Ottery St. Catchpole / Little Whinging

[Alexander]

No: HPFGUIDX 39978

  Greetings!

  I was re-reading 2nd book, when I had stumbled upon the
description of Harry's journey from Dursley's home to the
Burrow. It contained information that, as far as I knew,
contradicted the location of Ottery St. Catchpole given in
the HP Lexicon.

  According to HPL ( www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon/ ),
Ottery St Catchpole (and the Burrow) are located somewhere
south of Bristol. At the same time Little Whinging is
located south of London. Thus, direction from Little
Whinging to the Burrow is *west*, only slightly to the
south.

  Still, when I have read the book, it says smth along the
lines of:

  "You take too far to the west, Fred"
  Fred turned the wheel LEFT.

  Interesting. The only way this can happen is if they are
flying not in western, but in southern direction (any from
SW to SE, but mostly south).

  There were already troubles with places named in the book
that cannot be found on England map. I have a strong
suspicion, that Ottery St. Catchpole is one of such places.
In no way this village can be located in Wales - it has to
be somewhere south from London, and very close to the Little
Whinging.

  Note this theory has one additional argument: it took not
much time at all to fly from Little Whinging to the Burrow -
but Ford Anglia was not a racing sport car, and couldn't
cover about 250 kilometers in less than an hour (Weasleys
arrived to Little Whinging when it was already light, and
arrived to the Burrow when everybody was just getting up).

  Of course maybe translators just garbled the words, but I
find it unlikely. Still, maybe somebody will check this up.

Sincerely yours,
Alexander Lomski,
Gryffindor/Slytherin crossbreed,
always happy to throw weird ideas into community.

Monday, June 17, 2002, 16:50 local time (GMT+2:00)