The Last British Myth II: Freedom

On Hogwarts, Heorot, and the yearning for Camelot

I. THE CASTLE

Part I of this series, which started to uncover the spiritual history of Britain hidden within the Harry Potter series, began an exploration of the resonances between the wizarding world and the Anglo-Saxon epics.

We discussed the parallels between incantational magic, the Christian notion of the Word - Logos, and the Anglo-Saxon virtue of treowþ:

This correspondence between word and action also has deep parallels with a particularly English idea: the Anglo-Saxon ideal of treowþ: a precursor to our word truth, which articulates not ‘factualty’ but faith and loyalty. The word of the man of treowþ is his bond, and his actions must reflect his speech. To give your word is to enter into a covenant: you say what you do, and you do what you say. Speech and action, word and motion, are inextricably linked.

But the relationship runs deeper.

There’s something strange about the success of Rowling’s creation: unlike almost every other literary phenomenon, hers is not due to her creation of compelling characters, but to the creation of an irresistible place: Hogwarts.

Every child of a generation yearned to receive the letter which summoned them to the school. Isn’t this odd, when one thinks about it? How is it that a school was able to endow the entire world-feel of the universe with a quiet, beneficent, living energy? What hidden dimension of the British psyche does this represent, and from whence does the idea draw its power?

Hogwarts is an avatar of a much older Anglo belief: that freedom can only be provided by the virtuous king.

The ancestors of Hogwarts: Heorot (artist Dena Bain Taylor) | Camelot (artist Gustave Dore)

Our first glimpse at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry

The narrow path had opened suddenly on the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers…

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

— J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Hogwarts is first described as a castle. English epics, from the Arthurian myths to Lord of the Rings, all share a common motif: the hall of the king as shelter from Britain’s enchanted wilderness.

In the Beowulf narrative, the great hall of Heorot, home of the good King Hrothgar, is the lone beacon of the goodness, warmth, and order of civilization. It is the vessel for the protection of the generations of men and for the inheritance of divine knowledge.

Doesn’t the following passage about Heorot’s origins evoke the same sense of warmth and mystery as that of Rowling’s magical school?

Then it came into his heart that he would command men to fashion a hall and a mansion, a mightier house for their mead-drinking than the children of men had ever known, and there-within would he apportion all things to young and old such as God had granted him…

There was the sound of harp and the clear singing of the minstrel; there spake he that had knowledge to unfold from far-off days the first beginning of men, telling how the Almighty wrought the earth, a vale of bright loveliness that the waters encircle; how triumphant He set the radiance of the sun and moon as a light for the dwellers in the lands, and adorned the regions of the world with boughs and with leaves, life too he devised for every kind that moves and lives. Even thus did the men of that company live in mirth and happiness, until one began to work deeds of wrong, a fiend of hell.

— Beowulf (trans. J. R. R. Tolkien)

Some parallels to the Potter-world are obvious, but some are more subtle. Heorot is the Old English word for ‘stag’, a symbol always associated with royalty, and one that is raised atop the standard in the royal cenotaph of Sutton Hoo - the greatest of the Anglo-Saxon burial sites.

The stag is also, of course, the symbol of Harry Potter and of his pure-blood father James before him, indicative of a royal lineage. I will expand on this soon: the importance of the symbology of the bestiary will be a major theme in the next part of this series.

The motif of the warmth of the great hall is inherited by the Arthurian universe, expressed in that place whose name will always live on in the English consciousness: Camelot.

It was Christmas at Camelot – King Arthur’s court,
where the great and the good of the land had gathered,
all the righteous lords of the ranks of the Round Table
quite properly carousing and revelling in pleasure.

Time after time, in tournaments of joust,
they had lunged at each other with levelled lances
then returned to the castle to carry on their carolling,
for the feasting lasted a full fortnight and one day,
with more food and drink than a fellow could dream of.

The hubbub of their humour was heavenly to hear:
pleasant dialogue by day and dancing after dusk,
so the house and its hall were lit with happiness
and lords and ladies were luminous with joy.

— Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (trans. Simon Armitage)

Camelot is the ideal city: the English Jerusalem made possible by the chivalric perfection of its knights. Arthur’s court is where knights learn courtesy: the expression of Christlike virtues.

Unlike the Mediterranean ideal, the British understanding of cyclical history does not have an artistic civilizational summer as its zenith. The Englishman dreams of the perfect shelter from the cold - part Valhalla, part Jerusalem.

But heaven on earth will never be achieved before the Lord comes again. Good times create weak men; comfortable castles create sinful knights. The earthly perfection of Heurot, Camelot, and Hogwarts each prove to be a mirage: their fragile peace is always shattered by one who comes in from the wilderness.

When the Green Knight - a giant being of inhuman color - enters Camelot uninvited, the growing pride and cowardice of the Arthurian knights is exposed. The Christian faith might have established itself, but it can never get too comfortable, lest the fey powers (fairie, untamed, enchanted, other, sinister) of Old England re-assert themselves. The Green Knight bears not a sword but a wand of holly.

Gawain (like Harry, an obscure and humble hero) is the only remaining knight of sufficient virtue to accept the Green Knight’s challenge. Wearing red - symbolizing royalty and the blood of Christ - he goes forth to meet the green giant, whose contrasting color evokes the wild, pagan powers of untamed nature.

This eternal British battle between red and green (fire and nature, spirit and earth, higher and lower) is echoed in the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin: a crusade which attempts to beat back the encroaching paganism (the serpent, human sacrifice, evil magic). The very fact that all these stories have to invoke pagan themes in order to resonate with the British mind is indicative of how tenuous our Christian victory remains.

Celebrations at the moment the green banners turn red in Great Hall

This symbol of the perfect city has always existed, and perhaps always will. But it was not clear how to make it relevant and accessible for our own age - until Rowling found an unlikely avatar: the British boarding school.