Super Animagi?

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 24076

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Zarleycat at a... wrote:

> I suppose you could use your wand to 
> transform yourself into various types of animals,

I keep wondering, if one has Transfigured oneself into an animal 
that doesn't have hands (such as a dog, let alone a dolphin), HOW 
does one wave one's wand to end the Transfiguration? 

> I remember seeing the cartoon (Disney?) version of "The Sword in 
> the Stone."  There is a scene where Merlin is dueling with a witch,
> who's name I forget, and they both keep changing their animal 
> forms, the better to attack each other.  Merlin wins when he 
> changes into a virus and make the witch sick.  Seems to me like a 
> useful skill.

There are two historic sources for wizard/witch duel of 
Transformations. One is the first part of the story of Taliesin, 
which was bound into the same book as the text of the Mabinogion. In 
this story, Cerridwen is an evil witch who has an ugly son, and 
Gwion Bach is her Muggle servant. Gwion Bach drinks the Potion of 
Knowledge that she was brewing for her son, Cerridwen gets furious 
and wants to kill him, he transforms in order to escape -- IIRC, 
first into a rabbit, and she transforms into a greyhound to catch 
him, then into a sparrow and she transforms into a falcon to catch 
him, eventually into a grain of wheat, and she transforms into a 
chicken and eats the grain of wheat. Nine months later, she gives 
birth to a baby boy who remembers not only having been Gwion Bach, 
but all his previous lives as well.

I just now used Ask Jeeves to find a text of this tale to refer you 
to: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/mab/taliesin.htm

The other is a Folk Song, sometimes called The Two Magicians, in 
which a young woman tells an ugly blacksmith that 'never will you 
have my maidenhead' and transforms into various creatures to flee 
him, and he transforms to pursue her.

I found a version of it at 
http://shorty.mudcat.org/!!-song99.cfm?stuff=fall99+D+12571684

http://www.contemplator.com/folk2/2magics.html