Elves and Fairies
The power of names
by Ælf
IN days gone by,
names were things of immense importance. The name of a new-born child was
chosen with great care; a pagan undergoing baptism into the Church chose a new
name.
In the time of the Judges, many Israelites took on names
that referred to pagan deities, because they worshipped both God Almighty and
the many gods of Canaan. Gideon was known as Yerubba’al
(a reference to one of the Canaanite gods known as ba’alim) until his
encounter with the Lord, by which he was called to lead his tribe, Manasseh,
against Midianite raiders.
When the pharaoh Amenhotep IV changed his name to
Akhenaton, he signified a revolutionary change in Egyptian life: the abandoning
of the numerous old gods (among them his patron, Amon) in favour of a single
god, Aton. The reaction of his people against this change resulted in the
murder of his son-in-law Tutankhaten (remembered instead by his polytheistic
name of Tutankhamun II) and the restoration of polytheism in Egypt.
The names of many pagan deities were a closely guarded
secret, and a worshipper of a particular god or goddess was only told the
deity’s name when he or she was initiated into the particular cult.
The poet Robert Graves, in his book The White Goddess, reconstructs an event in prehistoric Britain when a particular individual gained control over the major cultic shrines of Britain by correctly guessing the names of the deities each one was dedicated to, thereby gaining control over them all.
A more recent book, The Real Camelot, similarly reconstructs prehistoric events in Britain and concludes that a
unification of the cults of Britain – by my reading, the same event described
in Graves’s book – resulted in the establishment of the existing shrine at Stonehenge, on Wiltshire’s Salisbury Plain, as the prime cultic centre of Britain.
The modern name of that site refers to the characteristic
stone circle – quite possibly erected as a type of observatory to determine the
days of significant seasons in the year – which comprises monoliths that
originate in Wales. One of the mysteries of Stonehenge is how those rocks were
carried from the Prescelly Mountains in what used to be called Pembrokeshire,
Wales, to Wiltshire.
Returning to names, Edward Perronet gave us these immortal
words:
All hail the power of Jesu’s Name!
Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem
To crown Him Lord of all.
So mighty that angels fall prostrate – a tremendous
attribute for a name (or rather, the Divine Name).
Nowadays names are no longer regarded with such awe.
Parents grab a name out of nowhere for a child (or piece together bits of
unrelated names), and discover years later that the child’s name has a meaning
they had not intended.
The names in the Harry Potter books are in some ways very
like that. Certainly, you wouldn’t imagine that you were dealing with a party
of evangelical Christians. Their given names are strange: Rubeus Hagrid, Godric Gryffindor, Hilda Hufflepuff and Albus Dumbledore, to name but a few.
There is one name that is regarded with superstitious awe
as something that should not be mentioned: Voldemort.
But neither Harry nor Dumbledore is afraid of mentioning it; it is only other witches who refer to him obtusely as He Who Must Not Be Named.
There’s also no obvious undertone of any other religion
than Christianity in Rowling’s writing.
Whereas real witchcraft is very much a religion, there is
no mention of religion at all in J K Rowling’s books. Ms Rowling is a child of
what is often called the post-Christian era, where agnosticism is a norm and
atheism is almost as odd as religiosity.
One of the oddest things about life at Hogwarts is that
Sunday has no meaning at all. Traditionally, British boarding schools were
church-centred institutions where the chapel was central to school life, and Sunday was the day whose religious observances set the tone for the rest of the week.
If Ms Rowling’s books were in fact about the witch religion
(of which nothing is mentioned at all), there would be some mention of cultic
activity in them. (In fact the only cultic activity alluded to – and never
spelt out – is that of Voldemort’s followers, the Death Eaters.)
So what is Sunday in Harry Potter’s life? Simply a day when
there is no school, and the pupils and staff of Hogwarts can indulge in leisure
activities, or catch up on their studies.
A widely circulated, but anonymous, article by a person
claiming to have been a witch before committing her life to Jesus Christ has
this to say about young Potter’s introduction to school life:
“Harry also learns a new vocabulary, including words such as Azkaban,
Circe, Draco, Erised, Hermes, and Slytherin; all of which are names of real
devils or demons.”
The writer does not give sources for this list of names,
she merely rattles them off. Azkaban, Potter readers will know, is the wizards’
prison; Draco is the given name of young Malfoy, the bane of Harry’s life; the
Mirror of Erised stands in a little-used part of the castle at Hogwarts; and
Slytherin is the name of one of the four houses that make up the school.
I cannot recall, offhand, who or what Circe and Hermes are
in the books, but they are familiar from Greek legend: Circe a sorceress, and
Hermes a god or demigod.
I have heard that the other names were given by a deranged
nun as belonging to demons who visited her.
This is hardly an authoritative source for demonological
nomenclature, but it should be mentioned firstly that demons are fallen angels:
the angels who followed Lucifer in his revolt against the Creator. And
secondly, there are many and varied lists of the names of angels as well as of
demons, not to mention similar lists of the types of angels and demons.
I am forced to conclude that these names have no such
significance in Harry Potter’s world. I have other reasons for believing that
Ms Rowling’s books are not as harmful as they are made out, but I will explore
these in further articles.
