/Walpurga - The Black Family Tree

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" <zanooda2 at ...> wrote:
> 
> She is actually Walburga, not Walpurga, although I'm sure they are 
> just the two versions of the same name :-). There was a saint named 
> Walburga, IIRC - I once needed to do research on St. Hedwig and I 
> think I saw St. Walburga on the same list of saints.

Whoever she was, her Saint's Day is May 1, so May Eve (the night
before May 1st, like Christmas Eve is the night before Christmas) is
called Walpurgisnacht in German: Walpurga's Night. Which is the pun in
JKR's statement that before Voldemort took over the Death Eaters, they
were a group called the Knights of Walpurgis.

I have made up a story in which this is more than just a pun. In that
old time when real wizards and witches were persecuted by Muggles (the
reason given by Professor Binns for why the location of Hogwarts is
secret), a Healer named Walpurga insisted on helping everyone who
asked her for help, even Muggles. Thus, it was commonly known that she
did healing magic. So some Muggle witch-haters called her to treat a
patient but really it was an ambush and they took away her wand and
killed her. 

So some wizards who had been talking about protecting wizard folk from
Muggle violence by taking revenge on the Muggles who did it were so
outraged by this that they turned words into action, naming themselves
in her memory. If they started trying to kill the Muggles who had done
the crime, they soon settled for killing any Muggles who were handy.
This did not result in Muggles ceasing to persecute wizards. After the
Statute of Secrecy, they changed their activities to sitting around
sulking about not being allowed to take revenge on Muggles.