Wand woods

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 43794

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Richelle Votaw" <rvotaw at i...> wrote:
> 
> That's James' wand that was mahogany.  Lily's was willow.  A symbol 
> of mourning and forsaken love.

Willow was a symbol of mourning on Victorian mourning broaches of 
cameos of a widow weeping by a tombstone with a yew or a willow in 
the background. I always assumed, willow because it also is weeping, 
which looks good in the picture.

But there is a whole 'nother tradition of Willow being evil, such 
as Tolkien's Old Man Willow who tried to eat up the hobbits until 
Tom Bombadil rescued them.

That works with the etymology that was believed until recently ... 
"willow" and "witch" were thought to come from the same Indo-European 
root "weik" meaning "to bend" as "wicker" (which is made of willow 
withies, right?), "weak" and "wicked". 

But willow isn't wicked; it kindly relieves pain (aspirin comes from 
willow bark).

Whatever JKR meant by willow, Ron's wand is willow with a unicorn 
hair. He has wand wood as a similarity to Lily, and wand core as a 
similarity to Cedric.