Wizarding Schools (rejected from HPFGU)

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) <catlady@wicca.net>]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, Kristjan Arnason 
<karnasaur at y...> wrote:

> Remember that all of Europe seems to only have three
> schools; Hogwarts in Scotland, Beaubatons in France,
> and Drumstrang in (I think) either North-western
> Russia or Lapland (remember all the lakes).  

Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang are not the only three 
wizarding schools in Europe; they are the three most prestigeous and 
probably the three oldest. That doesn't rule out the existence of 
other schools.

Durmstrang is, alas, in Northern Scandinavia (JKR said so in an 
interview and a Norwegian list member has confirmed it) and some 
people who read a book about Andorra (Andorra is a small country 
on the border between France and Spain and I think the title was 
ANDORRA: THE MAGICAL KINGDOM) became convinced that Beauxbatons is in 
Andorra. I don't know enough about the weather there to know whether 
it is reasonable for the uniforms to be summer-weight robes with no 
warm cloaks.

Starting to guess at the number of schools might begin with guesssing 
at the number of students, starting with JKR's statement that there 
are 1000 students at Hogwarts and making a ratio to the population of 
Great Britain. 

(Of course, that leads to the famous "number of students" battle, of 
which my solution is that JKR's statement is correct because it seems 
correct for a wizarding population of 16,000 to 24,000 which seems 
correct for the amount of wizarding economy shown, the number of 
shops and so on, AND the depictions in the stories of Hogwarts with 
around 280 students are ALSO correct, and the SOLUTION is that the 
Hogwarts in the book is HOGWARTS'S MAIN CAMPUS (Hogwarts School of 
Witchcraft and Wizardry AT Hogswarts Castle) and the other around 700 
students are at two or three other campusses, with names like e.g. 
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at Woodhenge for a campus 
at Woodhenge, but colloquially the main campus is called Hogwarts 
(like the UC campus in Berkeley is called "Cal") while the other 
campusses are called Woodhenge (for my made-up example) like the UC 
campus in Los Angeles is called "UCLA". I think that the Headmaster 
of Hogwarts and the Board of Governors reign over all the campusses, 
but from day to day each campus is ruled by its own Deputy 
Headmaster.) 

> > There have been numerous posts about how many
> > wizarding schools the US might have (I think two,
> > Salem and New Orleans) but no one has brought up
> > Canada, the country I left.  

Back in the days when Joywitch, Amanda and I were in that discussion, 
we thought that the North American schools would be divided by the 
local culture areas. The following is what I came up with and NOT 
CANON. 

A New England school which would be named New Hogwarts, which would 
also be attended by the anglophones of eastern Canada

a Southern School which might be in Savannah (MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN 
OF GOOD AND EVIL was real big at that time), 

a Western school in the Redwood Forest which might be named Hogwest 
(depending how recently it was founded), and would also be attended 
by the Anglophones of Western Canada, (there used to be a wonderful 
luxury camp or rustic resort named Hartsooks in the Redwood Country 
and it would be a fine place for the Western School of Wizardry, and 
"Hartsooks" would be a fine name for it),

a Texas school, named Lone Star or Yellow Rose School, which IIRC 
Amanda placed in Bluebonnet, TX,

a French-speaking school Nouveaxbatons (from Joywitch) in New Orleans 
(or in Mobile), but I suspect that the Francophones of Canada would 
have their own L'Etoile du Nord Ecole de Magie somewhere in Quebec,

a Midwestern school (maybe also covering Sasketchuan and Manitoba), 
altho' the magical-reputed Midwestern place I can think of is Oz, and 
one needs to be carried by a tornado to get there,

two schools in Mexico that were founded before European contact. One 
is called the Mayan school and the other is called the Aztec school, 
altho' their teaching has become more European over time, and they 
take students from all the Central American countries. 

The very first school of wizardry in the world was founded in Sumer 
a little over 4000 years ago, named The School of Wizardry. It still 
exists but its language of instruction has evolved to Aramaic so it 
is usually called The Aramaic School.

The second school of wizardry in the world was founded in Lower Egypt 
a little less than 4000 years ago. Its language of instruction has 
evolved to Coptic so it is called The Coptic School even tho' its 
real name is the Per-Heka. 

All the wizarding students from all the Middle East go to those two 
schools (which must be huge). It doesn't matter if they are from 
Israel or Palestine or Iran or Iraq or Turkish or Armenian or 
whatever ethnic groups that hate each other in the Muggle world -- 
the wizarding folk of the Middle East have learned to view themselves 
as all one ethnic group that sticks together against all the Muggles.

I suppose that might also apply to your point about the Chinese and 
the Japanese and the Koreans not getting along. Altho' I think those 
places are all populous enough to have their own schools; China would 
have at least a couple of schools for different Chinese languages.  

Now I must back and criticise myself. If I choose to include Atlantis 
in my Potterverse, then the Very First school of magic would 
have been in Atlantis something around 9000 years ago; I don't know 
which the Atlantaean wizards invented first, school or plumbing.