Potter’s popularity has made this latest spinoff from the magic series another success for J K Rowling.
New windows open onto two of the most popular fictional universes in history, with J K Rowling’s post-Potter The Tales of Beedle the Bard and J R R Tolkien’s posthumous The Children of Hurin.
What the tales of the Brothers Grimm have been to Muggle (non-magical) children, the tales of Beedle the Bard are to young wizards and witches. But J K Rowling points out one difference early in the introduction to her new book. “In Muggle fairy tales, magic tends to lie at the root of the hero or heroine’s troubles,” she writes. “The wicked witch has poisoned the apple, or put the princess into a hundred years’ sleep. In The Tales of Beedle the Bard, on the other hand, we meet heroes and heroines who can perform magic themselves, and yet find it just as hard to solve their problems as we do.”
In the same strain, this little blue book, at every turn, subtly satires human foibles, such as a reference to the “self-help book: The Hairy Heart: The Guide to Wizards Who Won’t Commit”. An offshoot of the Harry Potter series, Beedle the Bard was formerly published, hand-written and illustrated by the author, for a children’s charity auction and a handful of her chosen friends.
Now, a year later, it has released publicly in standard and collector’s editions. Thanks to Potter’s popularity, early reports deem it the fastest-selling book of the year, despite the audacious price of Rs 599. Surely those who mourned the end of the series with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows can find some relief in this quick read. But in no way is it to be compared to the series, so don’t expect the great adventures of Harry and friends to be revived, for The Tales of Beedle The Bard is amusing at best, much like her earlier off-shoots, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch through the Ages.
In Beedle the Bard, a collection of five fairytales and fables replace Potter’s often dark adventures, revealing the origins of numerous references made in the Potter series — the legend of the horcruxes, for example, and of the Elder wand, discussed in great detail in Deathly Hallows and Half-Blood Prince. The only story of the contents of Beedle the Bard that was wholly narrated in a Potter book was “The Tale of the Three Brothers” (in Deathly Hallows). The other stories in this book range from the seemingly mild “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot” to the increasingly dark “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart”, to the chuckle-inducing “Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump”.
This book could have turned out as a damp afterword to Deathly Hallows, coming a year after, had it not been so cleverly embellished with the voice of one of the most popular and controversial characters of the Potter books: Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore. This children’s book had, if you recall from the main series, been left in Dumbledore’s will to his student Hermione Granger, who — writes Rowling — has translated the tales from its original runes. Dumbledore’s notes to Beedle’s 15th-century stories have been included at the end of every tale, putting each of them in context, in keeping with changing times in the wizarding world. Dumbledore’s sharp-witted, twinkly-eyed wisdom analyses how each tale evolved over centuries and was modified by wizard folk to suit what they wanted their non-Muggle kids to imbibe. His observations are true to his character, and it’s comforting to have him speak once again.
Rowling also indulges in a few footnotes of her own (as “JKR”), inserted for the benefit of Muggle readers, to rid them of any confusion left behind by Dumbledore’s notes, which appear to be for a wizarding audience.
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Brief mentions of a handful of characters from the original books generates familiarity; the Malfoy family’s venomous approach to Muggles is mentioned, as is Professor McGonagall, and the Unforgivable curses; yet Harry remain absent.
With most of the meat in the notes, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, though often overly childlike and mild, comes across as reassuring — that the wizarding world spun for us by Rowling isn’t all gone.
THE TALES OF BEEDLE THE BARD
J K Rowling
Bloomsbury/ Penguin India Public Affairs
108 pages; Rs: 599