On Parslemouth, was; Where's the Bang?/Hogwarts Houses

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 45599

Becky writes;

<< I'm not so sure. In FBAWTFT it mentions "Herpo the Foul," who is Greek, in 
the section on Basilisks, and "writings of Parselmouths" in the Runespoor 
bit. While I know some are wary of its absolute canonical purity, I think 
that this tends to reflect JKR's mind about the rareness and origin of 
Parselmouths.  >>

It stands to reason that the "gift" of Parselmouth, while rare, occurs 
frequently enough for people to know that it exists. What I suspect is that 
it only occurs spontaneously in parts of the world where the climactic 
conditions are favorable for supporting a wide variety of native snakes. As 
one gets farther away from these parts of the world the rarer the gift of 
Parselmouth becomes. 

By the time you reach areas like Northern or Western Europe, where there may 
be snakes, but not in great numbers or wide varieties, Parselmouth occurs 
very rarely indeed, and can in virtually all cases be traced to a bloodline 
which decends from some known ancestor who introduced it into that geographic 
area when they settled there. 

It is not at all difficult to assume that Salazar Slytherin, or his own 
ancestors, settled in England after removing from some unspecified warmer 
climate. He was from a known "Parselmouth bloodline" and had inherited the 
gift. I would not be surprised to learn that since his time, all known 
English Parselmouths (not many, but perhaps a half dozen to a dozen) can be 
traced, one way or another to the Slytherin bloodline. This already accounts 
for Tom Riddle, and may add to the general consternation when Harry turned 
out to also have this gift.

There could be a few other known Parselmouth bloodlines on the continent, but 
it adds to the drama if Slytherin's line is the only known one in England.

-JOdel