Alectryomancy (I'm Confused)

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 55118

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Scott" <insanus_scottus at y...>
wrote:
> ...edited...
> 
> When harry buys unfogging the future the manager mentions several of 
> its chapters including methods of divination and...bird entrails!
> 
> This just struck me as interesting because we know that the phoenix 
> is obviously important to the plot (or at least enough so to have 
> and order of something), and perhaps, just perhaps, fawkes could 
> having something to do with all this and be useful in divination.( 
> or any other phoenix)  The process of alectryomancy is usually done 
> with a cock, but who knows the possibilities with a phoenix. 
> 
> ...edited...
> 
> Fair ye well!
> Scott

bboy_mn:

I'm confused, are you suggesting that alectryomancy is the reading of
bird entrails, because it's not, although it does use a rooster?

To read bird entrails, based on my limited knowledge, you kill the
bird and throw his guts (entrails) on the ground and read the shapes
and patterns just as you would with tea leaves.

So you can't be suggesting we cut Fawkes open and throw his guts on
the ground. I really don't think he would like that.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
HARUSPICATION IS fortune-telling by means of inspecting the entrails
of animals, as practiced by priests in ancient Rome.

HEPATOSCOPY is a form of divination using the entrails of animals.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Alectryomancy works more like an Ouija board, a circle is draw on the
ground while reciting incantation, the cirle is then divided into
sections with a letter of the alphabet in each section, then grain is
placed in each of the section, and you base you divination on the
order that the rooster eats the grain. That is, the order of the
section from which it eats will spell out words.

So, in that sense, Fawkes could be used.

There are other ways of divining using bird that don't require killing
them, analysing flight patterns for example; Ornithomancy.

So, if you are proposing that Fawkes in general could be used in some
form of divination, I'm relieved and would consider the possibility.
But I think that a Phoenix is a sufficiently magical bird that it
could communication any premonitions it might have to Dumbledore or
Harry in other more direct ways. 

Harry seems to be able to sense Hedwig's mood and intensions very
easily, so if he became more familiar with Fawkes, I think Harry could
read him the same way, though familiarity and instinct rather than
true divination. 

Fawkes or Hedwig in some way communicating or warning Harry about the
future is an interesting possibility. but I think there are better
devices in the story, like Harry's dreams, that serve the purpose better.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn