Proteus greek mythology
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They seem to be direct descendants of the centaurs which were believed to have lived on Mount Pelion in Thessaly, in central Greece. Perhaps the most enigmatic monsters at Hogwarts are the centaurs who live in the forbidden forest. Nonetheless, he has a street named after him in Paris today (as does his wife Pernelle), which is a kind of immortality, at least. Many years after Flamel’s death, he was said to have discovered the secret to eternal life: later writers attributed alchemical skills to him but there is no evidence to suggest he actually possessed these. The philosopher’s stone itself has its roots in both myth and history: Dumbledore’s friend and the stone’s inventor, Nicolas Flamel, was a real scribe who lived in Paris in the 14th Century. Are we meant to wonder if the children are entering the gates of hell? Certainly they undergo trials which wouldn’t be out of place in the underworld of Greek myth: the torturous puzzles, the physical peril, the emotional trauma. In a nod to the Cerberus myth, Rowling employs Fluffy as a guard-dog, lying atop the trapdoor which leads Harry, Ron and Hermione on their search for the philosopher’s stone. Fluffy is an easier audience, and can be lulled to sleep by a mere enchanted harp. Though even as he tells us the story, Herodotus describes this particular element as ou pista – unbelievable.Ĭerberus is a discerning dog, and it takes the lyre-playing of no less a musician than Orpheus to paralyse him (as Virgil tells us in The Georgics), holding his three mouths agape.
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Interestingly, Tacitus and Herodotus suggest not that a phoenix is reborn from its own flames, but that a young phoenix will carry the body of its parent bird some considerable distance and then bury it. His sources are unanimous on the subject of the bird’s beak and the colour of its plumage, however: all agree that it differs from every other bird, and is sacred to the sun.
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Tacitus found some disagreement about the bird’s lifespan, but says it is generally held to live for around 500 years. He does add that he hasn’t seen the creature himself, only pictures of one.Įven the more critical Roman historian, Tacitus, reports on a phoenix-sighting, again in Egypt, during the reign of the emperor Tiberius in the First Century CE. In this instance, he’s told that phoenixes live in Egypt, so he relays this information to his readers. He reports what he is told by people he meets on his travels, often without the presentation of further evidence. Herodotus is known as the ‘father of history’ and, by his critics, as the ‘father of lies’. His colouring – red and gold – is the same as that of the phoenixes mentioned by Herodotus in his Histories from the Fifth Century BCE. Fawkes the Phoenix is not only a fantastic beast, capable of auto-regeneration, he’s also a historical one. But the vast majority of Rowling’s best-loved monsters have winged their way from the Ancient World to her modern, magical one.