[HPforGrownups] Ghosts at Hogwarts (was: The Ghostly Potters)

[Jen Faulkner]

No: HPFGUIDX 13714

On Mon, 5 Mar 2001, Teek wrote:

> Did the ghoul in the Weasley's attic die there? I hope not. 

Aren't ghouls different from ghosts, though?  (I thought ghouls were
properly a type of evil spirit that feeds on dead bodies, though I think
JRK's using it in a more general sense, as in the prayer, "From ghoulies
and ghosties, and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the
night, good Lord, deliver us!")  If it were just a ghost like all the
others, wouldn't JKR have given it a name?

> I'd say that ghosts probably have some choice as to where they
> haunt, maybe the places that have significance for them?

I doubt they have conscious choice over where to haunt, but it would
probably be the place most significant to them, which might or might not
be the place they died.  And some of them, at least, can move around and
go visiting, as they do for the Deathday party -- and isn't the Headless
Hunt a sort of roaming band of ghosts who aren't tied to a particular
place?

Is the idea of the Headless Hunt based on the folkloric tradition of the
Wild Hunt?  I assumed that it was...

--jen :)

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