Magical History

It’s so exciting! JK Rowling is writing again. The articles are short, but STILL – – it’s about the magical history of that wonderful wizarding world we have grown to know and love.

Over the past two days, two articles on the history of magic (and no-mag’s!) have shown up on the Pottermore website, Rowling’s official wizarding world site. (There is actually a third article out and one more coming this week, but we will talk about those in another blog.)

I am an absolute geek for all things Harry Potter, magical and fantasy world related, not only for the joy of reading it, but also for learning from how the master does it. I read that Rowling likes to “write what I want to write. I write what amuses me. It’s totally for myself”, and believes that an author should know all of the back-stories of the individual characters–and not necessarily share all of them! I agree. A great author should know each person’s story. For example, knowing Dumbledore and his brother had had a falling out, Rowling easily explained Aberforth’s reaction towards Harry while he was hunting horcruxes. JK Rowling goes even further, though. She constructs histories of specialized areas of the wizard in world, like The History of Quidditch or Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (which is not only funny for the comments by Ron and Harry in the margins, and helps support Lumos (Rowling’s global charity to support children in institutions), but it is also turning into its own trilogy of movies, the first of which came out November 18, 2016!) Those histories are wonderful by themselves, but this master world builder goes further!

She has built a history of wizards and witches in the “new world” with articles covering the 14th-17th centuries and interwoven it with the history as we learned in our own no-maj schools. For example, she explains that wizards (scourers) sometimes had witches put to death during the Salem witch trials in the late 1600s and why. She also shares the outcome of those events for the larger magical community of the times.

I studied international affairs, and cause-and-effect relationships fascinated me. Understanding the ripple effects of history was always thrilling for me in college, and building the magical history of Fedonta is an exciting proposition. While I would hardly compare myself to Rowling, I admire her storytelling skills, and as I have been building the realm of Fedonta over the past year, I have kept in mind that an author should know the entire magical history of her world even if she doesn’t share it with her readers! The history of magic in Fedonta goes back to the very beginning of time, and, for Fae O’Landry and her friends (a wizard and a merrow),  historical wars among the magical tribes and races will come to play a strong role in The Sword of Ferbandey and follow-on books in the DREAMING OF FEDONTA series.

Fae O’Landry’s story starts in modern-day Maryland, USA, but when Fae dreams of a door and walks through it, she discovers a world placed in the early mid 1200s. In this realm, magicae (magical beings) are accepted as part of the natural order of the world, alchemy is studied as a science, and magical places are marked on maps just as clearly as mundane (non-magic folk) towns. While some mundane history of Ireland in the British Isles of these times is available, there are a few things you don’t hear explained.

Keep reading with me, and perhaps, through Fae O’Landry’s eyes, you might be able to fill in some of the historical details of both the magicae and the  mundane. Fedonta is a new magical realm, but one I am sure you will grow to love. You will learn how the mundane may have written the history of the land but also that the magicae modified it for their own needs and safety. Come explore history with me. The journey will be exhilarating!