Origins of the Founders (British Geography input needed) (No OOP at all)

[nb100uk]

No: HPFGUIDX 67322

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ali" <Ali at z...> wrote:
> Pip!Squeak the birthday girl wrote:-
> 
>  Umm.. many may be unaware that Cornwall, which quite definitely 
has 
>  moors, was the last bastion of Celtic England. The Cornish are 
>  Celts. Cornish, Gaelic, Irish and Welsh (and Breton) are members 
of 
>  the same language group.  It may be that the Four Founders don't 
>  represent modern England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales as much as 
>  they represent Celt, Dane, Anglo-Saxon and Scot - the four peoples 
>  who made up pre-Norman Britain. 
> 
> I like this solution much better than than the country split. IIRC, 
> posters have previously suggested that Godric is a Cornish name. I 
> would consequently place Godric's Hollow in Cornwall, and  it is 
> then at least possible to see why Hagrid flew over Bristol when 
> taking baby Harry from Godric's Hollow to Little Whinging - even if 
> it is not the most direct route.
> 
> Placing Godric's Hollow in Cornwall has another advantage to me. If 
> Ottery St Catchpole is near Ottery St Mary in Devon as I like to 
> assume, then it places the Weasley's home relatively near to the 
> Potter's home (certainly making them near neighbours by Wizarding 
> standards anyway. 
> 
> If Wizarding families have stayed in the same general vicinity as 
> their ancestors, then perhaps generations of Weasleys have 
supported 
> descendants of Gryffindor throughout the last Millenium. I accept 
> that this is stretching the known facts, and it also flies in the 
> face of "our choices" being important. But, JKR does seem to have 
> generations of families following similar ideals as we have seen 
> with the Blacks and Malfoys.There are black sheep in those families 
> (pun intended) - ie family members like Sirius who have gone 
against 
> the grain so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to have 
> generations of Weasleys upholding the Gryffindor ideal, and then 
the 
> odd exception such as Percy going in a different direction.
> 
> Ali

I've always greatly preferred the Cornish idea for Gryffindor (BTW 
spent my last 2 holidays there and it's wonderful).  I'm also 
attracted to this location because of it's deep seated connections 
with Camelot, King Arthur and the Round Table legends (Tintagel is a 
magical place - very highly recommended).  Although Merlin is never 
actually mentioned as a character in canon, some characters (peple 
will have to provide evidence!) do say 'Merlin's beard!' and such.

As the four founders are timelined back to ?Norman conquest - approx 
11th century, it's feasible that the Camelot legend which dates from 
around 6th/7th century is a further link back to the origin of magic 
in Britain.  I like the idea of Merlin being the origin of all 
magical people in Britain and Griffindor a direct decendent of him.

Nina