Kissing gate

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "kkersey_austin" <kkersey at ...> wrote:
>
>  
> > Goddlefrood:
> >
> > I'm all for reading more into the Potter books than is there but 
> > in this instance I think it's just a common graveyard accoutrement.

Elisabet:
> It still works as foreshadowing even if it is a common graveyard
> accoutrement, IMO. If it was *not* something that would normally be
> found at a graveyard it would be, well, I don't know, bad writing. JKR
> calls attention to this detail especially in the last sentence of
> chapter 16. In the next chapter, where they actually go through the
> gate, it is just called a "gate". The mood is completely different at
> that point in the narrative.
> 
> If kissing gate as foreshadowing is a stretch for you, you probably
> won't like this bit either: in Greek mythology, one of Hermes jobs is
> to lead dead souls into the underworld. Hermione not only accompanies
> Harry into (and out of!) the graveyard, but is the one who pushes open
> the gate. 
> 
> Well, stuff like that, as a reader you can take it or leave it, as you
> like.

Geoff:
i don't think it has any foreshadowing. JKR just mentions a kissing gate 
because they are so common. The wooden version is by far the most 
numerous; the area where I live is littered with them and certainly the 
National Trust has a current policy of replacing stiles with them.

The general idea of a kssing gate is that, unlike a field gate, they cannot 
be left open and therefore stock cannot stray. In some villages, stock is 
sometimes found wandering loose  and hence, a gate at the church 
would preclude them from getting into the graveyard.