes the depression of the Dementor. And a lot of that is coming from the conversations that the author is having very publicly. I'm just wondering, have you ever come

across that immediacy of impact of folklore and folklorists that can have in a in a very immediate way in today's society at any other point in history have you ever seen that impact take on something far more social and far more real is that something that we come across no no and i think it's the power of social media um we just don't have this in history it was a lot easier to separate the art from the artist in the past now we know everything about everyone or at least we know what they want us to see and suddenly people with a lot of following have a huge platform to air their opinions and to impact people so no I think this is something fairly new and. And I've never come across a person and their work

be so divisive today. Considering at its core, it's just stories about a boy. And yet, like I said, in the classroom, whenever anybody mentions Harry Potter or J.K. Rowling, half the room will go, oh, I love it. And the other half will, they hate what she's doing, what she's using her platform for. So this is, I think, new. And I think it's something that authors and folklorists are going to have to think about when they're in the public eye. I agree. Yeah. Kerry, thank you so much for coming on After Dark today and talking to us about these creatures and some of the legacies of the stories that Rowling

draws on but also that she invents herself actually it's been completely fascinating if you want to get in touch with After Dark you can do so and we love to hear from you we love episode suggestions we love your feedback um we love to hear that you've enjoyed listening you can email us at afterdark at historyhit.com. You can follow Anthony and I on socials. Tell your friends, tell your family about the show. Please spread the word. Well, thank you for listening

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