Following up last week’s part one on the influence of C.S. Lewis on J.K. Rowling’s cast of creatures, here  is the second part of the paper (though edited) that I originally presented at the 2005 Witching Hour conference in Salem, Massachusetts, a lovely event that set me off on the last decade of Potter scholarship.

As we pack our bags (ones that hold many very interesting things) for another journey into the Wizarding World with Newt Scamander and his Fantastic Beasts, we pick up after examining the heraldic animals of Hogwarts as they connect to Narnia, as well as connections with domestic animals and wildlife.

Now, we’ll head off the map a bit, more into Newt’s territory, as we look at creatures more up his alley–that long scary alley with something scuttling over behind the bins….

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  As we’ll doubtless be covering in the weeks to come, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is flying, crawling, and      stomping into theaters this month. While we are all interested to see more of the wizarding world, I am particularly  intrigued, as that slim red volume actually launched me into serious academic scholarship into the Potter-verse.

In 2005, I attended my first national Harry Potter Conference, The Witching Hour in Salem, MA. There I presented my paper,    “Fantastic Beasts: C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, and the Menagerie of the Imagination,” a project that I began while I was  reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe aloud to my son. Though I had already worked extensively with the  Chronicles of Narnia, I noticed something during those read-alouds that I had missed in dozens of re-reads: when Peter,  Edmund, Susan, and Lucy arrive at the home of Professor Kirke, they speculate on the animals they will see, listing, specifically, eagles, stags, hawks, badgers, and snakes.

Taken with Aslan, who is the Lion of the title and at the back of all the stories, there in the first few pages of the first of the Chronicles of Narnia (yes, it is the first one, no matter what misguided publishers do to the order), we have the four Hogwarts House mascots and Harry’s Patronus.

When I made that head-slapping connection, I did not realize that, more than 10 years later, I would be thoroughly immersed in Potter scholarship and that the story of Fantastic Beasts would be appearing on the big screen, but I did know that I had made a magical discovery, one that propelled me through the paper for the conference and into a wonderful journey of literary analysis and exploration. So, as we gear up for Newt’s big screen debut and since Thursday is a day when we throw back, here is part one of a selection from that paper, greatly edited from its original bulk (my poor patient audience at the Witching Hour!), and an invitation, as always, to share your thoughts, and perhaps, your own experience with the intrepid Newt Scamander and his role in your Potter studies.

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