This is exciting news. A. T. Reeves has edited C. S. Lewis’ translations of Virgil’s Aeneid, which consist of long passages from Books 1, 2, and 6. I assume these are the best known sections, most notably, the fall of Troy, the flight to Carthage, death of Dido, and the trip to the Underworld.

As eager as I am to read this work, about which I had never heard or read mention that I can recall, the book has already delivered edifying fruit. Prof. David Downing, C. S. Lewis scholar and accomplished novelist himself, has written a review of the Yale University Press title, a survey explaining CSL’s fascination with this poem and many of the correspondences existing between Lewis’ understanding of the Aeneid and my favorite adventure in the Narniad, The Silver Chair. Read that review here: ‘Journeys to the Underworld and the Silver Chair.’ H/T to Rev. David!

In the early 1980s, Joseph Campbell indicated that mythology had fallen out of favor in the media, but he could not have foreseen the rampant popularity of mythological themes, characters and structures;  from comic book-like TV series like Hercules and Xena to the epic big-screen journeys of the Fellowship of the Ring and the fall and rise of Anakin Skywalker, mythology has experienced a revival among the general public. More recently, of course, the Greek pantheon has been embraced by an even wider audience through the Percy Jackson novels and inevitable movie, the Clash of the Titans reboot, and a forthcoming War of the Gods. Although mythology is seldom taught anymore in an academic setting (I am finally up to teach a college myth in human culture class next year after ten years of asking), and few college students can recognize the simplest of allusions to classical myths, Perseus is an action figure, Zeus is on keychains, and schoolchildren can dress up as Athena or Ares for Halloween. As mythology loses its place in the academy while being embraced by the popular media, the themes, characters, and events of mythology are being morphed from their traditional forms to fit modern sensibilities and values. At last, here is part two on the subject of how and why the mythical world is altered in text and on-screen. If you missed it, here’s part one.

1. What ARE they teaching them in these schools?

One reason, surely, that film makers and writers use mythological themes and elements is because they themselves like the mythology. Some of them were undoubtedly Latin nerds like me, who always thought, “You know, this stuff is great; if it had the right presentation, it would catch on faster than Spider-Man!”  Thus, authors like Percy Jackson’s Rick Riordan operate from a deft and deep knowledge of mythology to bring their stories to life.  Other media mongers, however, seem to be under the impression that mythology is not widely taught, certainly not in public schools if the scant knowledge of college freshman is the indicator, so therefore they are at liberty to make any changes they like, assuming no one will actually notice.  Like filmmakers who think no one knows much about the original book on which their film is based (read: Tim Burton’s movie that was charming, but was not Lewis Carroll’s story!) these folks depend on the gullibility and lack of mythological knowledge among the general public to pass off shoddy versions of the myths. Unlike C.S. Lewis and J. K. Rowling, who include great in-jokes assuming their readers actually do know a classical allusion is not a magic trick performed to the accompaniment of Bach music, such writers and filmmakers trust in the general lack of knowledge  to get away with whatever changes they want to make. Sadly, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: because the general public watches television instead of reading Edith Hamilton or Bullfinch, most viewers and readers are duped into thinking the “tinkered with” version of the myth is authentic. This has been clearly illustrated to me as I give a reading quiz on “Leda and the Swan” in my literature survey class, and I always offer extra credit for names of other women with whom Zeus dallied. The most frequent wrong guess? Xena.

This mangling is not just limited to mythology, of course. Countless numbers of folks get their history from mainstream media. This isn’t even a recent development, as dime novels of the nineteenth and early twentieth century have dramatically influenced general perceptions of the real historical people (like Billy the Kid) featured in them, and I still have to correct misperceptions created by Gone with the Wind when I do Civil War programs. Literature has always gotten this treatment, from those Vincent Price gore fests that had nothing but a title in common with Poe’s work to the inventiveness of the aforementioned Mr. Burton (I knew better than to trust him after what he did to poor Washington Irving).  Even our understanding of the job descriptions of medical and law enforcement personnel is tainted by what we see in fictional presentations (just watch a doctor or police show with a real doctor or police officer for laughs), but most viewers seem to understand that those fictions use free adaption of facts. Mythology, which is already pretty murky to so many folks, is less likely to be scrutinized, and really, it is likely that the average viewer has been in the hospital more often than in ancient Troy.

2. I need a hero!

The hero’s journey, analyzed very thoroughly by the aforementioned Mr. Campbell in his Hero with a Thousand Faces, is a pattern that viewers and readers have seen acted out in the travails of Frodo Baggins, Luke Skywalker, and, of course, Harry Potter, but, interestingly, our contemporary media latches onto just a few elements, and only certain kinds of heroes.

Perseus, obviously, is a great choice for film: strapping young demigod who wallops monsters and gets the girl, what’s not to love? But has Orpheus ever gotten a movie deal? And anything featuring Oedipus is doomed to the direct-to-arts-channel market (although last year I had an entrepreneurial student who designed a movie trailer for an Oedipus film as his creative drama project; I think he might have had a winner, especially with his cast, which included Sigourney Weaver and Hugh Jackman).  And when has any version of Hercules’ story included the less pleasant effects of his legendary temper (i.e. the murder of his family in a moment’s rage)? We like our heroes troubled and all, but not that troubled.

When heroes, even heroes lifted from mythology, take on the characteristics of the classic hero journey, their progress usually says more about modern readers and their sensibilities than it does about the cultures of Greece or Rome. The descent into the underworld, where one may encounter a father or other dead mentor is thus transformed into Luke Skywalker’s  largely psychological journey into a cave where he “kills” a version of Darth Vader, who turns out to be himself. The hero’s journey now is not just an actual path, but a series of experiences laden with Freudian meaning to give us a modern hero complete with psychiatric disorders and angst.  Beowulf can’t just kill Grendel and his mother per the ancient poem. Nope, according to the recent film, now he has to have a conflicted  sexual relationship with the monster mother that makes his final battle with the dragon an illustration of the dangers of succumbing to the lure of power, sex, and skiving off responsibility for the results of one’s actions.

This trend is also not a new phenomenon, as even Edmund Spenser, in the sixteenth century, gave the Underworld visited by Sir Guyon most of the usual suspects, but also details his Elizabethan readers would understand, including plenty of nasty digs at Catholicism, which was religion non gratia at the time. Modern readers, if they catch or understand such elements at all, generally find them distasteful, as may future viewers who wonder about the strange craft used by Charon in Clash of the Titans. It doesn’t look like much in mythology, but it does connect nicely with some swell Pirates of the Caribbean imagery, looking more like the Flying Dutchman than an upturned trireme (which it is apparently meant to be.) One would think that such a craft would be in poor taste, considering that Perseus’ adopted parents and sister perished when their ship turned over, but then, Perseus is the modern American Greek hero, as much John Wayne and Mel Gibson as Greco-Roman. He’s so tough that he even gives the gods a run for their money, an attitude that is definitely all- American.

3.  Gods, who needs ‘em? I’m an American!

“Damn the Gods!” is the tagline of Clash of the Titans, and it does not fail to follow that theme. All through the film, Perseus, resentful of his family’s deaths as collateral damage in the war humans are waging against the Olympians, sticks to his policy to act “as a man,” refusing the help and gifts of the gods and denying that his father is Zeus.  This, of course, does not tally with the usual relationships seen between humans and gods in mythology. In fact, the point is made in the film that the gods apparently need the worship of humans to continue their immortality, reminiscent of children clapping their hands and shouting “I do believe in fairies!” to save poor Tinkerbell from an untimely demise. Perseus, though, and  a whole lot of other people, apparently, do not want to clap their hands and shout “ I do believe in the Olympians!” They want to stand on their own two feet as humans, neither fearing or loving the immortals on the mountain.

Self-reliance, not just thanks to Ralph Waldo Emerson, is an ideal modern media consumers, particularly Americans, like in our heroes, though we don’t mind interdependence between equals, like crew members on a star ship or members of a crime-fighting team. Even then, individualism is important, and we like our heroes to be their own people. This can, of course, be very positive, as we root for Harry Potter taking his destiny in his own hands by asking the Sorting Hat not to put him in Slytherin House. No one wants a protagonist who is a mere robot, a game piece like the figures in the original Clash of the Titans.  And yet, we all should realize that, even if our destinies aren’t controlled by the Olympians, that we are not nearly as in control as we think we are. Harry, course, is just as much a cog in the machine of Dumbledore’s (positively motivated, of course) machinations as he is a decision-making individual.  Han Solo, who scoffs “no mystical energy field controls my destiny,” in his dismissal of the Force, is actually a key player in the fulfillment of the destiny of the Skywalker family. We are all eagerly waiting the next developments in Mockingjay to show us just how much that seeming model of feminine independence, Katniss Everdeen, is really a tool in a rebellion for which she is the symbol. And Christians, certainly, know that we are personally responsible for our individual choices, but we seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in those decisions so that we may remain within God’s will and live for His glory.  Perseus’ vehement refusal to acknowledge Zeus as his father smacks of the brand of independence that is not mere personal responsibility, but the desire to wrest all control over our lives from anyone or anything in power. We don’t need gods (or God, it often seems) because we are gods. We have elevated ourselves to divinity, proud of our accomplishments and seeming to require nothing from on high, so the gods must bow to us. This attitude is the driving tone of Clash of the Titans, and it is echoed by celebrities, politicians, and sports stars every day.  So where does genuine faith come into the re-visioning of mythology? That’s coming in part 3,  I promise.  To be continued….

NPR reports that Christians and University Professors have discovered edifying Christian content in Joanne Rowling’s Hogwarts Saga. In a piece last Saturday titled Searching for Christian Imagery in Harry Potter, Guy Raz breathlessly interviews professors from Pomona and Brite Divinity School who think that Harry — and Dumbledore! – are Christ figures.

Who would have thought!

We have officially reached the end stage of the literary equivalent of scientific discovery, having worked our way through “Absurd!” (2003) to “Needs More Study!” (2006) to, at last, “We’ve always known that!” (2009). Congratulations, All-Pros, we have moved from fools and Procrustean projectors to NPR Orthodoxy.

Does the article title remind you of anything? (H/T to Lynn!)

Another tale of three brothers, subtitled ‘The Black Brothers: A Legend of Stiria,’ this fairy tale by the very young John Ruskin (1841) should get you in the mood for Tales of Beedle the Bard. I couldn’t find a version online with Dumbledore’s commentary so I hope we can fill it in. My bet is that Ruskin, as a serious reader of Coleridge and as a Romantic in recovery from consumption, wrote this with the Dantean three layers: narrative line, moral line, and almost invisible alchemical artistry to transform our vision in a kind of esemplastic epiphany. Let me know what you see, especially in the description of the glacier and the transparency of nature.

The King of the Golden River

By John Ruskin

PREFACE by R.H. COE

“The King of the Golden River” is a delightful fairy tale told with all Ruskin’s charm of style, his appreciation of mountain scenery, and with his usual insistence upon drawing a moral. None the less, it is quite unlike his other writings. All his life long his pen was busy interpreting nature and pictures and architecture, or persuading to better views those whom he believed to be in error, or arousing, with the white heat of a prophet’s zeal, those whom he knew to be unawakened. There is indeed a good deal of the prophet about John Ruskin. Though essentially an interpreter with a singularly fine appreciation of beauty, no man of the nineteenth century felt more keenly that he had a mission, and none was more loyal to what he believed that mission to be.

While still in college, what seemed a chance incident gave occasion and direction to this mission. A certain English reviewer had ridiculed the work of the artist Turner. Now Ruskin held Turner to be the greatest landscape painter the world had seen, and he immediately wrote a notable article in his defense. Slowly this article grew into a pamphlet, and the pamphlet into a book, the first volume of “Modern Painters.” The young man awoke to find himself famous. In the next few years four more volumes were added to “Modern Painters,” and the other notable series upon art, “The Stones of Venice” and “The Seven Lamps of Architecture,” were sent forth.

Then, in 1860, when Ruskin was about forty years old, there came a great change. His heaven-born genius for making the appreciation of beauty a common possession was deflected from its true field. He had been asking himself what are the conditions that produce great art, and the answer he found declared that art cannot be separated from life, nor life from industry and industrial conditions. A civilization founded upon unrestricted competition therefore seemed to him necessarily feeble in appreciation of the beautiful, and unequal to its creation. In this way loyalty to his mission bred apparent disloyalty. Delightful discourses upon art gave way to fervid pleas for humanity. For the rest of his life he became a very earnest, if not always very wise, social reformer and a passionate pleader for what he believed to be true economic ideals.

There is nothing of all this in “The King of the Golden River.” Unlike his other works, it was written merely to entertain. Scarcely that, since it was not written for publication at all, but to meet a challenge set him by a young girl.

The circumstance is interesting. After taking his degree at Oxford, Ruskin was threatened with consumption and hurried away from the chill and damp of England to the south of Europe. After two years of fruitful travel and study he came back improved in health but not strong, and often depressed in spirit. It was at this time that the Guys, Scotch friends of his father and mother, came for a visit to his home near London, and with them their little daughter Euphemia. The coming of this beautiful, vivacious, light-hearted child opened a new chapter in Ruskin’s life. Though but twelve years old, she sought to enliven the melancholy student, absorbed in art and geology, and bade him leave these and write for her a fairy tale. He accepted, and after but two sittings, presented her with this charming story. The incident proved to have awakened in him a greater interest than at first appeared, for a few years later “Effie” Grey became John Ruskin’s wife. Meantime she had given the manuscript to a friend. Nine years after itwas written, this friend, with John Ruskin’s permission, gave the story to the world.

It was published in London in 1851, with illustrations by the celebrated Richard Doyle, and at once became a favorite. Three editions were printed the first year, and soon it had found its way into German, Italian, and Welsh. Since then countless children have had cause to be grateful for the young girl’s challenge that won the story of Gluck’s golden mug and the highly satisfactory handling of the Black Brothers by Southwest Wind, Esquire.

For this edition new drawings have been prepared by Mr. Hiram P. Barnes. They very successfully preserve the spirit of Doyle’s illustrations, which unfortunately are not technically suitable for reproduction here.

In the original manuscript there was an epilogue bearing the heading “Charitie”–a morning hymn of Treasure Valley, whither Gluck had returned to dwell, and where the inheritance lost by cruelty was regained by love: The beams of morning are renewed The valley laughs their light to see And earth is bright with gratitude And heaven with charitie.

R.H. COE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

HOW THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM OF THE BLACK BROTHERS WAS INTERFERED WITH BY SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE

CHAPTER II

OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE THREE BROTHERS AFTER THE VISIT OF SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE; AND HOW LITTLE GLUCK HAD AN INTERVIEW WITH THE KING OF GOLDEN RIVER

CHAPTER III

HOW MR. HANS SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED HEREIN

CHAPTER IV

HOW MR. SCHWARTZ SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN

CHAPTER V

HOW LITTLE GLUCK SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED HEREIN, WITH OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER

CHAPTER I

HOW THE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM OF THE BLACK BROTHERS WAS INTERFERED WITH BY SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE

In a secluded and mountainous part of Stiria there was in old time a valley of the most surprising and luxuriant fertility. It was surrounded on all sides by steep and rocky mountains rising into peaks which were always covered with snow and from which a number of torrents descended in constant cataracts. One of these fell westward over the face of a crag so high that when the sun had set to everything else, and all below was darkness, his beams still shone full upon this waterfall, so that it looked like a shower of gold. It was therefore called by the people of the neighborhood the Golden River. It was strange that none of these streams fell into the valley itself. They all descended on the other side of the mountains and wound away through broad plains and by populous cities. But the clouds were drawn so constantly to the snowy hills, and rested so softly in the circular hollow, that in time of drought and heat, when all the country round was burned up, there was still rain in the little valley; and its crops were so heavy, and its hay so high, and its apples so red, and its grapes so blue, and its wine so rich, and its honey so sweet, that it was a marvel to everyone who beheld it and was commonly called the Treasure Valley.

The whole of this little valley belonged to three brothers, called Schwartz, Hans, and Gluck. Schwartz and Hans, the two elder brothers, were very ugly men, with overhanging eyebrows and small, dull eyes which were always half shut, so that you couldn’t see into THEM and always fancied they saw very far into YOU. They lived by farming the Treasure Valley, and very good farmers they were. They killed everything that did not pay for its eating. They shot the blackbirds because they pecked the fruit, and killed the hedgehogs lest they should suck the cows; they poisoned the crickets for eating the crumbs in the kitchen, and smothered the cicadas which used to sing all summer in the lime trees. They worked their servants without any wages till they would not work any more, and then quarreled with them and turned them out of doors without paying them. It would have been very odd if with such a farm and such a system of farming they hadn’t got very rich; and very rich they DID get. They generally contrived to keep their corn by them till it was very dear, and then sell it for twice its value; they had heaps of gold lying about on their floors, yet it was never known that they had given so much as a penny or a crust in charity; they never went to Mass, grumbled perpetually at paying tithes, and were, in a word, of so cruel and grinding a temper as to receive from all those with whom they had any dealings the nickname of the “Black Brothers.”

The youngest brother, Gluck, was as completely opposed, in both appearance and character, to his seniors as could possibly be imagined or desired. He was not above twelve years old, fair, blue-eyed, and kind in temper to every living thing. He did not, of course, agree particularly well with his brothers, or, rather, they did not agree with HIM. He was usually appointed to the honorable office of turnspit, when there was anything to roast, which was not often, for, to do the brothers justice, they were hardly less sparing upon themselves than upon other people. At other times he used to clean the shoes, floors, and sometimes the plates, occasionally getting what was left on them, by way of encouragement, and a wholesome quantity of dry blows by way of education.

Things went on in this manner for a long time. At last came a very wet summer, and everything went wrong in the country round. The hay had hardly been got in when the haystacks were floated bodily down to the sea by an inundation; the vines were cut to pieces with the hail; the corn was all killed by a black blight. Only in the Treasure Valley, as usual, all was safe. As it had rain when there was rain nowhere else, so it had sun when there was sun nowhere else. Everybody came to buy corn at the farm and went away pouring maledictions on the Black Brothers. They asked what they liked and got it, except from the poor people, who could only beg, and several of whom were starved at their very door without the slightest regard or notice.

It was drawing towards winter, and very cold weather, when one day the two elder brothers had gone out, with their usual warning to little Gluck, who was left to mind the roast, that he was to let nobody in and give nothing out. Gluck sat down quite close to the fire, for it was raining very hard and the kitchen walls were by no means dry or comfortable-looking. He turned and turned, and the roast got nice and brown. “What a pity,” thought Gluck, “my brothers never ask anybody to dinner. I’m sure, when they’ve got such a nice piece of mutton as this, and nobody else has got so much as a piece of dry bread, it would do their hearts good to have somebody to eat it with them.”

Just as he spoke there came a double knock at the house door, yet heavy and dull, as though the knocker had been tied up–more like a puff than a knock.

“It must be the wind,” said Gluck; “nobody else would venture to knock double knocks at our door.”

No, it wasn’t the wind; there it came again very hard, and, what was particularly astounding, the knocker seemed to be in a hurry and not to be in the least afraid of the consequences. Gluck went to the window, opened it, and put his head out to see who it was.

It was the most extraordinary-looking little gentleman he had ever seen in his life. He had a very large nose, slightly brass-colored; his cheeks were very round and very red, and might have warranted a supposition that he had been blowing a refractory fire for the last eight-and-forty hours; his eyes twinkled merrily through long, silky eyelashes; his mustaches curled twice round like a corkscrew on each side of his mouth; and his hair, of a curious mixed pepper-and-salt color, descended far over his shoulders. He was about four feet six in height and wore a conical pointed cap of nearly the same altitude, decorated with a black feather some three feet long. His doublet was prolonged behind into something resembling a violent exaggeration of what is now termed a “swallowtail,” but was much obscured by the swelling folds of an enormous black, glossy-looking cloak, which must have been very much too long in calm weather, as the wind, whistling round the old house, carried it clear out from the wearer’s shoulders to about four times his own length.

Gluck was so perfectly paralyzed by the singular appearance of his visitor that he remained fixed without uttering a word, until the old gentleman, having performed another and a more energetic concerto on the knocker, turned round to look after his flyaway cloak. In so doing he caught sight of Gluck’s little yellow head jammed in the window, with its mouth and eyes very wide open indeed.

“Hollo!” said the little gentleman; “that’s not the way to answer the door. I’m wet; let me in.”

To do the little gentleman justice, he WAS wet. His feather hung down between his legs like a beaten puppy’s tail, dripping like an umbrella, and from the ends of his mustaches the water was running into his waistcoat pockets and out again like a mill stream.

“I beg pardon, sir,” said Gluck, “I’m very sorry, but, I really can’t.”

“Can’t what?” said the old gentleman.

“I can’t let you in, sir–I can’t, indeed; my brothers would beat me to death, sir, if I thought of such a thing. What do you want, sir?”

“Want?” said the old gentleman petulantly. “I want fire and shelter, and there’s your great fire there blazing, crackling, and dancing on the walls with nobody to feel it. Let me in, I say; I only want to warm myself.”

Gluck had had his head, by this time, so long out of the window that he began to feel it was really unpleasantly cold, and when he turned and saw the beautiful fire rustling and roaring and throwing long, bright tongues up the chimney, as if it were licking its chops at the savory smell of the leg of mutton, his heart melted within him that it should be burning away for nothing. “He does look very wet,” said little Gluck; “I’ll just let him in for a quarter of an hour.” Round he went to the door and opened it; and as the little gentleman walked in, there came a gust of wind through the house that made the old chimneys totter.

“That’s a good boy,” said the little gentleman. “Never mind your brothers. I’ll talk to them.”

“Pray, sir, don’t do any such thing,” said Gluck. “I can’t let you stay till they come; they’d be the death of me.”

“Dear me,” said the old gentleman, “I’m very sorry to hear that. How long may I stay?”

“Only till the mutton’s done, sir,” replied Gluck, “and it’s very brown.”

Then the old gentleman walked into the kitchen and sat himself down on the hob, with the top of his cap accommodated up the chimney, for it was a great deal too high for the roof. “You’ll soon dry there, sir,” said Gluck, and sat down again to turn the mutton. But the old gentleman did NOT dry there, but went on drip, drip, dripping among the cinders, and the fire fizzed and sputtered and began to look very black and uncomfortable. Never was such a cloak; every fold in it ran like a gutter.

“I beg pardon, sir,” said Gluck at length, after watching the water spreading in long, quicksilver-like streams over the floor for a quarter of an hour; “mayn’t I take your cloak?”

“No, thank you,” said the old gentleman.

“Your cap, sir?”

“I am all right, thank you,” said the old gentleman rather gruffly.

“But–sir–I’m very sorry,” said Gluck hesitatingly, “but–really, sir–you’re–putting the fire out.”

“It’ll take longer to do the mutton, then,” replied his visitor dryly.

Gluck was very much puzzled by the behavior of his guest; it was such a strange mixture of coolness and humility. He turned away at the string meditatively for another five minutes.

“That mutton looks very nice,” said the old gentleman at length. “Can’t you give me a little bit?”

“Impossible, sir,” said Gluck.

“I’m very hungry,” continued the old gentleman. “I’ve had nothing to eat yesterday nor to-day. They surely couldn’t miss a bit from the knuckle!”

He spoke in so very melancholy a tone that it quite melted Gluck’s heart. “They promised me one slice to-day, sir,” said he; “I can give you that, but not a bit more.”

“That’s a good boy,” said the old gentleman again.

Then Gluck warmed a plate and sharpened a knife. “I don’t care if I do get beaten for it,” thought he. Just as he had cut a large slice out of the mutton there came a tremendous rap at the door. The old gentleman jumped off the hob as if it had suddenly become inconveniently warm. Gluck fitted the slice into the mutton again, with desperate efforts at exactitude, and ran to open the door.

“What did you keep us waiting in the rain for?” said Schwartz, as he walked in, throwing his umbrella in Gluck’s face. “Aye! what for, indeed, you little vagabond?” said Hans, administering an educational box on the ear as he followed his brother into the kitchen.

“Bless my soul!” said Schwartz when he opened the door.

“Amen,” said the little gentleman, who had taken his cap off and was standing in the middle of the kitchen, bowing with the utmost possible velocity.

“Who’s that?” said Schwartz, catching up a rolling-pin and turning to Gluck with a fierce frown.

“I don’t know, indeed, brother,” said Gluck in great terror.

“How did he get in?” roared Schwartz.

“My dear brother,” said Gluck deprecatingly, “he was so VERY wet!”

The rolling-pin was descending on Gluck’s head, but, at the instant, the old gentleman interposed his conical cap, on which it crashed with a shock that shook the water out of it all over the room. What was very odd, the rolling-pin no sooner touched the cap than it flew out of Schwartz’s hand, spinning like a straw in a high wind, and fell into the corner at the further end of the room.

“Who are you, sir?” demanded Schwartz, turning upon him. “What’s your business?” snarled Hans.

“I’m a poor old man, sir,” the little gentleman began very modestly, “and I saw your fire through the window and begged shelter for a quarter of an hour.”

“Have the goodness to walk out again, then,” said Schwartz. “We’ve quite enough water in our kitchen without making it a drying house.”

“It is a cold day to turn an old man out in, sir; look at my gray hairs.” They hung down to his shoulders, as I told you before.

“Aye!” said Hans; “there are enough of them to keep you warm. Walk!”

“I’m very, very hungry, sir; couldn’t you spare me a bit of bread before I go?”

“Bread, indeed!” said Schwartz; “do you suppose we’ve nothing to do with our bread but to give it to such red-nosed fellows as you?”

“Why don’t you sell your feather?” said Hans sneeringly. “Out with you!”

“A little bit,” said the old gentleman. “Be off!” said Schwartz.

“Pray, gentlemen.”

“Off, and be hanged!” cried Hans, seizing him by the collar. But he had no sooner touched the old gentleman’s collar than away he went after the rolling-pin, spinning round and round till he fell into the corner on the top of it. Then Schwartz was very angry and ran at the old gentleman to turn him out; but he also had hardly touched him when away he went after Hans and the rolling-pin, and hit his head against the wall as he tumbled into the corner. And so there they lay, all three.

Then the old gentleman spun himself round with velocity in the opposite direction, continued to spin until his long cloak was all wound neatly about him, clapped his cap on his head, very much on one side (for it could not stand upright without going through the ceiling), gave an additional twist to his corkscrew mustaches, and replied with perfect coolness: “Gentlemen, I wish you a very good morning. At twelve o’clock tonight I’ll call again; after such a refusal of hospitality as I have just experienced, you will not be surprised if that visit is the last I ever pay you.”

“If ever I catch you here again,” muttered Schwartz, coming, half frightened, out of the corner–but before he could finish his sentence the old gentleman had shut the house door behind him with a great bang, and there drove past the window at the same instant a wreath of ragged cloud that whirled and rolled away down the valley in all manner of shapes, turning over and over in the air and melting away at last in a gush of rain.

“A very pretty business, indeed, Mr. Gluck!” said Schwartz. “Dish the mutton, sir. If ever I catch you at such a trick again–bless me, why, the mutton’s been cut!”

“You promised me one slice, brother, you know,” said Gluck.

“Oh! and you were cutting it hot, I suppose, and going to catch all the gravy. It’ll be long before I promise you such a thing again. Leave the room, sir; and have the kindness to wait in the coal cellar till I call you.”

Gluck left the room melancholy enough. The brothers ate as much mutton as they could, locked the rest in the cupboard, and proceeded to get very drunk after dinner.

Such a night as it was! Howling wind and rushing rain, without intermission. The brothers had just sense enough left to put up all the shutters and double-bar the door before they went to bed. They usually slept in the same room. As the clock struck twelve they were both awakened by a tremendous crash. Their door burst open with a violence that shook the house from top to bottom.

“What’s that?” cried Schwartz, starting up in his bed.

“Only I,” said the little gentleman.

The two brothers sat up on their bolster and stared into the darkness. The room was full of water, and by a misty moonbeam, which found its way through a hole in the shutter, they could see in the midst of it an enormous foam globe, spinning round and bobbing up and down like a cork, on which, as on a most luxurious cushion, reclined the little old gentleman, cap and all. There was plenty of room for it now, for the roof was off.

“Sorry to incommode you,” said their visitor ironically. “I’m afraid your beds are dampish. Perhaps you had better go to your brother’s room; I’ve left the ceiling on there.”

They required no second admonition, but rushed into Gluck’s room, wet through and in an agony of terror.

“You’ll find my card on the kitchen table,” the old gentleman called after them. “Remember, the LAST visit.”

“Pray Heaven it may!” said Schwartz, shuddering. And the foam globe disappeared.

Dawn came at last, and the two brothers looked out of Gluck’s little window in the morning. The Treasure Valley was one mass of ruin and desolation. The inundation had swept away trees, crops, and cattle, and left in their stead a waste of red sand and gray mud. The two brothers crept shivering and horror-struck into the kitchen. The water had gutted the whole first floor; corn, money, almost every movable thing, had been swept away, and there was left only a small white card on the kitchen table. On it, in large, breezy, long-legged letters, were engraved the words:

SOUTH WEST WIND, ESQUIRE

CHAPTER II

OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE THREE BROTHERS AFTER THE VISIT OF SOUTHWEST WIND, ESQUIRE; AND HOW LITTLE GLUCK HAD AN INTERVIEW WITH THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER

Southwest Wind, Esquire, was as good as his word. After the momentous visit above related, he entered the Treasure Valley no more; and, what was worse, he had so much influence with his relations, the West Winds in general, and used it so effectually, that they all adopted a similar line of conduct. So no rain fell in the valley from one year’s end to another. Though everything remained green and flourishing in the plains below, the inheritance of the three brothers was a desert. What had once been the richest soil in the kingdom became a shifting heap of red sand, and the brothers, unable longer to contend with the adverse skies, abandoned their valueless patrimony in despair, to seek some means of gaining a livelihood among the cities and people of the plains. All their money was gone, and they had nothing left but some curious old-fashioned pieces of gold plate, the last remnants of their ill-gotten wealth.

“Suppose we turn goldsmiths,” said Schwartz to Hans as they entered the large city. “It is a good knave’s trade; we can put a great deal of copper into the gold without anyone’s finding it out.”

The thought was agreed to be a very good one; they hired a furnace and turned goldsmiths. But two slight circumstances affected their trade: the first, that people did not approve of the coppered gold; the second, that the two elder brothers, whenever they had sold anything, used to leave little Gluck to mind the furnace, and go and drink out the money in the alehouse next door. So they melted all their gold without making money enough to buy more, and were at last reduced to one large drinking mug, which an uncle of his had given to little Gluck, and which he was very fond of and would not have parted with for the world, though he never drank anything out of it but milk and water. The mug was a very odd mug to look at. The handle was formed of two wreaths of flowing golden hair, so finely spun that it looked more like silk than metal, and these wreaths descended into and mixed with a beard and whiskers of the same exquisite workmanship, which surrounded and decorated a very fierce little face, of the reddest gold imaginable, right in the front of the mug, with a pair of eyes in it which seemed to command its whole circumference. It was impossible to drink out of the mug without being subjected to an intense gaze out of the side of these eyes, and Schwartz positively averred that once, after emptying it, full of Rhenish, seventeen times, he had seen them wink! When it came to the mug’s turn to be made into spoons, it half broke poor little Gluck’s heart; but the brothers only laughed at him, tossed the mug into the melting pot, and staggered out to the alehouse, leaving him, as usual, to pour the gold into bars when it was all ready.

When they were gone, Gluck took a farewell look at his old friend in the melting pot. The flowing hair was all gone; nothing remained but the red nose and the sparkling eyes, which looked more malicious than ever. “And no wonder,” thought Gluck, “after being treated in that way.” He sauntered disconsolately to the window and sat himself down to catch the fresh evening air and escape the hot breath of the furnace. Now this window commanded a direct view of the range of mountains which, as I told you before, overhung the Treasure Valley, and more especially of the peak from which fell the Golden River. It was just at the close of the day, and when Gluck sat down at the window, he saw the rocks of the mountain tops, all crimson and purple with the sunset; and there were bright tongues of fiery cloud burning and quivering about them; and the river, brighter than all, fell, in a waving column of pure gold, from precipice to precipice, with the double arch of a broad purple rainbow stretched across it, flushing and fading alternately in the wreaths of spray.

“Ah!” said Gluck aloud, after he had looked at it for a little while, “if that river were really all gold, what a nice thing it would be.”

“No, it wouldn’t, Gluck,” said a clear, metallic voice close at his ear.

“Bless me, what’s that?” exclaimed Gluck, jumping up. There was nobody there. He looked round the room and under the table and a great many times behind him, but there was certainly nobody there, and he sat down again at the window. This time he didn’t speak, but he couldn’t help thinking again that it would be very convenient if the river were really all gold.

“Not at all, my boy,” said the same voice, louder than before.

“Bless me!” said Gluck again, “what is that?” He looked again into all the corners and cupboards, and then began turning round and round as fast as he could, in the middle of the room, thinking there was somebody behind him, when the same voice struck again on his ear. It was singing now, very merrily, “Lala-lira-la”–no words, only a soft, running, effervescent melody, something like that of a kettle on the boil. Gluck looked out of the window; no, it was certainly in the house. Upstairs and downstairs; no, it was certainly in that very room, coming in quicker time and clearer notes every moment: “Lala-lira-la.” All at once it struck Gluck that it sounded louder near the furnace. He ran to the opening and looked in. Yes, he saw right; it seemed to be coming not only out of the furnace but out of the pot. He uncovered it, and ran back in a great fright, for the pot was certainly singing! He stood in the farthest corner of the room, with his hands up and his mouth open, for a minute or two, when the singing stopped and the voice became clear and pronunciative.

“Hollo!” said the voice.

Gluck made no answer.

“Hollo! Gluck, my boy,” said the pot again.

Gluck summoned all his energies, walked straight up to the crucible, drew it out of the furnace, and looked in. The gold was all melted and its surface as smooth and polished as a river, but instead of reflecting little Gluck’s head, as he looked in he saw, meeting his glance from beneath the gold, the red nose and sharp eyes of his old friend of the mug, a thousand times redder and sharper than ever he had seen them in his life.

“Come, Gluck, my boy,” said the voice out of the pot again, “I’m all right; pour me out.”

But Gluck was too much astonished to do anything of the kind.

“Pour me out, I say,” said the voice rather gruffly.

Still Gluck couldn’t move.

“WILL you pour me out?” said the voice passionately. “I’m too hot.” By a violent effort Gluck recovered the use of his limbs, took hold of the crucible, and sloped it, so as to pour out the gold. But instead of a liquid stream there came out, first a pair of pretty little yellow legs, then some coat tails, then a pair of arms stuck akimbo, and finally the well-known head of his friend the mug–all which articles, uniting as they rolled out, stood up energetically on the floor in the shape of a little golden dwarf about a foot and a half high.

“That’s right!” said the dwarf, stretching out first his legs and then his arms, and then shaking his head up and down and as far round as it would go, for five minutes without stopping, apparently with the view of ascertaining if he were quite correctly put together, while Gluck stood contemplating him in speechless amazement. He was dressed in a slashed doublet of spun gold, so fine in its texture that the prismatic colors gleamed over it as if on a surface of mother-of-pearl; and over this brilliant doublet his hair and beard fell full halfway to the ground in waving curls, so exquisitely delicate that Gluck could hardly tell where they ended; they seemed to melt into air. The features of the face, however, were by no means finished with the same delicacy; they were rather coarse, slightly inclining to coppery in complexion, and indicative, in expression, of a very pertinacious and intractable disposition in their small proprietor. When the dwarf had finished his self-examination, he turned his small, sharp eyes full on Gluck and stared at him deliberately for a minute or two. “No, it wouldn’t, Gluck, my boy,” said the little man.

This was certainly rather an abrupt and unconnected mode of commencing conversation. It might indeed be supposed to refer to the course of Gluck’s thoughts, which had first produced the dwarf’s observations out of the pot; but whatever it referred to, Gluck had no inclination to dispute the dictum.

“Wouldn’t it, sir?” said Gluck very mildly and submissively indeed.

“No,” said the dwarf, conclusively, “no, it wouldn’t.” And with that the dwarf pulled his cap hard over his brows and took two turns, of three feet long, up and down the room, lifting his legs up very high and setting them down very hard. This pause gave time for Gluck to collect his thoughts a little, and, seeing no great reason to view his diminutive visitor with dread, and feeling his curiosity overcome his amazement, he ventured on a question of peculiar delicacy.

“Pray, sir,” said Gluck, rather hesitatingly, “were you my mug?”

On which the little man turned sharp round, walked straight up to Gluck, and drew himself up to his full height. “I,” said the little man, “am the King of the Golden River.” Whereupon he turned about again and took two more turns, some six feet long, in order to allow time for the consternation which this announcement produced in his auditor to evaporate. After which he again walked up to Gluck and stood still, as if expecting some comment on his communication. Gluck determined to say something at all events. “I hope your Majesty is very well,” said Gluck.

“Listen!” said the little man, deigning no reply to this polite inquiry. “I am the king of what you mortals call the Golden River. The shape you saw me in was owing to the malice of a stronger king, from whose enchantments you have this instant freed me. What I have seen of you and your conduct to your wicked brothers renders me willing to serve you; therefore, attend to what I tell you. Whoever shall climb to the top of that mountain from which you see the Golden River issue, and shall cast into the stream at its source three drops of holy water, for him and for him only the river shall turn to gold. But no one failing in his first can succeed in a second attempt, and if anyone shall cast unholy water into the river, it will overwhelm him and he will become a black stone.” So saying, the King of the Golden River turned away and deliberately walked into the center of the hottest flame of the furnace. His figure became red, white, transparent, dazzling,–a blaze of intense light,–rose, trembled, and disappeared. The King of the Golden River had evaporated.

“Oh!” cried poor Gluck, running to look up the chimney after him, “O dear, dear, dear me! My mug! my mug! my mug!”

CHAPTER III

HOW MR. HANS SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN

The King of the Golden River had hardly made the extraordinary exit related in the last chapter, before Hans and Schwartz came roaring into the house very savagely drunk. The discovery of the total loss of their last piece of plate had the effect of sobering them just enough to enable them to stand over Gluck, beating him very steadily for a quarter of an hour; at the expiration of which period they dropped into a couple of chairs and requested to know what he had got to say for himself. Gluck told them his story, of which, of course, they did not believe a word. They beat him again, till their arms were tired, and
staggered to bed. In the morning, however, the steadiness with which he adhered to his story obtained him some degree of credence; the immediate consequence of which was that the two brothers, after wrangling a long time on the knotty question, which of them should try his fortune first, drew their swords and began fighting. The noise of the fray alarmed the neighbors, who, finding they could not pacify the combatants, sent for the constable.

Hans, on hearing this, contrived to escape, and hid himself; but Schwartz was taken before the magistrate, fined for breaking the peace, and, having drunk out his last penny the evening before, was thrown into prison till he should pay.

When Hans heard this, he was much delighted, and determined to set out immediately for the Golden River. How to get the holy water was the question. He went to the priest, but the priest could not give any holy water to so abandoned a character. So Hans went to vespers in the evening for the first time in his life and, under pretense of crossing himself, stole a cupful and returned home in triumph.

Next morning he got up before the sun rose, put the holy water into a strong flask, and two bottles of wine and some meat in a basket, slung them over his back, took his alpine staff in his hand, and set off for the mountains.

On his way out of the town he had to pass the prison, and as he looked in at the windows, whom should he see but Schwartz himself peeping out of the bars and looking very disconsolate.

“Good morning, brother,” said Hans; “have you any message for the King of the Golden River?”

Schwartz gnashed his teeth with rage and shook the bars with all his strength, but Hans only laughed at him and, advising him to make imself comfortable till he came back again, shouldered his basket, shook the bottle of holy water in Schwartz’s face till it frothed again, and marched off in the highest spirits in the world.

It was indeed a morning that might have made anyone happy, even with no Golden River to seek for. Level lines of dewy mist lay stretched along the valley, out of which rose the massy mountains, their lower cliffs in pale gray shadow, hardly distinguishable from the floating vapor but gradually ascending till they caught the sunlight, which ran in sharp touches of ruddy color along the angular crags, and pierced, in long, level rays, through their fringes of spearlike pine. Far above shot up red, splintered masses of castellated rock, jagged and shivered into myriads of fantastic forms, with here and there a streak of sunlit snow traced down their chasms like a line of forked lightning; and far beyond and far above all these, fainter than the morning cloud but purer and changeless, slept, in the blue sky, the utmost peaks of the eternal snow.

The Golden River, which sprang from one of the lower and snowless elevations, was now nearly in shadow–all but the uppermost jets of spray, which rose like slow smoke above the undulating line of the cataract and floated away in feeble wreaths upon the morning wind.

On this object, and on this alone, Hans’s eyes and thoughts were fixed. Forgetting the distance he had to traverse, he set off at an imprudent rate of walking, which greatly exhausted him before he had scaled the first range of the green and low hills. He was, moreover, surprised, on surmounting them, to find that a large glacier, of whose existence, notwithstanding his previous knowledge of the mountains, he had been absolutely ignorant, lay between him and the source of the Golden River. He entered on it with the boldness of a practiced mountaineer, yet he thought he had never traversed so strange or so dangerous a glacier in his life. The ice was excessively slippery, and out of all its chasms came wild sounds of gushing water–not monotonous or low, but changeful and loud, rising occasionally into drifting passages of wild melody, then breaking off into short, melancholy tones or sudden shrieks resembling those of human voices in distress or pain. The ice was broken into thousands of confused shapes, but none, Hans thought, like the ordinary forms of splintered ice. There seemed a curious EXPRESSION about all their outlines–a perpetual resemblance to living features, distorted and scornful. Myriads of deceitful shadows and lurid lights played and floated about and through the pale blue pinnacles, dazzling and confusing the sight of the traveler, while his ears grew dull and his head giddy with the constant gush and roar of the concealed waters. These painful circumstances increased upon him as he advanced; the ice crashed and yawned into fresh chasms at his feet, tottering spires nodded around him and fell thundering across his path; and though he had repeatedly faced these dangers on the most terrific glaciers and in the wildest weather, it was with a new and oppressive feeling of panic terror that he leaped the last chasm and flung himself, exhausted and shuddering, on the firm turf of the mountain.

He had been compelled to abandon his basket of food, which became a perilous incumbrance on the glacier, and had now no means of refreshing himself but by breaking off and eating some of the pieces of ice. This, however, relieved his thirst; an hour’s repose recruited his hardy frame, and with the indomitable spirit of avarice he resumed his laborious journey.

His way now lay straight up a ridge of bare red rocks, without a blade of grass to ease the foot or a projecting angle to afford an inch of shade from the south sun. It was past noon and the rays beat intensely upon the steep path, while the whole atmosphere was motionless and penetrated with heat. Intense thirst was soon added to the bodily fatigue with which Hans was now afflicted; glance after glance he cast on the flask of water which hung at his belt. “Three drops are enough,” at last thought he; “I may, at least, cool my lips with it.”

He opened the flask and was raising it to his lips, when his eye fell on an object lying on the rock beside him; he thought it moved. It was a small dog, apparently in the last agony of death from thirst. Its tongue was out, its jaws dry, its limbs extended lifelessly, and a swarm of black ants were crawling about its lips and throat. Its eye moved to the bottle which Hans held in his hand. He raised it, drank, spurned the animal with his foot, and passed on. And he did not know how it was, but he thought that a strange shadow had suddenly come across the blue sky.

The path became steeper and more rugged every moment, and the high hill air, instead of refreshing him, seemed to throw his blood into a fever. The noise of the hill cataracts sounded like mockery in his ears; they were all distant, and his thirst increased every moment. Another hour passed, and he again looked down to the flask at his side; it was half empty, but there was much more than three drops in it. He stopped to open it, and again, as he did so, something moved in the path above him. It was a fair child, stretched nearly lifeless on the rock, its breast heaving with thirst, its eyes closed, and its lips parched and burning. Hans eyed it deliberately, drank, and passed on. And a dark gray cloud came over the sun, and long, snakelike shadows crept up along the mountain sides. Hans struggled on. The sun was sinking, but its descent seemed to bring no coolness; the leaden height of the dead air pressed upon his brow and heart, but the goal was near. He saw the cataract of the Golden River springing from the hillside scarcely five hundred feet above him. He paused for a moment to breathe, and sprang on to complete his task.

At this instant a faint cry fell on his ear. He turned, and saw a gray-haired old man extended on the rocks. His eyes were sunk, his features deadly pale and gathered into an expression of despair. “Water!” he stretched his arms to Hans, and cried feebly, “Water! I am dying.”

“I have none,” replied Hans; “thou hast had thy share of life.” He strode over the prostrate body and darted on. And a flash of blue lightning rose out of the East, shaped like a sword; it shook thrice over the whole heaven and left it dark with one heavy, impenetrable shade. The sun was setting; it plunged towards the horizon like a redhot ball. The roar of the Golden River rose on Hans’s ear. He stood at the brink of the chasm through which it ran. Its waves were filled with the red glory of the sunset; they shook their crests like tongues of fire, and flashes of bloody light gleamed along their foam. Their sound came mightier and mightier on his senses; his brain grew giddy with the prolonged thunder. Shuddering he drew the flask from his girdle and hurled it into the center of the torrent. As he did so, an icy chill shot through his limbs; he staggered, shrieked, and fell. The waters closed over his cry, and the moaning of the river rose wildly into the night as it gushed over

THE BLACK STONE

CHAPTER IV

HOW MR. SCHWARTZ SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN

Poor little Gluck waited very anxiously, alone in the house, for Hans’s return. Finding he did not come back, he was terribly frightened and went and told Schwartz in the prison all that had happened. Then Schwartz was very much pleased and said that Hans must certainly have been turned into a black stone and he should have all the gold to himself. But Gluck was very sorry and cried all night. When he got up in the morning there was no bread in the house, nor any money; so Gluck went and hired himself to another goldsmith, and he worked so hard and so neatly and so long every day that he soon got money enough together to pay his brother’s fine, and he went and gave it all to Schwartz, and Schwartz got out of prison. Then Schwartz was quite pleased and said he should have some of the gold of the river. But Gluck only begged he would go and see what had become of Hans.

Now when Schwartz had heard that Hans had stolen the holy water, he thought to himself that such a proceeding might not be considered altogether correct by the King of the Golden River, and determined to manage matters better. So he took some more of Gluck’s money and went to a bad priest, who gave him some holy water very readily for it. Then Schwartz was sure it was all quite right. So Schwartz got up early in the morning before the sun rose, and took some bread and wine in a basket, and put his holy water in a flask, and set off for the mountains. Like his brother he was much surprised at the sight of the glacier and had great difficulty in crossing it, even after leaving his basket behind him. The day was cloudless but not bright; there was a heavy purple haze hanging over the sky, and the hills looked lowering and gloomy. And as Schwartz climbed the steep rock path the thirst came upon him, as it had upon his brother, until he lifted his flask to his lips to drink. Then he saw the fair child lying near him on the rocks, and it cried to him and moaned for water. “Water, indeed,” said Schwartz; “I haven’t half enough for myself,” and passed on. And as he went he thought the sunbeams grew more dim, and he saw a low bank of black cloud rising out of the west; and when he had climbed for another hour, the thirst overcame him again and he would have drunk. Then he saw the old man lying before him on the path, and heard him cry out for water. “Water, indeed,” said Schwartz; “I haven’t half enough for myself,” and on he went. Then again the light seemed to fade from before his eyes, and he looked up, and, behold, a mist, of the color of blood, had come over the sun; and the bank of black cloud had risen very high, and its edges were tossing and tumbling like the waves of the angry sea and they cast long shadows which flickered over Schwartz’s path.

Then Schwartz climbed for another hour, and again his thirst returned; and as he lifted his flask to his lips he thought he saw his brother Hans lying exhausted on the path before him, and as he gazed the figure stretched its arms to him and cried for water. “Ha, ha!” laughed Schwartz, “are you there? Remember the prison bars, my boy. Water, indeed! do you suppose I carried it all the way up here for you?” And he strode over the figure; yet, as he passed, he thought he saw a strange expression of mockery about its lips. And when he had gone a few yards farther, he looked back; but the figure was not there.

And a sudden horror came over Schwartz, he knew not why; but the thirst for gold prevailed over his fear, and he rushed on. And the bank of black cloud rose to the zenith, and out of it came bursts of spiry lightning, and waves of darkness seemed to heave and float, between their flashes, over the whole heavens. And the sky where the sun was setting was all level and like a lake of blood; and a strong wind came out of that sky, tearing its crimson clouds into fragments and scattering them far into the darkness. And when Schwartz stood by the brink of the Golden River, its waves were black like thunder clouds, but their foam was like fire; and the roar of the waters below and the thunder above met as he cast the flask into the stream. And as he did so the lightning glared in his eyes, and the earth gave way beneath him, and the waters closed over his cry. And the moaning of the river rose wildly into the night as it gushed over the

TWO BLACK STONES

CHAPTER V

HOW LITTLE GLUCK SET OFF ON AN EXPEDITION TO THE GOLDEN RIVER, AND HOW HE PROSPERED THEREIN, WITH OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST

When Gluck found that Schwartz did not come back, he was very sorry and did not know what to do. He had no money and was obliged to go and hire himself again to the goldsmith, who worked him very hard and gave him very little money. So, after a month or two, Gluck grew tired and made up his mind to go and try his fortune with the Golden River. “The little king looked very kind,” thought he. “I don’t think he will turn me into a black stone.” So he went to the priest, and the priest gave him some holy water as soon as he asked for it. Then Gluck took some bread in his basket, and the bottle of water, and set off very early for the mountains.

If the glacier had occasioned a great deal of fatigue in his brothers, it was twenty times worse for him, who was neither so strong nor so practiced on the mountains. He had several very bad falls, lost his basket and bread, and was very much frightened at the strange noises under the ice. He lay a long time to rest on the grass, after he had got over, and began to climb the hill just in the hottest part of the day. When he had climbed for an hour, he got dreadfully thirsty and was going to drink like his brothers, when he saw an old man coming down the path above him, looking very feeble and leaning on a staff.

“Why son,” said the old man, “I am faint with thirst; give me some of that water.” Then Gluck looked at him, and when he saw that he was pale and weary, he gave him the water. “Only pray don’t drink it all,” said Gluck. But the old man drank a great deal and gave him back the bottle two thirds empty. Then he bade him good speed, and Gluck went on again merrily. And the path became easier to his feet, and two or three blades of grass appeared upon it, and some grasshoppers began singing on the bank beside it, and Gluck thought he had never heard such merry singing.

Then he went on for another hour, and the thirst increased on him so that he thought he should be forced to drink. But as he raised the flask he saw a little child lying panting by the roadside, and it cried out piteously for water. Then Gluck struggled with himself and determined to bear the thirst a little longer; and he put the bottle to the child’s lips, and it drank it all but a few drops. Then it smiled on him and got up and ran down the hill; and Gluck looked after it till it became as small as a little star, and then turned and began climbing again. And then there were all kinds of sweet flowers growing on the rocks–bright green moss with pale pink, starry flowers, and soft belled gentians, more blue than the sky at its deepest, and pure white transparent lilies. And crimson and purple butterflies darted hither and thither, and the sky sent down such pure light that Gluck had never felt so happy in his life.

Yet, when he had climbed for another hour, his thirst became intolerable again; and when he looked at his bottle, he saw that there were only five or six drops left in it, and he could not venture to drink. And as he was hanging the flask to his belt again, he saw a little dog lying on the rocks, gasping for breath–just as Hans had seen it on the day of his ascent. And Gluck stopped and looked at it, and then at the Golden River, not five hundred yards above him; and he thought of the dwarf’s words, that no one could succeed except in his first attempt; and he tried to pass the dog, but it whined piteously and Gluck stopped again. “Poor beastie,” said Gluck, “it’ll be dead when I come down again, if I don’t help it.” Then he looked closer and closer at it, and its eye turned on him so mournfully that he could not stand it. “Confound the king and his gold too,” said Gluck, and he opened the flask and poured all the water into the dog’s mouth.

The dog sprang up and stood on its hind legs. Its tail disappeared; its ears became long, longer, silky, golden; its nose became very red; its eyes became very twinkling; in three seconds the dog was gone, and before Gluck stood his old acquaintance, the King of the Golden River.

“Thank you,” said the monarch. “But don’t be frightened; it’s all right”–for Gluck showed manifest symptoms of consternation at this unlooked-for reply to his last observation. “Why didn’t you come before,” continued the dwarf, “instead of sending me those rascally brothers of yours, for me to have the trouble of turning into stones? Very hard stones they make, too.”

“O dear me!” said Gluck, “have you really been so cruel?”

“Cruel!” said the dwarf; “they poured unholy water into my stream. Do you suppose I’m going to allow that?”

“Why,” said Gluck, “I am sure, sir,–your Majesty, I mean,–they got the water out of the church font.”

‘Very probably,” replied the dwarf, “but” (and his countenance grew stern as he spoke) “the water which has been refused to the cry of the weary and dying is unholy, though it had been blessed by every saint in heaven; and the water which is found in the vessel of mercy is holy, though it had been defiled with corpses.”

So saying, the dwarf stooped and plucked a lily that grew at his feet. On its white leaves there hung three drops of clear dew. And the dwarf shook them into the flask which Gluck held in his hand. “Cast these into the river,” he said, “and descend on the other side of the mountains into the Treasure Valley. And so good speed.”

As he spoke the figure of the dwarf became indistinct. The playing colors of his robe formed themselves into a prismatic mist of dewy light; he stood for an instant veiled with them as with the belt of a broad rainbow. The colors grew faint; the mist rose into the air; the monarch had evaporated.

And Gluck climbed to the brink of the Golden River, and its waves were as clear as crystal and as brilliant as the sun. And when he cast the three drops of dew into the stream, there opened where they fell a small, circular whirlpool, into which the waters descended with a musical noise.

Gluck stood watching it for some time, very much disappointed, because not only the river was not turned into gold, but its waters seemed much diminished in quantity. Yet he obeyed his friend the dwarf and descended the other side of the mountains towards the Treasure Valley; and as he went he thought he heard the noise of water working its way under the ground. And when he came in sight of the Treasure Valley, behold, a river, like the Golden River, was springing from a new cleft of the rocks above it and was flowing in innumerable streams among the dry heaps of red sand.

And as Gluck gazed, fresh grass sprang beside the new streams, and creeping plants grew and climbed among the moistening soil. Young flowers opened suddenly along the riversides, as stars leap out when twilight is deepening, and thickets of myrtle and tendrils of vine cast lengthening shadows over the valley as they grew. And thus the Treasure Valley became a garden again, and the inheritance which had been lost by cruelty was regained by love.

And Gluck went and dwelt in the valley, and the poor were never driven from his door, so that his barns became full of corn and his house of treasure. And for him the river had, according to the dwarf’s promise, become a river of gold.

And to this day the inhabitants of the valley point out the place where the three drops of holy dew were cast into the stream, and trace the course of the Golden River under the ground until it emerges in the Treasure Valley. And at the top of the cataract of the Golden River are still to be seen two black stones, round which the waters howl mournfully every day at sunset; and these stones are still called by the people of the valley

THE BLACK BROTHERS

Here are the Six Previous Predictions in this Series for your convenience and easy reference:

Prediction #1: “Deathly Hallows Will Be Very Much Like the First Six Harry Potter Novels” (with 3 Sure-Things We’ll See at Deathly Hallows’ Publication)

Prediction #2: “The Master Plan Will Be Revealed”

Prediction #3: “Mistaken Identities”

Prediction #4: “Through the Veil”

Prediction #5: “The Rubedo”

Prediction #6: “The House-Elves”

Prediction #6.5: “Tale of Two Cities: Why We Should Expect a Beheading in Deathly Hallows”

There isn’t much here that’s especially mind-boggling or off-the-wall (unless you count some of the guesses at mistaken identities) because each prediction is an illustration or pointer to one or many more of the Five Keys that Serious Readers use to get under the surface of the Harry Potter novels. Ms. Rowling works in patterns and formulas, some of which are fairly easy to understand and see (the Hero’s Journey for instance), others of which require some study (the Literary Alchemy and Postmodern Themes come to mind).

I like these predictions, not because I think they’re “winners” or “bull’s eyes” — I’d be more foolish than I am if I thought more than a few have a chance of proving to be Ms. Rowling’s actual plot points — but because they require readers to think seriously about the patterns Ms. Rowling will be following in what ever direction she takes the series in its finale. Sales of Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader continue to be strong while other Interlibrum titles like the MuggleNet guesses about HP7 have fallen off; readers are telling other serious readers that it isn’t just a pre-Deathly Hallows title.

Thank you for these word-of-mouth sales.

My last prediction is in answer to the question Ms. Rowling has fostered in our minds, “Will Harry die in Deathly Hallows?” I am certain the answer is, “Yes, he will.”

But what sort of death will it be?

Harry, after all, has died a figurative or “near death” in every book so far, only to rise-from-the-dead in the presence of a symbol of Christ. Will that pattern be continued in this last episode or has that periodic resurrection only been a prologue or perumbration for the hero’s real and final demise in Deathly Hallows?

Both versions, of course, would satisfy Ms. Rowling’s patterns that we see in the Five Keys so I won’t pretend to have a definitive answer. My thoughts about specific plot points are perhaps better than the average readers but not so much more that I’d want to bet more than I have in my wallet (never very much, alas).

I don’t know what Harry will learn at the Dursleys’, at Godric’s Hollow, or at the Alchemical Wedding in The Burrow, or even if Harry’s itinerary will conform to his stated destinations at the end of Half-Blood Prince once VoldeWar II breaks out in earnest. I doubt very much there will be the grand Horcrux Hunt many expect or, if he does find the Horcruxes, that he’ll find them in working order. The Rubedo will reveal what happened in the White Stage of the work and much of that Harry just doesn’t understand (see prediction #2). I have a hard time seeing Albus and Severus leaving Horcrux destruction to a self-important man-boy without any clear instructions about destroying them or clues about finding them.

I do imagine that Harry will travel underground and visit the Dead (see prediction #4). If he goes through the Veil, we’ll know why Ms. Rowling had Harry go deep every year and, perhaps, why she thought her faith would be self-evident in the finale. A three day “harrying of Hell” and return-to-life would suffice for that, no?

As much as this trip would satisfy a checklist requirement for “death” and “resurrection,” even Ms. Rowling’s assertion that we’d see in Deathly Hallows how near we could get to the dead, my gut feeling is that we’ll see another death, this time by beheading (see Prediction #6.5). Harry may learn something about his ScarCam Horcrux (which I think Severus disarmed at the end of Prince before leaving the Hogwarts grounds) and foolishly believe his decapitation will destroy the Horcrux (logic says it wouldn’t; only blowing up his head entirely or removing and destroying the Horcrux itself would do that because it isn’t dependent on Harry’s life, it rests on his skull).

Whatever, it seems there is so much beheading and near-beheading in the books that I suspect, as Linda McCabe has said, Chekhov’s Dictum that a loaded gun brought on stage must be fired seems to require that we have a Sydney Carton-like finish to Deathly Hallows. I hope you’ll forgive me for not believing that it will be Harry’s demise.

We know that Unicorn blood will save your life no matter how weak your hold on existence (if drinking this cipher for the Blood of Christ will damn anyone drinking it unworthily, a la 1 Corinthians). We know, too, that Dumbledore was the man who discovered the 12 uses of Dragon’s Blood and that Dragon’s Heart Strings are magically powerful. It turns out that “Dragon’s Blood” is alchemical language for the “Elixir of Life,” another cipher for the Blood of Christ. We saw a little of this power in Phoenix when Hagrid manages to endure Grawp’s beatings for months via the judicious application of Dragon steaks.

Look for Norbert to return like the calvary to Harry’s Cavalry and, with some help, to do for him what Fawkes did for his wounds in the Chamber of Secrets. A little trickier, of course, if Harry is doing his impersonation of Nearly Headless Nick, but certainly doable.

Harry then, may die not only once but twice in Deathly Hallows. He may pass through the Veil and join the Dead. He almost certainly will return. I expect then that Harry will die in a way that convinces us he is “dead and gone” but we will be wrong. In a “big twist” and probably via the services of the Dumbledore men on the scene, Hagrid and Snape, Harry will be revived with Dragon’s Blood. Severus, however redeemed and revealed as a hero and the Great Physician and the Man the World Knew Not, will not be so lucky. Look for Wormtail to be Severus’ bane, thinking he is doing what Harry (and Harry’s father) would want….

It’s getting late and I have a very long night ahead, speaking at Barnes and Noble Saucon Valley and then reading aloud to my three youngest children, Stasia, Timothy, and Zossima. Thank you for reading these predictions and, in advance, for your charity in the coming hours as you find out that all my guesswork has been wrong, at least superficially, as it must prove to be. Reflection on the Five Keys of Narrative Misdirection, Literary Alchemy, the Hero’s Journey, Postmodern Themes, and Traditional Symbolism will help us unravel the meaning of Deathly Hallows more than these guesses made using the Keys have unraveled Ms. Rowling’s finale beforehand.

I hope you have had even half the fun and friendship through your thinking about Harry Potter, here and elsewhere, that I have had. If you have, these books will always have a very special place near your heart.

“Accio Tomorrow!”

Hogwarts Professor will be closed until Monday when I will be appearing at the Barnes & Noble Book Club online as Guest Host for a day, beginning the international and all-comers discussion there of Deathly Hallows. “See you there and then!”

A week or so ago, my computer mailbox filled up with e-owls from friends everywhere about an article that had appeared on the MSN network. Called “Death of Harry Potter Makes Mythological Sense,” it argued that Harry’s death was not only possible, it was likely because of mythic and classic precedent.

It was interesting; certainly HogPro readers know I think it is hard to overestimate either Ms. Rowling’s French studies (postmodern themes), Christian faith (traditional symbolism), or her classical education (Hero’s Journey). I was a little disappointed that no one mentioned Orestes in the article and his fate as the forehead scar-bearer avenging the death of his father but the influence track these academic critics went down seems legitimate to me. I’ve been writing about Harry as Aeneas and Christ in the Underworld quite a bit lately myself.

But, really folks, does Ms. Rowling strike you as an Epic Poet wannabe writing Christian allegory, point by point?

I blush at the thought.

There have been credible rumors from Europe for several months of a letter by Ms. Rowling referencing the “Author’s Apology” prefacing Pilgrim’s Progress in answer to a question about her faith. There are also the interviews in which she definitely said her faith would be evident in the seventh book. Assuming the rumors are true and the lady wasn’t just putting up a faith front at the height of the Controversy, we know for sure, nonetheless, that the woman is embarrassed by transparent religious imagery that is openly didactic. The Potter novels are loaded with subtle (and not so subtle) Christian imagery but Harry won’t be dying on a Cross in Deathly Hallows or on a Stone Table, for that matter.

His death(s), though, and the meaning of “how Harry dies” are important.

Back to the mythological content of Harry Potter….

Ms. Rowling is an “English Novelist” (“English” not in the sense of being “London English” but “writing in English”). Let’s play a word association game for a minute. When you hear the words “English Novelist,” what is the first name that comes to mind?

If you said “Tolkien,” that’s understandable, if I’ve never been able to think of LOTR as a “novel” (in the same way that Wagner’s Ring Cycle isn’t a “musical”). If you said “Christie” or “Byatt” or “Thackeray,” again, okay, I get it. Everyone has their favorites.

But I confess I’ll be surprised at anyone who hears the words “English Novelist” and doesn’t think “Austen” or “Dickens” first. We know Ms. Rowling’s debts to Jane Austen (explained at length in the first chapter of Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader). Rather than beat ourselves up reading Aeschylus in the few hours remaining in the Interlibrum, shouldn’t we be talking about Charles Dickens?

Let’s!

I can’t do this subject justice here because I have two more predictions to write before PDay and I have interviews scheduled tomorrow right up until I talk at the local Barnes and Noble here in the Lehigh Valley (my very last seconds of fame as a Potter Pundit — or is that ‘Parasite’?). But here are some academically irresponsible and non-peer-reviewed thoughts about Shakespeare, Dickens, The Tale of Two Cities, and the likelihood of a beheading at the end of Deathly Hallows (pretty doggone likely).

The first thing we need to get straight about Charles Dickens is that he was crazy about plays and this was in a historical period that “drama” was not considered edifying entertainment (or even legal, for that matter, because of the incredibly restrictive licensing laws for theatres). And Dickens wasn’t just wild about all things greasepaint and stage lights (though really he was), he was gonzo for Shakespeare.

As John Carey wrote in Modern Philology (1999):

As a young law clerk, a colleague remembered, “he could give us Shakespeare by the ten minutes and could imitate all the leading actors of the time…. Two of the surviving eight British Museum slips in Dickens’ name are for Shakespeare’s works. He took a pocket Shakespeare around America with him, was a founding member of the Shakespeare Club, and served on the Council ofthe Shakespeare Society.

The best book on this subject is Gager’s Shakespeare and Dickens: The Dynamics of Influence, (CUP, 1996). If you haven’t got the $100 you’ll need to get that (or a good library nearby where you can find it), a decent short course without the more than one thousand references to Shakespeare in Dickens’ books in Gager can be had online: Dickens and Shakespeare by Paul Schlike (University of Aberdeen). Either work, if your experience is like mine, will leave you startled and fascinated by Dickens’ immersion and debt to the other “greatest writer in the English language.” Would you believe he produced, directed, and played a major part in an amateur production of Merry Wives of Windsor? It’s like learning that Michael Jordan spent the better part of two years at the height of his basketball abilities playing minor league baseball.

So what? Well, as Schlike writes, “Dickens was an inferior playwright, but his novels are Shakespearean in their vital theatricality” (op.cit., p. 96). I’ll go father than that. In at least one of his novels — one of the shortest, most theatrical, and the most well known piece compared to anything he wrote other than Christmas Carol — Dickens attempts alchemical drama in the manner of Shakespeare. Tale of Two Cities has all the hallmarks of a staged melodramatic program, and, specifically, as a Shakespearean presentation of the “resolution of contraries” and the production of an immortal Rebis for the edification of the reader.

No, I’m not going to be able to argue this incredible point to anyone’s satisfaction here, least of all my own. I will only note that Tale of Two Cities:

(1) is obviously about contraries in conflict, not only the title cities and the countries they represent (check out those wonderful opening lines), but also the rich and poor in France and specific “twins”;

(2) has three main parts, the three “books” within the novel, which correspond remarkably to alchemy’s black, white, and red stages; and

(3) about immortality via resurrection from a sacrificial death to self (the number and diversity of “resurrection” figures from Gerry and Monsieur Manet to both Darnay and Carton is mind-boggling).

Sydney Carton’s redemption and sacrifice at the guillotine, comforting the scullery maid, and his prophetic vision of the Square in which he dies at a future time even without his “Better thing, Better rest” one-liner walk-off has to be one of the most cathartic moments in English literature. I never read it or even talk about it without getting a lump in my throat the size of a Chicago softball.

Joanne Rowling feels the same way.

It’s a book that she mentions as a reflex:

Earlier this year, for instance, Britain’s tabloids tracked down her ex-husband, a Portuguese journalist named Jorge Arantes with whom she had a brief marriage in the early 1990′s. Ms. Rowling has brought up their daughter, Jessica, single-handed. But suggestions that her ex-husband may have helped in the creation of Harry Potter rankle with her. “He had about as much input into Harry Potter as I had into ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ ” she said tartly. http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/0700-nyt-cowell.htm

And, though she didn’t mention Tale of Two Cities in a list she gave the Guardian of books she recommends to children (David Copperfield was her Dickens’ choice, if A Tale of Two Blind Mice by Beatrix Potter was a near miss), the list obviously isn’t of her favorites or “the greatest influences.” There is no Macbeth, no Austen, no Gallico, no Narnia, no Nesbit, and no Goudge here.

We have, though, something of a smoking gun about Ms. Rowling and The Tale of Two Cities in a story from her year in Paris studying French.

Lecturers remember Rowling as nervous and insecure, but a fellow student, Yvette Cowles, told Sean Smith, her biographer, that she was popular and striking. “She wore long skirts and used to have this blue denim jacket she liked to wear. Jo was very shapely and she had this big hair, kind of back -combed and lacquered, and lots of heavy eyeliner. I think she was quite popular with the guys.” In her first year she signed up for French and Classics but an attitude to academia best described as minimum work, maximum fun led to her abandoning Classics after she failed to register properly for an exam. Her third year was spent teaching in a school in Paris and sharing a flat with an Italian, a Russian and a Spaniard. She found the Italian disagreeable and would avoid him by spending whole days in her room reading. During this time she read Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, a literary discovery that may have influenced her alleged intention to kill off Harry Potter at the end of book seven. The death of Charles Darnay, sacrificing his life for a friend, and his moving last words had a major impact on Rowling: “It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” {Hat Tip and many thanks once again to Lisa Bunker for hunting down this 2003 Scotsman article about Ms. Rowling that my search engines couldn’t locate.}

The full Sean Smith biography version of this story, I’m told, is much richer, with Ms. Rowling weeping in a cafe after finishing the book and saying that Carton’s line (not Darnay! ouch) was the single greatest line in English, period. I’m hoping that one of the HogPro AllPros has this book and will confirm or deny this in the comment boxes below. [see this comment for the Smith quotation which reads Carton rather than Darnay....]

True or not, Tale of Two Cities, its resurrection motif, and its cathartic ending deserves a closer look by Potter-philes. Not only do the Harry Potter novels share an alchemical structure with Tale of Two Cities, Harry dies a figurative death every year on his Hero’s Journey and rises from the dead in the presence of a symbol of Christ. The resurrection theme — love’s victory over death — is evident in both and presented in a similar black-white-red sequence.

And the killer connection? (Forgive me that, please.)

Ms. Rowling has laced every one of her Potter books with references, characters, and plot events involving or pointing to a beheading of some kind. When I read the books this past year with my Valley Forge Military Academy fourth classmen (ninth graders), by the time we reached Goblet the cadets were groaning at each new reference to someone having their head cut-off. We counted more than 30. [Grateful Bow and a Hat Tip to Linda McCabe for bringing this grisly motif to my attention in 2003.]

Struggling to think of any?

How about Nearly Headless Nick and the gang of the beheaded on the Headless Hunt?

Buckbeak’s near-miss decapitation?

Ron’s Severing Charm on his Dress Robes?

The fake-wand battle in which the parrot eats the head off Harry’s fish?

Harry’s prediction of his own death by decapitation in a homework assignment for Professor Trelawney?

The Weasley twins’ Headless Hats?

Go ahead, mention your favorite allusion in the books to someone losing their heads at the neck (give hanging asides a half-credit) in the comment boxes. There are a daunting number in the first six books.

I was talking tonight with Ms. McCabe (she was coaching me from the Left Coast for an interview I may do tomorrow on one of her favorite teevee shows) and she mentioned “Chekhov’s Gun” (sometimes mistakenly called “Chekhov’s Law” for writers which one writer says is “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass”). Anton Chekhov apparently felt strongly about what Janet Batchler calls “set-ups” and “pay-offs.” As he wrote to several friends and demonstrated in his own plays, Chekhov thought that a dramatist shouldn’t show a loaded gun on stage if it wasn’t going to be fired.

Given the number of times Ms. Rowling has shown us the axe or the shadow of an axe falling in her first six books, this rule from the stage might be re-christened “Rowling’s Razor.” Someone is almost definitely going to take it in the neck in Deathly Hallows.

I think that if Ms. Rowling is going to cash-in on the underground travels Harry and friends make before their confrontation with evil in each book that he needs a trip through the Veil sometime in Deathly Hallows. [See Prediction Four.] This would tie up the resurrection/Christ symbol formula and foreshadowing tightly in addition to making this a Hero’s Journey like the great monomyth heroes’.

But, either way, I doubt that journey will be the climax of the books, however stunning a Three Day Resurrection a la Philosopher’s Stone from the Land of the Dead would be. For one thing, the journey to consult the dead usually comes at the beginning or middle of epic journey (only in Christian scripture detailing the Resurrection does it come close to the finish). More important, Harry’s trips underground often take place well before the decisive battle or closing confrontation of his annual adventures. Getting past Fluffy and going through the Trapdoor was only step one in the tests underground in Stone. The trip through the Whomping Willow roots in Prisoner seemed mechanical and well removed from the action in the Shrieking Shack or with the Time Turner later. Chamber and Goblet’s trips are central, sure, but Harry’s trip downstairs in Phoenix and the sojourn in the Stygian Cave in Prince are prologue rather than elements in the concluding acts.

Harry can go through the Veil, come back, and still find out that he’ll take it in the neck. Maybe he will learn something there from the shades (as he did in the graveyard in Goblet?) that will make him think he has to be beheaded.

Or will it be how to fake a beheading? Or survive a beheading? Remember Sir Gawain and the Green Knight…

More on Harry’s Death tomorrow in Prediction #7! See you then!

If I have neglected one key here at HogPro that I discuss at length in Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader, it is Harry’s Hero Journey. In Unlocking I explain it in great detail (with other repeated story patterns and elements) in a chapter that is something of a break between the more challenging material in the literary alchemy and postmodern themes sections.

Events of last week, though, call for a closer look at Harry’s formulaic journeys here with special attention given the descent, literal or figurative, he makes in each book before his annual confrontation with the Black Hats. An article by Anne Johnstone in the Glasgow Herald reminded us (via Lisa and her ever industrious house-elves at Accio Quote!) that Ms. Rowling had told Ms. Johnstone in a 2000 interview that in Deathly Hallows we would see “how close we can get to the dead.”

One of her fundamentals is that you can’t reverse death: “That’s a given. Without it the plot would fall apart, though in Book Seven you’ll see just how close you can get to the dead. You can be brought back from being petrified and from injuries that in the real world are mortal, depending on the degree of skill that a particular wizard possesses. You can’t go to any wizard and say ‘Will you cure my terminally ill relative?’ It’s a mirror image of the real world in that sense.”

Ms. Johnstone, as she remembered this exchange last week, thought Ms. Rowling was speaking about “reversing death;” she left off “to the dead” in her most recent rendering of Ms. Rowling’s 2000 comment:

Will Harry survive in the final book, due out on July 21? Your guess is as good as mine, but it’s worth remembering something Joanne said in 2000 when we were discussing the importance for the dramatic tension in her books of there being limits to what is susceptible to magic. One fundamental is that you can’t reverse death. “That’s a given,” she said, “though in book seven you’ll see just how close you can get.”

This quite naturally lead to no little speculative discussion. Hans Andrea, who has argued persuasively for two years that Harry will be going through the Veil in Deathly Hallows, has received some confirmation from both versions of this interview and especially from the original “close to the dead.” I thought, at least before Lisa at Accio Quotes sent me a link to the original 2000 statement, that Ms. Johnstone was right in thinking that Ms. Rowling was talking about “reversing death,” which could be a pointer to “Stoppered Death” and indirectly to other narrative misdirection in Half-Blood Prince (yes, for me at least that would mean Scar-O-Scope or SOS). Travis Prinzi and others have contributed fascinating ideas between and differing from Hans’ and my opinions.

In response to my thank-you note to Lisa, she wrote that she had made some notes about “Harry as Aeneas” before Half-Blood Prince was published that she hoped to re-visit because of the “close to the dead” comment that had re-surfaced. I will post a selection from those notes here after explaining why Lisa and others would think there was a link between this comment and Virgil’s Aeneid.

To get there, we have to talk a bit about a Hero’s Journey, what academics call Monomyth.

Though Joseph Campbell is considered the father of the idea that there is a central myth of a “hero’s journey” that can be found almost universally in human cultures, the thesis of Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces was first treated at length by Soviet formalist Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp if it is suggested in Frazer’s The Golden Bough. In brief, the hero’s journey is a formula trip of steps that take the hero from a mundane existence through a series of trials and adventures to a return, much changed, to the hero’s point of origin. Homer’s Odyssey and the first half of Virgil’s Aeneid are the models for Western Literature, references to which or elements from which it can be seen in everything from St. Luke’s Book of Acts to George Lucas’ Star Wars movies.

Ms. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels are in this stream of heroic literature, because, though they are the story of the hero’s alchemical transformation, the narrative line through the seven stages of that process is a repeated hero’s journey. Every year, Harry goes through the same travel steps that differ only in specific details. We start Harry’s story at Privet Drive, escape that world magically, wrestle with a mystery, make a decision in crisis, descend into an underworld to the place of confrontation, duke it out with the badguys, lose the battle, die a figurative death, rise from this death in the presence of a symbol of Christ, hash it out with the Headmaster, and return to King’s Cross Station and the Dursley’s. This is a rule to which formula Ms. Rowling makes very few exceptions (most notably in the beginning of Stone and the beginning and end of Half-Blood Prince).

This is formulaic monomyth with magical and alchemical props and a load of Christian figures from the treasury of English literature. The part I want to focus on today is the descent Harry makes into an underworld before every grand conflict in his annual adventure.

In Stone, it’s the drop from Fluffy’s pen through the trapdoor that takes the three eleven-year olds underground for their trials from Devil’s Snare to the Mirror of Erised.

In Chamber, Ron, Harry, and Gilderoy slide down the chutes in Myrtle’s bathroom to the passages that are “miles under Hogwarts.”

In Prisoner, Sirius drags Ron and Peter under the Whomping Willow to the hidden entrance for the Shrieking Shack. Harry, Hermione, Remus, and, eventually, Severus all follow them through this underground passage.

In Goblet, Harry and Cedric do not go underground. They are, however, magically transported from the Maze (Labyrinth) to a graveyard, a stand-in, if you will, for the land of the dead or “underworld.”

In Phoenix, the sextet platoon of Dumbledore’s Army fly into London and descend to the lowest depths in the Department of Mysteries, where they battle a flock of the Knights of Walpurgis.

In Half-Blood Prince, Harry is taken off-campus by someone who looks like Dumbledore to a subterranean lake, which Stygian body of water they cross on a seek-and-retrieve mission. After the melodrama on the Astronomy Tower, Harry and another person looking like Dumbledore descend from the Tower (Harry takes the steps); Harry has his final dueling lesson with Severus after this descent. [I have suggested in other posts that Severus Snape is polyjuicing Dumbledore in the Cave and that Horace Slughorn could be playing the Headmaster's part on the Tower -- theories of Professor Mum and Sally Gallo, respectively -- and only refrain from saying it was Dumbledore in this post so I don't get questions about why I have abandoned these possibilities! Back to Aeneas, Harry, and the Veil...]

What does this pattern have to do with the possibility of Harry passing through the Veil in Deathly Hallows? and with Virgil’s Aeneid?

Before I review the underworld step in the Aeneid , Odyssey and Comedia, here are the most relevant bits from Lisa’s notes on Harry and the Aeneid. Her full post can be — should be! — read at the magnificent “Madam Pince’s Potter Pages,” simply the best online source for updates to canon from news reports and interviews.

We already know that Jo was inspired by The Iliad (Patroclus/Hector/Achilles) when she wrote the scene where Harry rescues Cedric’s body. What if other tales also influenced Jo’s vision of the series? Gilgamesh, Orpheus, Aeneas and Dante? If one follows literary precedent, you need a couple things: protection, a guide or very good instructions, and you need to follow the directions. In exchange, one might gain hidden knowledge, conversation with dead loved ones, and perhaps even rescue them (we know that won’t happen).

A journey into death could give Harry several opportunities: communication with his parents, Sirius and Dumbledore, a way to come to terms with death, information on the Horcruxes, and possibly even knowledge that allows him to know how to finally vanquish Voldemort.

We have it from Lisa, then, that Ms. Rowling will be using at least parts of Aeneas’ trip into the underworld at Cumae from Book VI of the Aeneid in the last book in the Harry Potter septology. Her reasons for this are good ones, and, beyond her argument, that this occurs in the “middle” of the Aeneid rather than the end is not a disqualifier; the sixth book is usually considered the “end” of Aeneas’ odyssey from Troy to Rome.

In this post I will review the action of the sixth book in the Aeneid for those of you who haven’t read it recently, take a much briefer look at Odysseus’ and Dante’s trips among the dead, and then offer some stray thoughts on how and why Ms. Rowling would have Harry travel through the Veil in Deathly Hallows. I think, too, that we have to consider a possible trip through the Veil as a remarkable answer to why Ms. Rowling suggested the last book will answer questions about her faith.

The Aeneid, Book 6: Aeneas’ Trip to the Underworld

In Book 6, Aeneas has traveled from Dido’s Libya to Cumae in order to consult the prophetess of Apollo and Diana there, Deiphobe the Sybil. She tells him to make sacrifices and to find the Golden Bough:

Receive my counsel. In the neighb’ring grove
There stands a tree; the queen of Stygian Jove
Claims it her own; thick woods and gloomy night
Conceal the happy plant from human sight.
One bough it bears; but (wondrous to behold!)
The ductile rind and leaves of radiant gold:
This from the vulgar branches must be torn,
And to fair Proserpine the present borne,
Ere leave be giv’n to tempt the nether skies.
The first thus rent a second will arise,
And the same metal the same room supplies.
Look round the wood, with lifted eyes, to see
The lurking gold upon the fatal tree:
Then rend it off, as holy rites command;
The willing metal will obey thy hand,
Following with ease, if favor’d by thy fate,
Thou art foredoom’d to view the Stygian state:
If not, no labor can the tree constrain;
And strength of stubborn arms and steel are vain.
Dryden translation, Aeneid 6

Aeneas is led by two birds from Venus (his mother, not the planet…) to the tree deep in the forest with the golden branch that his ticket to the Elysian Fields:

They fed, and, flutt’ring, by degrees withdrew
Still farther from the place, but still in view:
Hopping and flying, thus they led him on
To the slow lake, whose baleful stench to shun
They wing’d their flight aloft; then, stooping low,
Perch’d on the double tree that bears the golden bough.
Thro’ the green leafs the glitt’ring shadows glow;
As, on the sacred oak, the wintry mistletoe,
Where the proud mother views her precious brood,
And happier branches, which she never sow’d.
Such was the glitt’ring; such the ruddy rind,
And dancing leaves, that wanton’d in the wind.
He seiz’d the shining bough with griping hold,
And rent away, with ease, the ling’ring gold;
Then to the Sibyl’s palace bore the prize.
Dryden translation, Aeneid 6

After sacrifices at the mouth of her cave, the Sibyl leads Aeneas into the underworld. Charon the Boatman refuses to carry the living in his boat across the river Styx but the Sibyl shows him the golden bough and it’s “All aboard!” Once across, the Sibyl gives Cerebrus some drugged meat and they pass by the sleeping monster.

Aeneas speaks to Dido (who does not respond or even stay to listen to him) and converses with Deiphobus, whom Helen betrayed to Menelaus and Odysseus the night Troy fell. The Sibyl interrupts this exchange to hurry Aeneas along — and to give him a tour (by description, not passage) of Tartarus and the suffering souls of the sinful punished there. Nothing but Virgil leading Dante through the circles of hell tops Virgil writing out the Sybil’s monologue here.

But the destination is the Elysian Fields, not Tartarus, and the pair affix the golden bough at the gates to Roman paradise:

Before our farther way the Fates allow,
Here must we fix on high the golden bough.”
She said: and thro’ the gloomy shades they pass’d,
And chose the middle path. Arriv’d at last,
The prince with living water sprinkled o’er
His limbs and body; then approach’d the door,
Possess’d the porch, and on the front above
He fix’d the fatal bough requir’d by Pluto’s love.
These holy rites perform’d, they took their way
Where long extended plains of pleasure lay
Dryden translation, Aeneid 6

Aeneas finds his father, Anchises, there and in his delight tries to give him a hug, three times, each in vain (Odysseus had done the same with his mother…). Aeneas asks him about a crowd of souls gathered at the river Lethe and why they are there. Anchises tells him these are the souls of those about to return to life after they drink in sufficient forgetfulness from the river to re-incarnate.

He then points out the men who will be Aeneas’ descendants “so you will feel with me more happiness/ At finding Italy” (Fitzgerald trans., Book 6, L. 963-964). More than a little of this is unvarnished praise of the Julians, especially Caesar Augustus and his nephew Marcellus. Anchises also tells him “how/ He might avoid or bear each toil to come” (Fitzgerald trans., Book 6, L. 1209-1210).

Anchises then guides Aeneas and the Sybil to the gates for their return to the living:

There are two gates of Sleep, one said to be
Of horn, whereby the true shades pass with ease,
The other all white ivory agleam
Without a flaw, and yet false dreams are sent
Through this one by the ghosts to the upper world.
Anchises now, his last instructions given,
Took son and Sibyl there and let them go
By the Ivory gate.
(Fitzgerald trans., Book 6, L. 1211-1218)

This is Virgil’s much expanded version of Odysseus’ consultation with the dead in Book XI of Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus travels from Circe’s island to “the city of Kimmerian people” (Lattimore trans., Book 11, L. 14). He digs a pit at the spot described by Circe, “poured it full of drink offerings for all the dead” (op. cit., L. 26), says his prayers, and bleeds the life-blood of sheep into the hole, which brings the dead a runnin.’

He speaks with Elpinor, a man he had not buried on Circe’s island, but does not allow Elpinor or his mother, Antiklea, to drink the blood until Teiresias the Theban has drunk from the pit and told him his future. Odysseus then allows Antiklea to drink and speak. Heart wrenching tale! He describes for his Phoenecian hosts all the other Greek heroes he sees and his conversations, most notably with Agamemnon, Achilleus, Aias, and Herakles. We see, too, the sufferings of Tantalus and Sisyphus.

Homer and Virgil include a trip to the gates of and even into the Underworld in their heroes’ adventures. Dante’s Comedia begins his own trip to Paradise on Good Friday, 1300, with Virgil as his guide through the circles of hell. I am not so silly as to try to summarize the Inferno here; the subject deserves its own post as a largely unexplored aspect of Ms. Rowling’s preoccupation with Renaissance Florence (see Bad Snape: Machiavelli’s Half-Blood Prince for an introduction to the Florentine thread that runs through Harry Potter). It will have to suffice here to note that Dante’s heroic journey includes the longest trip to the underworld in epic literature, that Dorothy Sayers, one of Ms. Rowling’s favorite writers, thought her Dante translations better work than any of her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, and to say that Dante lived in Florence, Ms. Rowling’s magical Jerusalem.

Here are six reasons taken from the top of my head for thinking Harry may go through the Veil in Deathly Hallows:

(1) In every novel so far, Ms. Rowling has had Harry descend before the climactic battle either underground quite literally or to a place of the dead. We can take this as something of a fetish, a coincidence, or a pointer to the last book when Harry will, at last, “do an Odysseus/Aeneas/Dante” and head into the real land of the dead. All previous descents would then be understood, not as mechanical check-list satisfaction for her hero’s journey formula but as dramatic perumbration of one of the most memorable events in the story’s closing book.

(2) Ms. Rowling is by training a classicist. If she majored in French at the University of Exeter, she read Latin and Greek in secondary school and at Exeter and read enough to have done well in her testing at Wyedean School and College, where she was something like Hermione. Speaking as someone who studied Latin for too many years and has taught it for as many, I can assure you that Latin study is all aimed at “getting to” Virgil’s Aeneid and reading as much of the first six books as you can. Ms. Rowling, whose Latin still is enough a part of her thinking that the greater part of Hogwarts spellwork is in in this language, undoubtedly has read the Aeneid in the original and, I’m betting, through Book 6.

(3) When Harry sees the Veil in the Department of Mysteries, he “thought the archway had a kind of beauty about it, old that it was. The gently rippling veil intrigued him; he felt a very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walk through it” (Phoenix, Chapter 34, p. 774). We learn in the next chapter, “Beyond the Veil,” that the archway is a door into death. When Sirius is blasted by Bellatrix, he falls through the Veil and is not seen again. Harry’s “very strong inclination to climb up on the dais and walk through it” is either a reflection of his suppressed desire for death, consequently, or an excellent “set-up” as Janet Batchler might say for Harry to make this walk in Deathly Hallows.

(4) The over-arching theme of the series is “love’s victory over death.” My assumption (with everyone else?) has been that this message would be delivered in the finale via Harry’s conquest over Voldemort with his “power that the Dark Lord knows not.” A trip through the Veil as a living person and his return would be another way of “instructing while delighting” on the love theme, especially if the trip is made for information necessary to rescue someone Harry loves.

(5) Harry Potter mavens I respect, if I rarely agree with wholeheartedly (alas, the failings of pride on my part), for reasons that are different but all cogent, think that a trip through the Veil is a strong possibility. You’ve read Lisa’s thoughts, you can read Hans Andrea’s at Harry Potter for Seekers, and Travis Prinzi and gang are discussing this over at Sword of Gryffindor, what I think of as HogPro’s sister site (our big sister!). And, most important perhaps,…

(6) The suggestion by Ms. Rowling in year 2000 interviews that Deathly Hallows will answer all questions about her Christian faith.

I don’t like the idea of a field trip to see Sirius or Dumbledore, assuming with Mr. Prinzi that the Headmaster is indeed dead and gone not “stoppered and present.” This trip through the Veil does not appeal to me on one level because I think it undermines two theories to which I have become attached (egad) even though I came up with them just to illustrate the keys of narrative misdirection and Ms. Rowling’s postmodernism. My expansion of Cathy Leisner’s Stoppered Death idea to mean Dumbledore could have died anytime after the end of Philosopher’s Stone and that he needn’t have died on the Tower is not supported by Harry’s traveling through the Veil if he does so to have a talk with Dumby. And Scar-O-Scope takes a hit if the Tower scene was not staged by Severus and Albus so that the Headmaster could continue in his suspended deanimation. As much as I promised myself that I wouldn’t become attached to these ideas because they are just talking points for Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader, I don’t look forward to their demise on 21 July; I’ve had a lot of fun explaining and defending these ideas!

On the other hand, if Harry willingly “dies” by passing through the Veil on another seek-and-retrieve mission (a la Odysseus, Aeneas, and Dante looking for information and enlightenment), we have a dramatic ending to the hero’s journey formula we’ve seen in every book from Stone to Prince. A trip through the Veil and his return from the land of the dead would be not only Harry’s annual descent, literal and figurative, it will also be his “death” and “resurrection” that he has experienced every year.

This would be a “wow” because this death/resurrection would be a departure from Ms. Rowling’s previous “near death experiences” and “rising from the dead.” In every other book of the series Harry has done this in the presence of a symbol of Christ, from the Philosopher’s Stone to Fawkes the Phoenix. If Harry passes through the Veil and survives the return, his resurrection won’t be “in the presence” of a symbol of Christ but as a symbol of Christ.

One of the holds Virgil had on medieval Christians was the common belief in Europe that this Poet was something of a Prophet. Even the wikipedia article on Virgil mentions this belief:

In the Middle Ages, Virgil was considered a herald of Christianity for his Eclogue 4 verses (PP Ecl.4) concerning the birth of a boy, which were read as a prophecy of Jesus’ nativity. The poem may actually refer to the pregnancy of Octavian’s wife Scribonia, who in fact gave birth to a girl.

Also during the Middle Ages, as Virgil was developed into a kind of magus, manuscripts of the Aeneid were used for divinatory bibliomancy, the Sortes Virgilianae, in which a line would be selected at random and interpreted in the context of a current situation (Compare the ancient Chinese I Ching). The Old Testament was sometimes used for similar arcane purposes. Even in the Welsh myth of Taliesin, the goddess Cerridwen is reading from the “Book of Pheryllt”—that is, Virgil.

In some legends, such as Virgilius the Sorcerer, the powers attributed to Virgil were far more extensive.

What the wikipedia article neglects is that Aeneas’ descent into hell and return was seen as a fictional prefiguring of the Christ’s descent into the underworld after the Crucifixion, the so-called “harrowing of hell.”

In the Book of Acts (2:22-31), which at least one thoughtful reader believes is structured by St. Luke on the model of Virgil’s Aeneid, St. Peter says to a crowd in Jerusalem that King David spoke of Christ in the Psalms (16:9-10) when he said “I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Acts 2:25-27, KJV). Peter’s conclusion? King David “being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption” (Acts 2:30-31, KJV). St. Peter also says in his First Epistle that the gospel was “preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit” (1 Peter 4:6, KJV).

It was the understanding of the Apostles and their disciples — Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Ambrose, among others — in the first centuries of the Christian Era (“Annis Domini”) that Christ died on the Cross and “descended into hell,” which could not hold Him. This “harrowing” or “raid” into the Inferno completed Christ’s victory over death won on the Cross and crowned in the Resurrection. The descent, consequently, is a key part of the Apostle’s Creed:

The original Greek wording in the Apostles’ Creed is κατελθόντα εἰς τὰ κατώτατα, (“katelthonta eis ta katôtata”), and in Latin “descendit ad inferos.” The Greek τὰ κατώτατα (“the lowest”) and the Latin “inferos” (“those below”) may also be translated as “underworld”, “netherworld”, or as “abode of the dead”. Thus, sometimes this phrase is translated as “descended to the dead.” The first use of the English “harrowing” in this context is in homilies of Aelfric, ca.1000. Harrow is a by-form of harry, a military term meaning to “make predatory raids or incursions”[2]. The term “Harrowing of Hell” refers not merely to the idea that Christ descended into Hell, as in the Creed, but to the rich tradition that developed later, asserting that he triumphed over “inferos,” releasing Hell’s captives, particularly Adam and Eve, and the righteous men and women whose stories are recorded in the Septuagint.

The harrowing of hell is richly represented in Orthodox iconography and liturgical celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection or Pascha.

A traditional Christian reads Book 6 of the Aeneid, consequently, and, if s/he is not immunized against the idea that the Roman Poet is also a Prophet, s/he sees quite clearly a prefiguring of Christ’s victory over death in Aeneas’ descent with the Golden Bough and safe return to the living and eventual conquest of the world. [Frazer title's his book on myth The Golden Bough to make the same connection albeit on its head, namely, to suggest pointedly that the Harrowing of Hell was mythological formula followed by Christian writers not a historical event.]

With that in mind, let’s review at Accio Quotes two other comments Ms. Rowling made in the year 2000:

E: When you talk about dealing with death and loss in the books, does this come out of your own – you’ve had loss with the loss of your mother – did it come out of a personal spirituality? I mean, are you are religious person? Does your spirituality come from a certain place?

JK: Magic in the sense in which it happens in my books, no, I don’t believe. I don’t believe in that. No. No. This is so frustrating. Again, there is so much I would like to say, and come back when I’ve written book seven. But then maybe you won’t need to even say it ’cause you’ll have found it out anyway. You’ll have read it.

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/0700-hottype-solomon.htm

Harry, of course, is able to battle supernatural evil with supernatural forces of his own, and Rowling is quite clear that she doesn’t personally believe in that kind of magic — ”not at all.” Is she a Christian?

”Yes, I am,” she says. ”Which seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every time I’ve been asked if I believe in God, I’ve said yes, because I do, but no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that, and I have to say that does suit me, because if I talk too freely about that I think the intelligent reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what’s coming in the books.”

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/1000-vancouversun-wyman.htm

Couple these with what you know of the Aeneid and the Harrowing (Harrying?) of Hell and take another look at Ms. Rowling’s comment to Ms. Johnstone also in 2000 about the events in Deathly Hallows:

One of her fundamentals is that you can’t reverse death: “That’s a given. Without it the plot would fall apart, though in Book Seven you’ll see just how close you can get to the dead. You can be brought back from being petrified and from injuries that in the real world are mortal, depending on the degree of skill that a particular wizard possesses. You can’t go to any wizard and say ‘Will you cure my terminally ill relative?’ It’s a mirror image of the real world in that sense.”

This last quotation, of course, about getting “close to the dead” can mean just how near to being dead an individual human being can come and still be resuscitated. Her following statements seem to suggest that a lead character will come very close to dying and be revived semi-miraculously in Deathly Hallows. A common place in predictions about the finale, consequently, is that Harry will seem to die but actually be feigning his death (which would satisfy story formula).

If Ms. Rowling slipped here, though, and meant quite literally that we’ll see “how close we can get to the dead” in the sense of proximity to those who have died and passed beyond the Veil, I’ll gladly see my pet key-illustration theories go down in forgettable flames (will any of us remember any of the Interlibrum speculation in August?). Because if Harry does a Harrowing of Hell number and returns from his trip to the land beyond the Veil, my Looking for God in Harry Potter thesis that Ms. Rowling is writing edifying fiction in the literary stream of the Inklings, albeit as a postmodern, will have been given all the confirmation possible. The Veil will be the veil rent at the Crucifixion in the Temple and the archway the horn and ivory gates through which Anchises guides Aeneas and the Sibyl.

Ms. Rowling has said that Deathly Hallows will end her frustration in not being able to answer questions about her faith because the story we’ll read there will demonstrate her Christian beliefs. A trip through the Veil by Harrowing Harry, heir of the Potter, Christian “Everyman,” would do just that.

I look forward to reading your comments and corrections.