The Sorcerer's Companion: A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter (49 page)

In the earliest days of human history, the only place men and women could catch a glimpse of themselves was in still pools of water, and they seldom really understood what they were looking at. Many ancient cultures actually regarded reflections as human souls (which they believed could exist quite independently of a person’s body). In some societies, including ancient Greece, it was even considered perilous to see your own reflection, since it meant that your soul had left your body and was in danger of being captured by evil spirits or water nymphs.

Not surprisingly, then, when the first man-made mirrors appeared some 4,500 years ago, they were perceived as miraculous magical objects. (The word “mirror” comes from a Latin term,
mirari
or
mirus
, meaning “to wonder at” or “wonderful.”) The ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Egyptians, and Central Americans all believed that mirrors were potent
talismans
, capable of bewitching men’s minds, befuddling evil spirits, and carrying off the souls of the living and the dead. The Aztec god of night, Tzcatlipoca, is even supposed to have carried a magic mirror that enveloped his enemies in clouds of smoke.

Until the seventeenth century, when they were gradually supplanted by
crystal balls
, mirrors were also routinely used to predict the future. The first recorded case of mirror divination (known as
catoptromancy)
can be traced back to ancient Rome, where small metal mirrors were used to predict the life expectancy of the sick and the elderly. According to one account, from the second-century Greek traveler Pausanias, ancient Roman seers (or “scryers”) would lower their mirrors into a pool of water, and then hold them up to the face of the sick person. If the patient’s reflection appeared normal, it meant they would recover; if it was distorted, they would surely die.

Catoptromancy reached the height of its popularity around 1200, shortly after Venetian glassmakers perfected the craft of producing large, flat glass mirrors. European catoptromancers would tilt their mirrors towards the sun or some other light source, and then “read the future” in the cryptic patterns of light and darkness they saw reflected there. According to the fifteenth-century German scholar Johannes Hartlieb, some medieval scryers also claimed to be able to create enchanted mirrors that, like the Mirror of Erised, could show men whatever they most desired.

By the late thirteenth century, mirrors had become so closely associated with catoptromancy and other forms of magical practice that one of the first questions posed at medieval witchcraft trials was: “Have you conducted experiments with mirrors?” At the same time, however, the great Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas saw mirrors as a tool of enlightenment and argued that studying one’s image could increase self-awareness and help a person to better understand his place in the world. (In fact, Aquinas helped coin the word “speculate,” meaning to guess or ponder. In Latin, it literally means to peer into a
speculum
, or looking glass.)

Many European folktales and works of literature also depict mirrors as tools of knowledge, presenting them as windows onto important truths, distant lands, and unimagined marvels. In the medieval tale
Parsifal
, the guardian of the Holy Grail is able to spot his enemies approaching in a “foe glass” much like the one belonging to Mad Eye Moody. Beauty, from “Beauty and the Beast,” eases her loneliness by watching her family in an enchanted looking glass. Even the mirror in “Snow White” is an instrument of truth and self-knowledge, bluntly informing Snow White’s enemy that she is no longer the fairest in the land. (Of course, some talking mirrors are more outspoken than others. The one in Harry Potter’s room at the Leaky Cauldron doesn’t bother with any cute rhymes or diplomatic phrases. It just takes one look at Harry’s hair and tells him he’s a lost cause!)

Perhaps the most popular story ever written about a magic mirror is Lewis Carroll’s
Through the Looking Glass
, in which a little girl named Alice slips through her drawing room mirror into a magical looking glass world, where everything and everyone is backward. People walk backward, read backward, even prick their fingers and scream backward! Mirrors, of course, really do flip things around, which explains why, in the looking-glass world, the Mirror of
E-R-I-S-E-D
reflects
D-E-S-I-R-E
.

Today, the science of optics has taken most of the mystery out of mirrors. But a few popular superstitions still linger to remind us of their magic. Here are ten of the most common superstitions from yesterday and today.

 


1. Breaking a mirror will bring seven years of bad luck. This belief originated around the first century A.D. with the Romans, who added the seven years to an earlier Greek superstition. The bad luck can be avoided, however, by burying a piece of the mirror.
   

 


2. When a mirror falls from the wall it means someone will die soon.
   

 


3. Mirrors should be covered during thunderstorms lest they attract lightning.
   

 


4. Vampires
   and
   witches
   cast no reflections in mirrors because they have no souls.
   

 


5. Mirrors can trap a human soul and should be covered when a person has died.
   

 


6. A mirror that is framed only on three sides has been used by a witch to see over long distances.
   

 


7. A baby should not be allowed to look at its own reflection during the first year of life for fear that its young soul will be sucked into the mirror.
   

 


8. Once dressed for a wedding a bride should not look at herself until after the ceremony, otherwise bad luck will result.
   

 


9. It’s unlucky to gaze into a mirror by candlelight, especially on Halloween.
   

 


10. To dream of your future love, sleep with a mirror under your pillow.
    

ho among us hasn’t wished, at least once, for a magic wand? Magic wands—simple, elegant, easy to transport—are recognized the world over as symbols of the ability to make things happen. A wave of the wand and
poof
!—the dishes are done, your room is clean, your bowl of ice cream has tripled in size, and Aunt Henrietta just called to say she’s not coming after all. But, as we learn from Harry’s experiences, maybe it’s not quite so simple. Perhaps you need a little skill in
spells
and
transfiguration
to go along with your wand, plus some guidance on what kind of timber you should be toting. Mahogany, oak, holly, or hazel? And what about
unicorn
hair,
phoenix
feathers, or other enhancements for your wand’s core? These details are not to be taken lightly.

Magic wands have been around for a very long time. They appear in prehistoric cave paintings and in the art of the ancient Egyptians. The concern that Ollivanders (makers of fine wands since 382
B.C.
) shows in matching wand, wood, and
wizard
has a precedent in the Druid society that flourished in pre-Christian Europe. Druid
sorcerers
presided over religious and magical rituals with wands fashioned from hawthorn, yew, willow, and other trees they held sacred. Wands were carved only at dawn or sunset—considered the best times to capture the powers of the sun—using a sacred knife that had been dipped in blood. In the Old Testament, Moses uses a magic wand in the form of a shepherd’s staff to part the Red Sea and draw water from a rock. A fourth-century image shows Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead by touching him with a wand. As these examples suggest, historically wands served not only as conductors of supernatural forces but also as tools of religious ceremony and symbols of power.