Bookalicious

The Tales of Beedle the Bard, was a bit of a disappointment to me. I expected a lot more depth from Rowling who normally gives excellent descriptions and lots of back story. However this book is a good simple read if you have a bored hour sometime in your weekend.

Beedle himself was a muggle who seems to know a bit much about the magical world. His stories are true Aesop’s Fable style with something to learn at the end, with extra commentary by Albus Dumbledore, it does become quite a fun read. Children between 7-10 will enjoy the book as the stories are short and easy to understand.

The first of the five stories “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot” is a wizard tale of the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have done to you story. The wizard and his son have very different views on how to use their magic. The father believes in helping muggles (non magical people) with their every day problems. The son believes that using magic for muggles is useless due to the fact that wizards were obviously a superior race. In the end he changes his mind due to a deathbed curse from his father.

”The Fountain of Fair Fortune” is Beedle’s second story in the book. Here a group of people gather once a year to await who will be chosen to bathe in the fountain. The fountain then cures what ails you and generally makes your life much easier from then on. This particular year three witches and a knight are thrown in together due to circumstance. The three witches heal their ailments by the accomplishing tasks that come up on the trail to the fountain. In the end they let the knight bathe and it changes his life forever. But is the fountain really magical, or is it just a state of mind?

”The Warlocks Hairy Heart”, is a dark traumatic love story. By far my favorite of the five stories in the book. In this story the Warlock realizes his family and friends are becoming weak from loving each other. So he performs a dark magic ritual and hides his heart away out of his body and in a box. Years later he is the most successful and richest Warlock in the province. He overhears his servants pity him because no one loves him. He then decides to take a lady for his estate. Due to the fact he has no heart he woos the richest and most beautiful woman in the realm. She then figures he has no heart and when she convinces him to put the heart back in his chest, the heart is lonely and dark and even hairy from being locked up so many years. Back in the chest of the owner his insane heart and the dark desires from the heart overpower the mind just as he believed a heart can do and both the Warlock and the girl die tragically.

”Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump” is a classic tale of power and trickery. The King in the story wants to harness all magical power for himself, and an Muggle tricks the King into taking magical lessons from him for a price. In the end the muggle is almost found out, but he locates a magical source in the palace, the wash woman Babbity Rabitty. He asks her to hide behind a tree and perform the magic the King commands for his court performance. The last spell the King tried was out of Babbity’s magical range and the King is livid. The Muggle then blames Babbity and with transfiguration she tricks the court into letting her go.

”The Tale of the Three Brothers”, and the last story in the book is full of Harry Potter references as the Elder Wand and the Invisibility Cloak. The Brothers try to cheat death and only one is smart enough to do that. Dumbledore’s commentary on this last story is particularly interesting.

I am a bit disappointed in the book but in the end it is a decent collection of short stories.