Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2 page)

INTRODUCTION

F
antastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
represents the fruit of many years’ travel and research. I look back across the years to
the seven-year-old wizard who spent hours in his bedroom dismembering Horklumps and I envy him the journeys to come: from darkest jungle to brightest desert, from mountain peak to marshy bog, that
grubby Horklump-encrusted boy would track, as he grew up, the beasts described in the following pages. I have visited lairs, burrows, and nests across five continents, observed the curious habits
of magical beasts in a hundred countries, witnessed their powers, gained their trust and, on occasion, beaten them off with my travelling kettle.

The first edition of
Fantastic Beasts
was commissioned back in 1918 by Mr. Augustus Worme of Obscurus Books, who was kind enough to ask me whether I would consider writing an
authoritative compendium of magical creatures for his publishing house. I was then but a lowly Ministry of Magic employee and leapt at the chance both to augment my pitiful salary of two Sickles a
week and to spend my holidays travelling the globe in search of new magical species. The rest is publishing history:
Fantastic Beasts
is now in its fifty-second edition.

This introduction is intended to answer a few of the most frequently asked questions that have been arriving in my weekly postbag ever since this book was first published in 1927. The first of
these is that most fundamental question of all – what is a “beast”?

W
HAT
I
S
A
B
EAST
?

T
he definition of a “beast” has caused controversy for centuries. Though this might surprise some first-time students of
Magizoology, the problem might come into clearer focus if we take a moment to consider three types of magical creature.

Werewolves spend most of their time as humans (whether wizard or Muggle). Once a month, however, they transform into savage, four-legged beasts of murderous intent and no human conscience.

The centaurs’ habits are not humanlike; they live in the wild, refuse clothing, prefer to live apart from wizards and Muggles alike, and yet have intelligence equal to theirs.

Trolls bear a humanoid appearance, walk upright, may be taught a few simple words, and yet are less intelligent than the dullest unicorn, and possess no magical powers in their own right except
for their prodigious and unnatural strength.

We now ask ourselves: which of these creatures is a “being” – that is to say, a creature worthy of legal rights and a voice in the governance of the magical world – and
which is a “beast”?

Early attempts at deciding which magical creatures should be designated “beasts” were extremely crude.

Burdock Muldoon, Chief of the Wizards’ Council
¹
in the fourteenth century, decreed that any member of the magical community that walked on two legs
would henceforth be granted the status of “being,” all others to remain “beasts.” In a spirit of friendship he summoned all “beings” to meet with the wizards at
a summit to discuss new magical laws and found to his intense dismay that he had miscalculated. The meeting hall was crammed with goblins who had brought with them as many two-legged creatures as
they could find. As Bathilda Bagshot tells us in
A History of Magic
:

As we see, the mere possession of two legs was no guarantee that a magical creature could or would take an interest in the affairs of wizard government. Embittered, Burdock
Muldoon forswore any further attempts to integrate non-wizard members of the magical community into the Wizards’ Council.

Muldoon’s successor, Madame Elfrida Clagg, attempted to redefine “beings” in the hope of creating closer ties with other magical creatures. “Beings,” she declared,
were those who could speak the human tongue. All those who could make themselves understood to Council members were therefore invited to join the next meeting. Once again, however, there were
problems. Trolls who had been taught a few simple sentences by the goblins proceeded to destroy the hall as before. Jarveys raced around the Council’s chair legs, tearing at as many ankles as
they could reach. Meanwhile a large delegation of ghosts (who had been barred under Muldoon’s leadership on the grounds that they did not walk on two legs, but glided) attended but left in
disgust at what they later termed “the Council’s unashamed emphasis on the needs of the living as opposed to the wishes of the dead.” The centaurs, who under Muldoon had been
classified as “beasts” and were now under Madame Clagg defined as “beings,” refused to attend the Council in protest at the exclusion of the merpeople, who were unable to
converse in anything except Mermish while above water.

Not until 1811 were definitions found that most of the magical community found acceptable. Grogan Stump, the newly appointed Minister for Magic, decreed that a “being” was “any
creature that has sufficient intelligence to understand the laws of the magical community and to bear part of the responsibility in shaping those laws.”
²
Troll representatives were questioned in the absence of goblins and judged not to understand anything that was being said to them; they were therefore classified as
“beasts” despite their two-legged gait; merpeople were invited through translators to become “beings” for the first time; fairies, pixies, and gnomes, despite their humanoid
appearance, were placed firmly in the “beast” category.

Naturally, the matter has not rested there. We are all familiar with the extremists who campaign for the classification of Muggles as “beasts”; we are all aware that the centaurs
have refused “being” status and requested to remain “beasts”;
³
werewolves, meanwhile, have been shunted between the Beast and Being
divisions for many years; at the time of writing there is an office for Werewolf Support Services at the Being Division whereas the Werewolf Registry and Werewolf Capture Unit fall under the Beast
Division. Several highly intelligent creatures are classified as “beasts” because they are incapable of overcoming their own brutal natures. Acromantulas and Manticores are capable of
intelligent speech but will attempt to devour any human that goes near them. The sphinx talks only in puzzles and riddles, and is violent when given the wrong answer.

Wherever there is continued uncertainty about the classification of a beast in the following pages, I have noted it in the entry for that creature.

Let us now turn to the one question that witches and wizards ask more than any other when the conversation turns to Magizoology: Why don’t Muggles notice these creatures?

1
The Wizards’ Council preceded the Ministry of Magic.

2
An exception was made for the ghosts, who asserted that it was insensitive to class them as “beings” when they were so
clearly “has-beens.” Stump therefore created the three divisions of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures that exist today: the Beast Division, the Being
Division, and the Spirit Division.

3
The centaurs objected to some of the creatures with whom they were asked to share “being” status, such as hags and
vampires, and declared that they would manage their own affairs separately from wizards. A year later the merpeople made the same request. The Ministry of Magic accepted their demands reluctantly.
Although a Centaur Liaison Office exists in the Beast Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, no centaur has ever used it. Indeed, “being sent to the
Centaur Office” has become an in-joke at the Department and means that the person in question is shortly to be fired.

A
stonishing though it may seem to many wizards, Muggles have not always been ignorant of the magical and monstrous creatures that we have
worked so long and hard to hide. A glance through Muggle art and literature of the Middle Ages reveals that many of the creatures they now believe to be imaginary were then known to be real. The
dragon, the griffin, the unicorn, the phoenix, the centaur – these and more are represented in Muggle works of that period, though usually with almost comical inexactitude.

However, a closer examination of Muggle bestiaries of that period demonstrates that most magical beasts either escaped Muggle notice completely or were mistaken for something else. Examine this
surviving fragment of manuscript, written by one Brother Benedict, a Franciscan monk from Worcestershire:

Evidently our Muggle friend had unearthed not a ferret, as he supposed, but a Jarvey, most likely in pursuit of its favourite prey, gnomes.

Imperfect understanding is often more dangerous than ignorance, and the Muggles’ fear of magic was undoubtedly increased by their dread of what might be lurking in their herb gardens.
Muggle persecution of wizards at this time was reaching a pitch hitherto unknown and sightings of such beasts as dragons and Hippogriffs were contributing to Muggle hysteria.

It is not the aim of this work to discuss the dark days that preceded the wizards’ retreat into hiding.
⁴
All that concerns us here is the fate of
those fabulous beasts that, like ourselves, would have to be concealed if Muggles were ever to be convinced there was no such thing as magic.

The International Confederation of Wizards argued the matter out at their famous summit meeting of 1692. No fewer than seven weeks of sometimes acrimonious discussion between wizards of all
nationalities were devoted to the troublesome question of magical creatures. How many species would we be able to conceal from Muggle notice and which should they be? Where and how should we hide
them? The debate raged on, some creatures oblivious to the fact that their destiny was being decided, others contributing to the debate.
⁵