Mythology I ~ Updated

[MJ Spooks]

Amata Harlowe
Professor of Mythology // Classroom // Wearing
CURRENTLY WITH // No one
CURRENTLY FEELING // Excited
CURRENTLY THINKING // 'Clever girl... most people miss all that.'
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Amata smiled then, her expression happy and impressed. The girl had caught something that she had noticed at a young age, and that many of her fellow classmates had missed. It was rather easy to slip such things by children. And any child told the story from an excessively young age wouldn't generally think on it beyond what they thought of it as a child. The face that Shina had caught it, at her age, was quite impressive. "I think you're absolutely right, my dear. It was rather clever of the man, don't you think? Such stories carry messages that are lost on most adults; their paths and ideas are set, and can rarely be changed. But children are so malleable, it's easy to teach them to believe, if you know how to do it. Stories like this, fairy tales and the like, have always been used to subtly teach a lesson. And imagine what an impact that story would make on a child who was told not to read it! As you said, the controversial topics are numerous, and yet the only one that is clearly definable is the romance between a witch and a muggle. The other issues would completely go over a child's head. And so, a young witch or wizard, in defiance of his parent, finds and reads the tale, only to think... what's the big deal? Why is this story so bad? And it makes them think about it, and remember it, and hold onto lessons they didn't even know they were taught." Amata clapped her hands happily, and then glanced at the clock. Time was about up. She looked back to her pupil. "Now then! Lesson is over for today. Your homework will be due next lesson... I would like to touch on a subject you mentioned, actually. I would like for you to elaborate on why you believe that the Fountain worked, in spite of bearing no enchantment. Write me a short essay and turn it into my office before next lesson. You are dismissed. And Shina, dear..." Amata paused, giving the girl a warm smile. "I want you to know that you are a very clever young lady, and smarter than many people I know. Hold onto that; it will serve you well."

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[MJ Spooks]

Lesson 2: The Fountain of Fair Fortune



Lesson completed and closed.

Homework: Write a short essay on the idea of the Fountain and why you think it worked, despite the fact that its waters held no true enchantment. Also, read and familiarize yourself with 'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot.' Be prepared to discuss it in class.

Homework should be turned in to Professor Harlowe's office between now and the closing of Lesson 3.

 

[MJ Spooks]

Lesson 3: The Wizard and the Hopping Pot

 

[Nanashi Kage Enjeru]

Shina Kiremono~Third Year~Ravenclaw Seeker

Shina walked into class and took her seat. Pulling out her copy of the Tales of Beedle the Bard and her note-taking supplies, she waited eagerly for class to begin. It was a bit of a surprise to be the only student in this class, but she loved the opportunity to learn one-on-one from the cheerful professor.

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Wearing

 

[MJ Spooks]

Amata Harlowe
Professor of Mythology // Classroom // Wearing
CURRENTLY WITH // Shina
CURRENTLY FEELING // Excited
CURRENTLY THINKING // 'Last lesson was rather rushed... This one will be as well. How awful.'
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Amata entered the room swiftly, her normally calm and cheerful demeanor somewhat rushed. The year was coming to a close, and they hadn't covered everything yet. They likely wouldn't get to the last lesson. Which was no real loss, as far as she was concerned, since it was the lesson on Beatrix Bloxam, a rather presumptuous old biddy who'd felt the need to ruin each and every one of the lovely stories set down by Beedle the Bard. Still, it was part of the curriculumn, and so she was sad that she wouldn't get to it if only for that reason. As she set her things on her desk, she waved her wand so that the notes for their lesson would appear on the board.

Quote:

Lesson Three: The Wizard and the Hopping Pot

Summary: A kindly old wizard, who uses his magic to help the non-magical folk of a nearby village, passes away, leaving his blood purist son as their only assistance in times of trouble. The son, however, has little interest in helping the muggles. He is punished for his hard headedness by a magical pot, which his father enchanted to become afflicted with anything those in the village are afflicted with.

Controversy: This particular tale has been subject to two rewrites, for different reasons. Beatrix Bloxam rewrote the tale to make it more appropriate for children, believing that the depiction of the pot was too gruesome for children. On the other hand, blood purists rewrote the tale to completely change the depictions of the father and son. In the original tale, the father is depicted as a kindly old man, and much cleverer than his son. The son, a blood purist, is shown to be cruel and selfish. In the Bard’s tale, the Hopping Pot is a device created by the father, meant to force the son out of his selfish ways and teach him to help the muggles who live in the nearby village as he had in his life. But, in the revised version, the Pot instead is meant to protect the son from the muggles, who attack him for practicing magic. In this version, the Pot gulps most of the villagers, and the wizard tells the muggles that if they leave him alone, they will be safe. Copies of the original story were destroyed to such an extent that it was considered a miracle that any child has heard it. Many wizard children still grow up hearing only the revised edition.

She then offered Shina a smile. "Today we will be covering the Wizard and the Hopping Pot, a big favorite among many young witches and wizards of Britain. I trust you read the story?"

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[Nanashi Kage Enjeru]

Shina Kiremono~Third Year~Ravenclaw Seeker

"Of course," Shina replied. "A kindly, helpful old man dies. His selfish, conceited brat gets a lesson in playing nicely with others. Considered controversial because the father helped muggles, and the son was punished for being rude and haughty, considering the muggles to be beneath him, eventually coming to realize he was in the wrong, and making amends by helping the muggles. Pureblood supremacists consider this lesson to be completely against their ideology, as the basically have the same mindset as the immature and lazy son at the start of the story. Also the target of Bowdlerization by some storytellers who considered warts to be too horrid a thing for young minds to be exposed to," Shina summarized. "It also seems to be the most simple, and heavy-handed tale from Beedle that I read. Fairly straightforward, without the intricacy of the layered meanings that the Fountain of Fair Fortune had."

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Wearing

 

[MJ Spooks]

Amata Harlowe
Professor of Mythology // Classroom // Wearing
CURRENTLY WITH // Shina
CURRENTLY FEELING // Excited
CURRENTLY THINKING // 'Last lesson was rather rushed... This one will be as well. How awful.'
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Amata nodded. "Quite right, Shina. There has been some speculation, because of the, as you put it, heavy handed nature of the story, that this was one of the earlier stories written by Beedle. However, it's also been noted by many fans of the Bard that it seems to be a universal favorite among children. It seems that, the younger the children you ask are, the higher the percentage are that cite this tale as their favorite. The general assumption is that the story appeals to the very young because of the very forward nature with which Beedle handled the writing. It's easy for them to follow, and the lesson is laid out in black and white. Of course, the image of a pot, hopping after a young man with warts and hiccuping at him likely played a fairly large role in that as well. It is by far the story that has the most obvious visuals, making it easy for the children reading or being told the story to follow it. So, others suggest that perhaps the story was written this was deliberately, to ensnare and teach the children in the easiest, most obvious way. Personally, I believe it to be a combination of the two." Amata had helped her mother conduct a survey of young children to see what the general favorite was. Her results had been that, for the most part, all children loved The Wizard and the Hopping Pot the most when they were very young, and gradually moved away from it, and towards the others, as they grew older, with The Tale of Three Brothers being the most popular, followed by The Fountain of Fair Fortune, with The Warlock's Hairy Heart being the least popular, likely because of it's darker nature. Once children grew older, their favorite could tell a person who knew the tales well a lot about them as a person. Amata smiled at her young pupil. At the end of the term, she intended to ask Shina which story she liked best. Though they wouldn't cover The Tale of Three Brothers this year, saving it for the year covering the Second Wizarding War. So she'd have to request that the young Ravenclaw read it as well. She shook her head a bit, getting back to the subject at hand. "Now, obviously, there are various other versions, generally linked to one of two altered versions. The first, and one which you might even be able to find a copy of in our very own library, was the version told by blood purists to their children, which wrote that the Pot's purpose was to protect the poor young wizard from the evil muggles living in the village, swallowing them all up and spiting out their mangled remains after they promise to leave him be. The second different version was a rewrite by a witch named Beatrix Bloxam, who felt that many of the Bard's stories were too dark for children. Her version was a very watered down version of the original, which was banned. No versions of it are known to still exist, though of course they might." She paused, pursing her lips. Her mother, even with all her searching, had never found the rewrite of that particular story. It seemed that The Wizard and the Hopping Pot rewrite was the one that induced puking in young children, and was the cause of the country wide ban. Amata was personally happy for that fact; she likely would have had to read it. "Thoughts, Shina?"

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[Nanashi Kage Enjeru]

Shina Kiremono~Third Year~Ravenclaw Seeker

Shina listened, taking notes as the professor spoke. Shina nodded at the end. "I see. It does make sense that this might have been an earlier tale, or one meant to appeal to younger readers. I wonder...if the tale was one of Beedle's first stories, and it was immediately targeted by censors and twisted so completely from its original moral, if that might have been what inspired Beedle to layer the meaning in his later tales the way he did?" Shina suggested.

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Wearing

 

[MJ Spooks]

Amata Harlowe
Professor of Mythology // Classroom // Wearing
CURRENTLY WITH // Shina
CURRENTLY FEELING // Excited
CURRENTLY THINKING // 'Last lesson was rather rushed... This one will be as well. How awful.'
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Amata smiled encouragingly. "Most certainly. It's not uncommon for those with a message to find more clever ways to present it when met with opposition. It certainly would have been difficult for him to have presented some of his more controversial works in such a blatant fashion. The Fountain, for example, would have been hard to get past the censors if he'd just outright said that magic was not the key to our problem, or that there were other, more meaningful ways to acquire things or better ourselves. Wizards at the time were very much of the opinion that magic was the end all solution to everything. In this story, we see that the protagonist, the young wizard, was very much the embodiment of the people who then censored the book: arrogant people who believed that their magic made them better than others, and that they owed nothing to anyone and should never have to help anyone who couldn't help themselves. But, the Bard clearly felt that, as magical folk, it was our duty to help those without magic whenever we could, and that those who considered themselves above such people were foolish, and even cruel. Unfortunately, the story was lost on most, because they were unable to absorb the message." Amata frowned. It always went that way, didn't it? The person who needed to be taught would never listen. The open minded people who would listen didn't need to hear the lesson, because they had already been taught it. And those who truly needed to hear such things always refused to listen. It was such a shame.

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[Nanashi Kage Enjeru]

Shina Kiremono~Third Year~Ravenclaw Seeker

Shina nodded. "There are none so deaf as those who will not hear," she quoted. "Like the son in the story, prejudiced purebloods didn't want to change. Unlike the young wizard, they lack a hopping pot to convince them it is more trouble to be petty and lazy than to be polite and responsible. The son's punishment came immediately after the wrongdoing, and couldn't be put off until he fixed his behavior. Quite the proper track to teach a lesson. But petty, selfish behavior often does not have immediate consequences in the real world, and so wizards stuck their fingers in their ears and sang lalala and went about their business. And now, many generations later, we notice a pattern of insular, snobbish, close-minded behavior, leading to wizards being rather badly behind the muggles they so scorn in a variety of fields. I've never heard of a wizard on the moon," Shina pointed out.

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Wearing

 

[MJ Spooks]

Amata Harlowe
Professor of Mythology // Classroom // Wearing
CURRENTLY WITH // Shina
CURRENTLY FEELING // Excited
CURRENTLY THINKING // 'Last lesson was rather rushed... This one will be as well. How awful.'
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Amata nodded, her fondness for the girl growing with the last bit. "Quite so. Our magic is often used as an excuse for ignorance in areas such as science. After all, why should we bother to learn muggle medicine when we have potions and spells? Why should we learn engineering and the mechanics of planes when we can fly and Apparate? As for travelling to the moon, I think a good deal of that might also be linked to a prejudice many wizards hold for an aspect of our own lives; the study of the stars and space holds little practical value to magical folk, unless they plan on studying the nature of Divining the future from the stars. But few wizards will take Divinations seriously, and so few take Astronomy seriously, and so few will take the moon and stars and planets themselves seriously." The mention of Divinations brought a slight catch to her throat, but she moved past it, choosing to think instead on the arrogance of magical folk. Part of the reason her mother loved her father so was because of his ability to surprise her with his ingenuity. He could be quite creative when faced with a problem, one which would take her mother mere seconds to solve with a flick of her wand. He'd never taken that way out, though, choosing to do things the 'honest' way. Not that he thought magic was cheating, at least not for her, but when it came to his own work, he believe that if he were the one being paid for the work then he better be the one to do it. She smiled fondly at the thought. Cured of her brief bout of melancholy, she resumed the lesson. "As for the issue of punishments not be meted out, I have a perfect example of that within the muggle community; I have a distant cousin from America on my muggle side of the family. We keep in touch, somewhat sparsely. Anyway, she just wrote to me the other day that she hated the highway she had to take to work in the mornings, because there were so many drivers who completely ignore the speed limit and other traffic laws. Because they aren't pulled over and punished for every single infraction, they don't think about doing it. When some get pulled over, they might stop speeding for a while, but soon the lesson is forgotten and they're speeding again. Then there are those who feel justified in speeding, who grow angry at the policemen who dare to ticket them for breaking the law, and will not change their habits even for a moment. In this case, the people speeding are obviously in the wrong; what they are doing is absolutely illegal. And yet the do it! So, how, then, can we expect to convince a group of people to break away from an archaic and, yes, wrong, way of thinking? How can we punish them for their opinions when they are entitled to them?" It was a problem Amata often found herself wondering about, growing angry over. People had every right to think what they thought; no one could tell you what it was wrong to think. But, people who harmed others through violence were punished. Most every culture had agreed that causing physical harm to your fellow man was wrong, regardless of why or whether you believed yourself to be justified. And yet, there were no penalties for harming someone's pride, their self esteem or their psyche. No one every thought of that... and people could be so cruel. So much damage could be done with a single word...

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[Nanashi Kage Enjeru]

Shina Kiremono~Third Year~Ravenclaw Seeker

Shina nodded as the professor spoke. "Well, we really should look into learning about planes, or some sort of mass transit. I for one have yet to find a satisfactory magical mass transit method that isn't based on muggle transportation," Shina said. "Brooms are exposed to the elements and move only one person. Apparition is suitable only for a single, trained, adult. Floo is messy, finicky, allows a single person at a time, relies on a proprietary substance that has never been explained, and must have both ends connected before hand. Portkeys are heavily regulated and can't transport more than a handful of people. Honestly, it's no wonder we are so insular, when we don't have a simple way to get out and see what's going on the next town over."

"As for punishment, isn't it better to try instead to teach our children to behave better in the first place, so they might grow into responsible adults? Punishing an adult for their poor behavior will likely always be a battle more likely to be lost. So if we truly wish to change our society, we need to focus not on the hidebound folk to stubborn to hear, but on those who are curious and eager to listen, the children. Indeed, this may be why Beedle chose to focus on children's tales. If he had become a politician and championed his cause in the public arena, his name would likely be but a footnote in history. Instead, he crafted lessons for those who would listen, and became one of the best-known magical tale-weavers," Shina said.

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Wearing

 

[MJ Spooks]

Amata Harlowe
Professor of Mythology // Classroom // Wearing
CURRENTLY WITH // Shina
CURRENTLY FEELING // Excited
CURRENTLY THINKING // 'Last lesson was rather rushed... This one will be as well. How awful.'
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Amata gave Shina a wide smile and approving nod. "You are absolutely correct, my dear. I couldn't agree more. In fact, that is why, after years of working with my mother, writing and editing books on such stories for adults, I chose to make a change and teach here. The age groups taught at Hogwarts are starting school in their formative years, and those in which such lessons are most likely to stick. I thought it would be a far better use of my time to tell the stories, and discuss them, with teens and young adults, than to try and explain why the lessons are worth telling and understanding to adults." Amata glanced at the time, and, upon seeing it was about the end of the lesson, rose and clapped her hands together. "I think that was good for today, I'll see you next lesson. Be sure to read The Warlock's Hairy Heart and be ready to discuss it in class next time. Your homework for this lesson is to write a short essay on the differences between the original story and either of the revised versions, and discuss your opinion on why the changes were made and whether you think they were justified." Amata flicked her wand, and the board erased itself and the homework was written out across the board. She then turned to Shina and offered a small dip of her head before exiting the classroom.

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[MJ Spooks]

Lesson 3: The Wizard and the Hopping Pot



Lesson completed and closed.

Homework: Write a short essay on the differences between the original story and either of the revised versions, and discuss your opinion on why the changes were made and whether you think they were justified. Also, read and familiarize yourself with 'The Warlock's Hairy Heart.' Be prepared to discuss it in class.

Homework should be turned in to Professor Harlowe's office between now and the closing of Lesson 4.

 

[MJ Spooks]

Lesson 4: The Warlock's Hairy Heart