The Sorcerer's Companion: A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter (32 page)

Once a ghost has been set loose on the world, it is usually required to roam around, haunting houses or loitering in cemeteries, until its spirit has been avenged or set free. The most popular way to get rid of an unwanted spirit is to hire a professional exorcist, or “ghost releaser,” but some ghosts will disappear if you simply rebury their bones at a crossroads. Since ghosts have a notoriously poor sense of direction, this little trick will usually disorient them for eternity. If all else fails, you may eventually get used to having a ghost around. After all, there are far worse things than getting invited to a good deathday party once in a while.

omeone who loves the loathsome, revels in the revolting, and delights in the disgusting may properly be said to have “ghoulish” tastes. That’s because ghouls are best known for digging up corpses and eating rotting human flesh. That said, we can’t imagine why a ghoul chooses to hang out in the Weasleys’ attic. It makes you wonder what they keep up there.

Although they have a home in Western folklore, ghouls (or
ghuls
) first sprang to life in the ancient legends of the Arab Muslim world, where they belonged to a rebellious breed of evil spirits. Primarily desert dwellers—though they also lurk in caves, wander in the wilderness, and sniff out sites where humans have recently died—ghouls and their cannibalistic, grave-robbing ways are feared throughout northern Africa, the Middle East, and India. While they eagerly consume any corpses they come across, most ghouls are not truly happy unless they do a little killing of their own.

A ghoul can’t be described with any precision. Some tales say it looks like a camel, an ox, a horse, or a one-eyed ostrich. Others tell of a creature with shaggy, matted hair covering its eyes. Its “true” appearance matters little, however, since the ghoul is a constant shape-shifter and can easily transform into any guise that will attract the human eye. Sometimes it takes the form of a solitary traveler who claims to know a shortcut, thus enticing a real traveler into the desert, where he may be easily killed and eaten. When Ron needs to disappear without people realizing he’s gone, a ghoul is a perfect stand-in—at least as long as it remains in bed pretending to have a bad case of spattergoit. The ghoul’s favorite trick, however, is to appear as a beautiful woman, the ideal lure for a wandering male.

The truly vigilant traveler can protect himself by looking out for the one ghoulish trait that can never be disguised—the feet. No matter what shape it takes, the ghoul will have the hoofs of a goat, camel, or donkey. Unfortunately, by the time a potential victim gets close enough to notice any mismatched body parts, the ghoul is usually ready to rip him apart and have him for supper. The traveler’s only chance of escape will be to kill his attacker with a single blow to the head. A second blow, oddly enough, will only revive the ravenous ghoul, and it will not be pleased that its dinner plans were interrupted.

t can be hard to live down the reputation of your ancestors. No doubt that’s why the enormous Madame Maxime insists that she’s no giant—she just has “big bones.” Giants have an age-old reputation for mindless cruelty, and as Hagrid discovers, most humans have little tolerance for their kind.

Giants come in many forms. Some are primordial monsters with grotesque features such as multiple heads, snaky appendages, and eyes that spew fire. Others, such as the Titans of Greek mythology, are colossal, supernatural beings that have human form and proportion, but are hideously ugly. These giants represent sheer, raw power akin to the forces of nature. Their footsteps cause the earth to tremble and their breathing creates typhoons. Other folk giants, such as the biblical Goliath,
are
human, and are giants simply by virtue of their enormous size.

The English word “giant” is derived from the Gigantes of Greek mythology who were an early race of enormous, monstrous, serpent-legged beings. Born when the blood of their father (the sky god Uranus) fell to earth, the gigantes sprang from the soil fully mature and dressed in battle armor. They were soon rallied by their mother (the earth goddess Gaia) into attacking Zeus and the other gods of Mt. Olympus, to avenge the defeat of their siblings, the Titans. Hurling fusillades of boulders and blazing oak trees, the fearsome Gigantes stormed Olympus, sending many of the mighty gods fleeing. A
prophecy
had foretold that the giants could not be killed, except by “a lion-skinned mortal.” This turned out to be the hero Heracles, who joined the side of the gods and, armed with a quiver of poisoned arrows, delivered all of the fatal blows. In some tellings of the myth, the Gigantes survived the war, but were buried under mountains, where they became the source of earthquakes and volcanoes.

Many of the world’s oldest legends tell of continual conflict between gods and giants. In Norse mythology, the Frost Giants, led by the vicious Thrym (whose name means “uproar”), were the primary enemies of Thor, Freyda, and the other supreme beings. In Celtic legend, evil giants called Fomorians were said to have been the first inhabitants of Ireland, and in some tales were associated with winter, fog, storms, disease, and poor crops. The Old Testament mentions several races of giants, among them the Emim, Anakim, Gibborim, and the Nephilim, the last of which were said to be so enormous that the humans who saw them felt themselves to be the size of grasshoppers.

English folklore has long held a special place for giants, perhaps because of their importance in the nation’s foundation myths. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
History of the Kings of Britain
(which is not a true history, but rather an account of the legendary beginnings of Britain) tells of a race of twelve-foot giants who could rip oak trees from the ground as if they were garden weeds. According to Geoffrey, these giants ruled England until they were defeated by the armies of Brutus, the mythical founder of the British race and great-grandson of the Trojan hero Aeneas.

During the Middle Ages, giants ranked with
dragons
as worthy opponents for chivalrous knights seeking adventure and glory. In the legends of King Arthur and other epic tales, giants represent all that is evil in the world: They are bloodthirsty, avaricious, gluttonous, and cruel. They kidnap women, steal from their neighbors, murder children, and sometimes even eat people. To kill a giant is thus an act of honor and goodness. In Sir Thomas Malory’s
Le Morte d’Arthur
(
The Death of Arthur
, published in 1485), Sir Lancelot proves his honor at a young age by slaying a pair of vicious giants who have kept three damsels as their slaves for seven grueling years. The knight Marhaus wins riches and the gratitude of his peers by killing the giant Taulard and rescuing no fewer than twenty-four maidens and twelve knights from imprisonment. And King Arthur himself proves the most talented giant-killer of them all, besting the giant of Mont Saint-Michel, a cannibal who had vanquished fifteen kings and wore a coat embroidered with hair from their beards.

(
photo credit 30.1
)

Giants continued to loom large in the popular imagination long after the age of chivalry had passed. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, enormous men with enormous appetites—and in many cases a longing for ordinary-size wives—became a staple of European fairy tales. None were better known than those involving a brave, if somewhat foolhardy, young man named Jack. In “Jack the Giant-Killer,” a tale that first appeared in print in the nineteenth century but was set in the time of King Arthur, Jack is an English farmer’s son who makes a career of outwitting hapless giants. His first victim is an eighteen-footer named Cormoran who’s been terrorizing nearby Cornwall, stealing and devouring so many sheep, hogs, and oxen that the people are left poor and starving. Jack digs a very deep hole in the ground, covers it with branches and leaves, and taunts the giant until he approaches and falls in, whereupon Jack strikes him dead. A series of similar triumphs earn Jack many rewards, including a large estate and the hand of a duke’s daughter. In “Jack and the Beanstalk,” a different Jack faces a giant who lives in a castle in the clouds (at the top of the beanstalk, of course), and famously mutters, “Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman,” while a trembling Jack hides nearby.