The Sorcerer's Companion: A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter (73 page)

Can’t afford a diamond? How about a toadstone? These gray or light brown stones may not sparkle in the sunlight, but legend holds that these magical objects change color or temperature in the presence of poison. Generally worn set in rings or other jewelry, toadstones were popular during the Middle Ages, when they were said to come from inside the heads of very old toads.

According to tradition, a toadstone could be extracted from a toad’s head if necessary, but the toad might obligingly vomit up his treasure if asked. If someone gave you a toadstone ring, you could find out whether the stone was real by placing it in front of a toad. If he leaped forward, it was genuine; if he turned away in disdain, it was a fraud. (In reality, all toadstones were simply ordinary stones of a color and shape that vagely resembled a toad.)

In addition to serving as poison detectors, toadstones were valued as
talismans
to attain perfect happiness and bring victory in battle. They were also used as
amulets
to protect houses and boats from harm and were believed to have curative value when laid against bites and stings.

The widespread idea that toads were standard ingredients in noxious potions probably stems from the fact that the creatures do secrete a mild poison when alarmed. The effects of this natural defense mechanism were often exaggerated, as evidenced by the claim of the third-century Roman writer Aelian that a drink of wine mixed with toad’s blood would cause instant death. In 1591, a group of confessed witches admitted to plotting to poison King James VI of Scotland by soaking a piece of his clothing in the venom of a black toad. The plot failed, they said, because they had been unable to obtain an appropriate garment. But they insisted that if they succeeded the king would have died in great agony. (Instead, he lived to become King of England and write his
Demonology
, a book endorsing the continued persecution of witches.)

As a result of the toad’s long-standing link with witchcraft, close association with toads has generally been considered risky. Even the mere gaze of these little amphibians was thought dangerous by some as recently as the eighteenth century, when it was said to cause sudden fainting spells, palpitations, and convulsions. Toads were also said to bite cattle and other livestock, causing disease. Yet getting rid of these pests was no simple matter. Even if there were no witches around one might hesitate to kill a toad, since doing so was thought to bring on thunderstorms. And if you had thoughts about simply relocating the creatures, well, handling them was never advised. After all, you might get warts.

rofessor McGonagall wastes no time showing her first-year students what transfiguration is all about. In the blink of an eye, she changes her desk into a pig. She could just as easily have turned herself into a cat, or transformed one of her students into a tortoise or a block of wood. Transfiguration—the magical changing of a person, animal, or object into the form of another—is a complex and dangerous subject requiring years of study. But novices must begin with much less challenging assignments, like turning buttons into beetles.

Tales of transfiguration (from the Latin
trans
, meaning “across,” and
figura
, meaning “shape”) are found in myths, fairy tales, and folklore from around the world. Cinderella’s fairy godmother transfigures a pumpkin into a coach and mice into horses. In classic tales such as “The Frog Prince” and “Beauty and the Beast,” handsome young men become croaking reptiles or repulsive ogres. The Greek witch Circe turns her front lawn into a virtual petting zoo by changing her visitors into tame lions, bears, and wolves (her less fortunate guests end up in the pigsty).

Perhaps the most famous stories are found in
Metamorphoses
, by the Roman poet Ovid. Written in the first century, the book tells the history of the world, beginning with the transformation of chaos into order and ending in Ovid’s own time with the transfiguration of the emperor Julius Caesar into a star. In between are some 250 stories of gods, heroes, and mortals featuring amazing and sometimes shocking transfigurations. The hunter Acteon is transformed from a man to a stag as a punishment for catching a peek of the goddess Diana bathing, and is ripped to pieces by his own dogs. Arachne, a master weaver, is transfigured into a spider for having the audacity to challenge the goddess Minerva to a weaving contest. And the nymph Daphne is transfigured, mid-stride, into a laurel tree as she flees from the god Apollo. As Ovid describes it, “… a deep languor took hold on her limbs, her soft breast was enclosed in thick bark, her hair grew into leaves, her arms into branches, and her feet that were lately so swift were held fast by sluggish roots, while her face became the treetop. Nothing of her was left, except her shining loveliness.”

The nymph Daphne is transfigured into a laurel tree.
(
photo credit 83.1
)

While most of Ovid’s transfigurations are triggered by the anger or kindness of a god, many creatures of mythology and folklore can change form at will, an ability known as shape-shifting. The Norse gods Odin and Loki specialized in assuming animal forms, as did the Greek god Zeus, who often transformed himself into a bull, a ram, an eagle, a dove, or a swan. Many fairies and most
demons
, including
veela, ghouls
, and
trolls
, are master shape-shifters and can appear as anything at all—an alluring woman, a puff of smoke, a bowl of water, a rock, a sandstorm, or even as your best friend. Folktales world wide recount the lightning-fast transfigurations that occur when shape-shifters flee their enemies or do battle with each other. In a medieval Welsh fable, the character Gwion Bach steals the gift of
prophecy
from the
cauldron
of the witch Ceridwen. He races off in the form of a hare, but the witch pursues him in the shape of a greyhound. He dives into a river and becomes a fish; she follows him as an otter. He takes flight as a small bird and she gives chase as a hawk. Spying a heap of freshly cut wheat on the floor of a barn, Gwion descends and transfigures into what seems like the perfect disguise—a single grain of wheat among thousands. Ceridwen, however, has the last word. She lands in the barn, changes into a black hen, scratches about until she finds the right grain of wheat—and eats it.

The most notorious shape-shifters, at least by reputation, have been witches. As early as the second century
A.D
. the Roman writer Apuleius described witches who could take the form of birds, dogs, weasels, mice, and—like a certain reporter for the
Daily Prophet
—bugs, so as to gain entry to people’s homes and go about their wicked business unobserved. Apuleius was writing fiction (much of it reflecting the beliefs of his time), but centuries later during the era of
witch persecution
(1450–1700), the belief that witches could transfigure into animals, especially cats, was commonplace. Trials from the period are filled with “evidence” of such transfigurations, mainly in the form of stories about injuries done to animals which later appeared on the bodies of the accused. At a sixteenth-century trial in Ferrara, Italy, for example, a man testified that he had beaten a cat with a stick after seeing it attack his infant son. The next day, a neighborhood woman was seen covered by bruises—proof that it was she, in feline form, who had attacked the infant. At a Scottish witch trial in 1718, a man testified that he had been so annoyed by cats who were chatting in human voices near his house that he killed two and wounded several others. Soon afterward, two local women were found dead in their beds, and another had a mysterious gash in her leg, again proving that the cats had really been shape-shifting witches in disguise.