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 Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:36 pm
 Translated from Ancient Runes by Hermione Granger
Commentary by Albus DumbledoreOriginal Book Written by J.K. Rowling
Published by The Children’s High Level Group
I do not own these stories; I did not write them nor claim to have written them.
They are the property of J.K. Rowling and the publisher.
Cover Image original source is (as best I can tell) the book cover from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Chapter images courtesy of DeviantArt user somelatevisitor.This book is required text for all students taking Mythology I. Each student should have their own copy. However, should one not have the text in their possession, it can be found in the History Section of the Library.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:51 pm
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 11:02 pm
There was once a kindly old wizard who used his magic generously and wisely for the benefit of his neighbors. Rather than reveal the true source of his power, he pretended that his potions, charms and antidotes sprang ready-made from the little cauldron he called his lucky cooking pot. From miles around, people came to him with their troubles, and the wizard was pleased to give his pot a stir, and put things right.
This well-beloved wizard lived to a goodly age, then died, leaving all his chattels o his only son. This son was of a very different disposition to his gentle father. Those who could not work magic were, to the son’s mind, worthless, and he had often quarreled with his father’s habit of dispensing magical aid to their neighbors.
Upon the father’s death, the son found hidden inside the old cooking pot a small package bearing his name. He opened it, hoping for gold, but found instead a soft, thick slipper, much too small to wear, and with no pair. A fragment of parchment within the slipper bore the words “In the found hope, my son, that you will never need it.”
The son cursed his father’s age-softened mind, then threw the slipped back into the cauldron, resolving henceforth to use it as a rubbish pail.
That very night a peasant woman knocked on the front door.
“My granddaughter is afflicted by a crop of warts, sir,” she told him. “Your father used to mix a special poultice in that old cooking pot-“
“Begone!” cried the son. “What care I for your brat’s warts?”
And he slammed the door in the old woman’s face.
At once there came a loud clanging and banging from his kitchen. The wizard lit his wand and opened the door, and there, to his amazement, he saw his father’s old cooking pot: it had sprouted a single foot of brass, and was hopping on the spot in the middle of the floor, making a fearful noise upon the flagstones. The wizard approached in wonder, but fell back hurriedly when he saw that the whole of the pot’s surface was covered in warts.
“Disgusting object!” he cried, and he tried firstly to Vanish the put, then to clean it with magic, and finally to force it out of the house. None of his spells worked, however, and he was unable to prevent the pot hopping after him out of the kitchen, and the following him up to bed, clanging and banging loudly on every wooden stair.
The wizard could not sleep all night for the banging of the warty old pot by his bedside, and the next morning the pot insisted upon hopping after him to the breakfast table. Clang, clang, clang went the brass-footed pot, and the wizard had not even started his porridge when there came another knock on the door.
An old man stood on the doorstep.
“’Tis my old donkey, sir,” he explained. “Lost, she is, or stolen, and without her I cannot take my wares to market, and my family will go hungry tonight.”
“And I am hungry now!” roared the wizard, and he slammed the door upon the old man.
Clang, clang, clang went the cooking pot’s single brass foot upon the floor, but now its clamor was mixed with the brays of a donkey and human groans of hunger, echoing from the depths of the pot.
“Be still. Be silent!” shrieked the wizard, but not all his magical powers could quieten the warty pot, which hopped on his heels all day long, braying and groaning and clanging, no matter where he went or what he did.
That evening there came a third knock upon the door, and there on the threshold stood a young woman sobbing as though her heart would break.
“My baby is grievously ill,” she said. “Won’t you please help us? Your father bade me come if troubled-“
But the wizard slammed the door on her.
And now the tormenting pot filled to the brim with salt water, and slopped tears all over the floor as it hopped, and brayed, and groaned, and spouted more warts.
Though no more villagers came to seek help at the wizard’s cottage for the rest of the week, the pot kept him informed of their many ills. Within a few days it was not only braying and groaning and slopping and hopping and sprouting warts, it was also chocking and retching, crying like a baby, whining like a dog, and spewing out bad cheese and sour milk and a plague of hungry slugs.
The wizard could not sleep or eat with the pot beside him, but the pot refused to leave, and he could not silence it or force it to be still.
At last the wizard could bear it no more.
“Bring me all your problems, all your problems and your woes!” he screamed, fleeing into the night, with the pot hopping behind him along the road into the village. “Come! Let me cure you, mend you, comfort you! I have my father’s cooking pot, and I shall make you well!”
And with the foul pot still bounding along behind him, he ran up the street, casting spells in every direction.
Inside one house the little girl’s warts vanished as she slept; the lost donkey was Summoned from a distant briar patch and set down softly in its stable; the sick baby was doused in dittany and woke, well and rosy. At every house of sickness and sorrow the wizard did his best, and gradually the cooking pot beside him stopped groaning and retching, and became quiet, shiny, and clean.
“Well, Pot?” asked the trembling wizard as the sun began to rise.
The pot burped out the single slipper he had thrown into it, and permitted him to fit it onto the brass foot. Together, they set off back to the wizard’s house, the pot’s footsteps muffled at last. But from that day forward, the wizard helped the villagers, like his father before him, lest the pot cast off its slipper, and begin to hop once more.
Quote: Commentary by Albus Dumbledore A kind old wizard decides to teach his hard-hearted son a lesson, by giving him a taste of the local Muggle’s misery. The young wizard’s conscience awakes, and he agrees to use his magic for the benefit of his non-magical neighbors. A simple and heartwarming tale, one might think- In which case, one would reveal oneself to be an innocent nincompoop. A pro-Muggle story showing a Muggle-loving father as superior in magic to a Muggle-hating son? It is nothing short of amazing that any copies of the original version of this tale survived the flames to which they were so often consigned. Beedle was somewhat out of step with his times in preaching a message of brotherly love for Muggles. The persecution of witches and wizards was gathering pace all over Europe in the early fifteenth century. Many in the magical community felt, and with good reason, that offering to cast s spell on the Muggle next door’s sickly pig was tantamount to volunteering to fetch the firewood for one’s own funeral pyre. “Let the Muggles manage without us!” was the cry, as wizards drew further and further apart from their non-magical brethren, culminating with the institution of the International Statue of Wizarding Secrecy in 1689, when wizardkind voluntarily went underground. Children being children, however, the grotesque Hopping Pot had taken hold of their imaginations. The solution was to jettison the pro-Muggle moral but keep the warty cauldron, so by the middle of the sixteenth century a different version of the tale was in wide circulation among Wizarding families. In the revised story, the Hopping Pot protects an innocent wizard from his torch-bearing, pitchfork-toting neighbors by chasing them away from the wizard’s cottage, catching them, and swallowing them whole. At the end of the story, by which time the Pot has consumed most of his neighbors, the wizard gains a promise from the few remaining villagers that he will be left in peace to practice magic. In return, he instructs the Pot to render up its victims, who are duly burped out of its depths, slightly mangled. To this day, some Wizarding children are only told the revised version of the story by their (generally anti-Muggle) parents, and the original, if and when they ever read it, comes as a great surprise. As I have already hinted, however, its pro-Muggle sentiment was not the only reason that “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot” attracted anger. As the witch hunts grew ever fiercer, Wizarding families began to live double lives, using charms of concealment to protect themselves and their families. By the seventeenth century, any witch or wizard who chose to fraternize with Muggles became suspect, even an outcast in his or her own community. Among the many insults hurled at pro-Muggle witches and wizards (such fruity epithets as “Mudwallower,” “Dunglicker,” and “Scumsucker” date from this period) was the charge of having weak or inferior magic. Influential wizards of the day such as Brutus Malfoy, editor of Warlock at War, an anti-Muggle periodical, perpetuated the stereotype that a Muggle-lover was about as magical as a Squib. In 1675, Brutus wrote: Quote: “This we may state with certainty: Any wizard who shows fondness for the society of Muggles is of low-intelligence, with magic so feeble and pitiful that he can only feel himself superior if surrounded by Muggle pig-men. Nothing is a surer sign of weak magic than a weakness for non-magical company.” This prejudice eventually died out in the face of overwhelming evidence that some of the world’s most brilliant wizards were, to use the common phrase, “Muggle-lovers.” The final objection to “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot” remains alive in certain quarters today. It was summed up best, perhaps, by Beatrix Bloxam, author of the infamous ‘Toadstool Tales.’ Mrs. Bloxam believed that ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’ were damaging to children, because of what she called “their unhealthy preoccupation with the most horrid subjects, such as disease, bloodshed, wicked magic, unwholesome characters, and bodily effusions and eruptions of the most disgusting kind.” Mrs. Bloxam took a variety of old stories, including several of Beedle’s, and rewrote them according to her ideals, which she expressed as “filling the pure minds of our little angels with healthy, happy thoughts, keeping their sweet slumber free of wicked dreams, and protecting the precious flower of their innocence.” The final paragraph of Mrs. Bloxam’s pure and precious reworking of ‘The Wizard and the Hopping Pot” reads: Quote: “Then the little golden pot danced with delight- hoppitty hoppitty hop!- on its tiny rosy toes! Wee Willykins had cured all the dollies of their poorly tum-tums, and the little pot was so hapypy that it filled up with sweeties for Wee Willykins and the dollies! “But don’t forget to brush your teethy-pegs!” cried the pot. And Wee Willykins kissed and huggled the hoppitty put and promised to always help the dollies and never to be an old grumpy-wumpkins again.” Mrs. Bloxam’s tale as het the reame response from generations of Wizarding children: uncontrollable retching, followed by an immediate demand to have the book taken from them and mashed into a pulp.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 11:27 pm
High on a hill in an enchanted garden, enclosed by tall walls and protected by strong magic, flowed The Fountain of Fair Fortune. Once a year, between the hours of sunrise and sunset on the longest day, a single unfortunate was given the changes to fight their way to the Fountain, bathe in its water, and receive Fair Fortune forever more.
On the appointed day, hundreds of people traveled from all over the kingdom to reach the garden walls before dawn. Male and female, rich and poor, young and old, of magical means and without, they gathered in the darkness, each hoping that they would be the one to gain entrance to the garden.
Three witches, each with her burden of woe, met on the outskirts of the crowd, and told one another their sorrows as they waited for sunrise.
The first, named Asha, was sick of a malady no Healer could cure. She hoped that the Fountain would banish her symptoms and grant her a long and happy life.
The second, by name Altheda, had been robbed of her home, her gold, and her wand by an evil sorcerer. She hoped that the Fountain might relieve her of her powerlessness and poverty.
The third, by name Amata, had been deserted by a man whom she loved dearly, and she thought her heart would never mend. She hoped that the Foutnain would relieve her of her gried and longing.
Pitying each other, the three women agreed that, should the chance befall them, they would unite and try to reach the Fountain together. The sky was rent with the first ray of sun, and a c***k in the wall formed. The crows surged forward, each of them shrieking their claim for the Fountain’s benison. Creepers from the garden beyond snaked through the pressing mass, and twisted themselves around the first witch, Asha. She grasped the wrist of the second witch, Altheda, who seized tight upon the robes of the third witch, Amata.
And Amata became caught upon the armor of a dismal-looking night, who was seated on a bone-thin hourse.
The creepers tugged the three witches through the c***k in the wall, and the knight was dragged off his steed after them.
The furious screams of the disappointed throng rose upon the morning air, then fell silent as the garden wall sealed once more.
Asha and Altheda were angry with Amata, who had accidentally brought along the knight.
“Only one can bathe in the Fountain! It will be hard enough to decide which of us it will be, without adding another!”
Now, Sir Luckless, as the knight was known in the land outside the walls, observed these three witches, and, having no magic, nor any great skill at jousting or dueling with swords, nor anything that distinguished the non-magical man, was sure that he had no hope of beating the three women to the Fountain. He therefore declared his intention of withdrawing outside the walls again.
At this, Amata became angry too.
“Faint heart!” she chided him. “Draw your sword, Knight, and help us to reach our goal!”
And so the three witches and the forlorn knight ventured forth into the enchanted garden, where rare herbs, fruit and flowers grew in abundance on either side of the sunlit paths. They met no obstacle until they reached the foot of the hill on which the Fountain stood.
There, however, wrapped around the base of the hill, was a monstrous white Worm, bloated and blind. At their approach it turned a foul face upon them, and uttered the following words:
“Pay me the proof of your pain.”
Sir Luckless drew his sword and attempted to kill the beast, but his blade snapped. Then Altheda cast rocks at the worm, while Asha and Amata essayed every spell that might subdue or entrance it, but the power of their wands was no more effective than their friend’s stones or the knight’s steel: The worm would not let them pass.
The sun rose higher in the sky, and Asha, despairing, began to weep.
Then the great worm placed its face upon hers and drank the tears from her cheeks. Its thirst assuaged, the worm slithered aside, and vanished into a hole in the ground.
Rejoicing at the worm’s disappearance, the three witches and the knight began to climb the hill, sure that they would reach the Fountain before noon.
Halfway up the steep slope, however, they came across words cut into the ground before them:
“Pay me the fruit of your labors.”
Sir Luckless took out his only coin, and placed it upon the grassy hillside, but it rolled away and was lost. The three witches and the knight continued to climb, but thought they walked for hours more, they advanced not a step; the summit came no nearer, and still the inscription lay in the earth before them.
All were discouraged as the sun rose over their heads and began to sink toward the far horizon, but Altheda walked faster and harder than any of them, and exhorted the others to follow her example, though she moved no farther up the enchanted hill.
“Courage, friends, and do not yield!” she cried, wiping the sweat from her brow.
As the drops fell glittering onto the earth, the inscription blocking their path vanished, and the found that they were able to move upward once more.
Delighted by the removal of this second obstacle, they hurried toward the summit as fast as they could, until at last they glimpsed the Fountain, glittering like crystal in a bower of flowers and trees.
Before they could reach it, however, they came to a stream that ran round the hilltop, barring their way. In the depths of the clear water lay a smooth stone bearing the words:
“Pay me the treasure of your past.”
Sir Luckless attempted to float across the stream on his shield, but it sank. The three witches pulled him from the water, then tried to leap the brook themselves, but it would not let them cross, and all the while the sun was sinking lower in the sky.
So they fell to pondering the meaning of the stone’s message, and Amata was the first to understand. Taking her wand, she drew from her mind all the memories of happy times she had spent with her vanished lover, and dropped them into the rushing waters. The stream swept them away, and stepping stones appeared, and the three witches and the knight were able o pass at last onto the summit of the hill.
The Fountain shimmered before them, set amidst herbs and flowers rarer and more beautiful than any they had ever yet seen. The sky burned ruby, and it was time to decide which of them would bathe.
Before they could make their decision, however, frail Asha fell to the ground. Exhausted by their struggle to the summit, she was close to death.
Her three friends would have carried her to the Fountain, but Asha was in mortal agony and begged them not to touch her.
Then Altheda hastened to pick all those herbs she thought most hopeful, and mixed them in Sir Luckless’s gourd of water, and powered the potion into Asha’s mouth.
At once, Asha was able to stand. What was more, all symptons of her dread malady had vanished.
“I am cured!” she cried. “I have no need of the Fountain- let Altheda bathe!”
But Altheda was busy collecting more herbs in her apron.
“If I can cure this disease, I shall earn gold aplenty! Let Amata bathe!”
Sir Luckless bowed and gestured Amata toward the Fountain, but she shook her head. The stream had washed away all regret for her lover, and she saw now that he had been cruel and faithless, and that it was happiness enough to be rid of him.
“Good sir, you must bathe, as a reward for all your chivalry!” she told Sir Luckless.
So the knight clanked forth in the last rays of the setting sun, and bathed in the Fountain of Faire Fortune, ashtonished that he was the chosen one of hundreds and giddy with his incredible luck.
As the sun fell below the horizon, Sir Luckless emerged from the waters with the glory of his triumph upon him, and flung himself in his rusted armor at the feet of Amata, who was the kindest and most beaurtiful woman he had ever beheld. Flushed with success, he begged for her hand and her heart, and Amata, no less delighted, realized that she had found a man worthy of them.
The three witches and the knight set off down the hill together, arm in arm, and all four led long and happy lives, and none of them ever knew or suspected that the Fountain’s waters carried no enchantments at all.
Quote: Commentary by Albus Dumbledore “The Fountain of Fair Fortune” is a perennial favorite, so much so that it was the subject of the sole attempt to introduce a Christmas pantomime to Hogwarts’s festive celebrations. Our then Herbology master, Professor Herbery Beery, an enthusiastic devotee of amateur dramatics, proposed an adaptation of this well-beloved children’s tale as a Yuletide treat for staff and students. I was then a young Transfiguration teacher, and Herbert assigned me to “special effects,” which included providing a fully functional Fountain of Fair Fortune and a miniature grassy hill, up which our three heroines and hero would appear to march, while ti sank slowly into the stage and out of sight. I think I might say, without vanity, that both my Fountain and my Hill performed the parts allotted to them with simple goodwill. Alas, that the same could not be said of the rest of the cast. Ignoring for a moment the antics of the gigantic “worm” provided by our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, Professor Silvanus Kettleburn, the human element proved disastrous to the show. Professor Beery, in his role of director, had been dangerously oblivious to the emotional entanglements seething under his very nose. Little did he know that the students playing “Amata” and “Sir Luckless” had been boyfriend and girlfriend until one hour before the curtain rose, at which point “Sir Luckless” transferred his affections to “Asha.” Suffice to say that our seekers after Fair Fortune never made it to the top of the hill. The curtain had barely risen when Professor Kettleburn’s “worm” – now revealed to be an Ashwinder with and Engorgement Charm upon it – exploded in a shower of hot sparks and dust, filling the Great Hall with smoke and fragments of scenery. While the enormous fiery eggs it had laid at the foot of my hill ignited the floorboards, “Amata” and “Asha” turned upon each other, dueling so fiercely that Professor Beery was caught in the cross fire, and the staff had to evacuate the Hall, as the inferno now raging onstage threatened to engulf the place. The night’s entertainment concluded with a packed hospital wing; it was several months before the Great Hall lost its pungent aroma of wood smoke, and even longer before Professor Beery’s head reassumed its normal proportions, and Professor Kettleburn was taken off probation. Headmaster Armando Dippet imposed a blanket ban on future pantomimes, a proud non-theatrical tradition that Hogwarts continues to this day. Our dramatic fiasco notwithstanding, “The Fountain of Fair Fortune” is probably the most popular of Beedle’s tales, although, just like “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot,” it has its detractors. More than one parents has demanded the removal of this particular tale from the Hogwarts library, including, by coincidence, a descendant of Brutus Malfoy and one-time member of the Hogwarts Board of Governors, Mr. Lucius Malfoy. Mr. Malfoy submitted his demand for a ban on the story in writing: Quote: “Any work of fiction or nonfiction that depicts interbreeding between wizards and Muggles should be banned from the bookshelves of Hogwarts. I do not wish my son to be influenced into sullying the purity of his bloodline by reading stories that promote wizard-Muggle marriage.” My refusal to remove the book from the library was backed by a majority of the Board of Governors. I wrote back to Mr. Malfoy, explaining my decision: Quote: “So-called pure-blooded families maintain their alleged purity by disowning, banishing, or lying about Muggles or Muggle-borns on their family trees. They then attempt to foist their hypocrisy upon the rest of us by asking us to ban works dealing with the truths they deny. There is not a witch or wizard in existence whose blood has not mingled with that of Muggles, and I should therefore it both illogical and immoral to remove works dealing with the subject from our students’ store of knowledge.” This exchange marked the beginning of Mr. Malfoy’s long campaign to have me removed from my post as Headmaster of Hogwarts, and of mine to have him removed from his position as Lord Voldemort’s Favorite Death Eater.
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Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2013 11:38 pm
There once was a handsome, rich, and talented young warlock, who observed that his friends grew foolish when they fell in love, gamboling and preening, losing their appetites and their dignity. The young warlock resolved never to fall prey to such weakness, and employed Dark Arts to ensure his immunity.
Unaware of his secret, the warlock’s family laughed to see him so aloof and cold.
“All will change,” they prophesied, “when a maid catches his fancy!”
But the young warlock’s fancy remained untouched. Though many a maiden was intrigued by his haughty mien, and employed her most subtle arts to please him, none succeeded at touching his heart. The warlock gloried in his indifference, and the sagacity that had produced it.
But the young warlock’s fancy remained untouched. Though many a maiden was intrigued by his haughty mien, and employed her most subtle arts to please him, none succeeded in touching his heart. The warlock gloried in his indifference, and the sagacity that had produced it.
The first freshness of youth waned, and the warlock’s peers began to wed, and then to bring forth children.
“Their hearts must be husks,” he sneered inwardly as he observed the antics of the young parents about him, “shriveled by the demands of these mewling offspring!”
And once again he congratulated himself upon the wisdom of his early choice.
In due course, the warlock’s aged parents died. Their son did not mourn them; on the contrary, he considered himself blessed by their demise. Now he reigned alone in their castle. Having transferred his greatest treasures to the deepest dungeon, he gave himself over to a life of ease and plenty, his comfort the only aim of his many servants.
The warlock was sure that the must be an object of immense envy to all who beheld his splendid and untroubled solitude. Fierce were his anger and chagrin, therefore, when he overheard two of his lackeys discussing their master one day.
The first servant expressed pity for the warlock who, with all his wealthy and power, was yet beloved by nobody.
But his companion jeered, asking why a man with so much gold and a palatial castle to his name had been unable to attract a wife.
Their words dealt dreadful blows to the listening warlock’s pride. He resolved at once to take a wife, and that she would be a wife superior to all others. She would possess astounding beauty, exciting envy and desire in every man who beheld her; she would spring from magical lineage, so that their offspring would inherit outstanding magical gifts; and she would have wealth at least equal to his own, so that his comfortable existence would be assure, in spite of additions to his household.
It might have taken the warlock fifty years to find such a woman, yet it so happened that the very day after he decided to seek her, a maiden answering his every wish arrived in the neighborhood to visit her kinsfolk.
She was a witch of prodigious skill and possessed of much gold. Her beauty was such that it tugged at the heart of every man who set eyes upon her; every many, that is, except one. The warlock’s heart felt nothing at all. Nevertheless, she was the prize he sought, so he began to pay her court.
All who noticed the warlock’s change in manners were amazed, and told the maiden that she had succeeded where a hundred had failed.
The young woman herself was both fascinated and repelled by the warlock’s attentions. She sensed the coldness that lay behind the warmth of his flattery, and have never met a man so strange and remote. Her kinsfolk, however, deemed theirs a most suitable match, and, eager to promote it, accepted the warlock’s invitation to a great feast in the maiden’s honor.
The table was laden with silver and gold, bearing the finest wines and most sumptuous foods. Minstrels strummed on silk-stringed lutes and sang of a love their master had never felt. The maiden sat upon a throne beside the warlock, who spake low, employing words of tenderness he had stolen from the poets, without any idea of their true meaning.
The maiden listened, puzzled, and finally replied, “You speak well, Warlock, and I would be delighted by your attention, if only I thought you had a heart!”
The warlock smiled, and told her that she need not fear on that score. Bidding her follow, he led her from the feast, and down to the locked dungeon where he kept his greatest treasure.
Here, in an enchanted crystal casket, was the warlock’s beating heart.
Long since disconnected from eyes, ears and fingers, it had never fallen prey to beauty, or to a musical voice, to the feel of silken skin. The maiden was terrified by the sight of it, for the heart was shrunken and covered in long black hair.
“Oh, what have you done?” she lamented. “Put it back where it belongs, I beseech you!”
Seeing that this was necessary to please her, the warlock drew his wand, unlocked the crystal casket, sliced open his own breast, and replaced the hairy heart in the empty cavity it had once occupied.
“Now you are healed and will know true love!” cried the maiden, and she embraced him.
The touch of her soft white arms, the sound of her breath in his ear, the scent of her heavy gold hair. All pierced the newly awakened heart like spears. But it had grown strange during its long exile, blind and savage in the darkness to which it had been condemned, and its appetites had grown powerful and perverse.
The guests at the feast had noticed the absence of their host and the maiden. At first untroubled, they grew anxious as the hours passed, and finally began to search he castle. They found the dungeon at last, and a most dreadful sight awaited them there.
The maiden lay dead upon the floor, her breast cut open, and beside her crouched the mad warlock, holding in one bloody hand a great, smooth, shining scarlet heart, which he licked and stroked, vowing to exchange it for his own.
In his other hand, he held his wand, trying to coax from his own chest the shriveled, hairy heart. But the hairy heart was stronger than he was, and refused to relinquish its hold upon his senses or return to the coffin in which it had been locked for so long.
Before the horror-struck eyes of his guests, the warlock cast aside his wand, and seized a silver dagger. Vowing never to be mastered by his own heart, he hacked it from his chest.
For one moment, the warlock knelt triumphant, with a heart clutched in each hand; then he fell across the maiden’s body, and died.
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