[HPforGrownups] Secrecy and Shropshire

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 54170

Catlady wrote:

>Regardless of what wizards tell themselves about how superior they
>are to Muggles, the reason that the wizards hide is because they're
>SCARED Of Muggles. When it comes to Magical History, I have more

Very much so! I've always assumed that Hagrid's explanation to Harry was an
example of what someone (Pratchett I think) has called "lies to children" -
something that's not exactly true but is a workable approximation until
you're ready for the _real_ explanation.

I think that if the WW suddently became visible, then Muggles would
certainly be beating on the wizards' doors for their problems to be solved,
but if the wizards didn't oblige ("Wizard! Heal Auntie Marge's arthritis!" -
"No!" - "If you don't, I'm going to burn your house down!" And so on. Or
even worse "Wizard! Kill Saddam Hussein!" Or all sorts of possibilities that
you will doubtless thing of).

>It seems to me that their whole big deal of despising Muggles is part
>of a pattern of denial. Unwilling to admit that they are scared of
>Muggles, they build up and up and up their claim that Muggles are
>inferior.

I don't think that the two are necessarily counterposed. To a wizard, a
Muggle is certainly "impaired", in the sense that they don't have an ability
that's basic to a wizard, and the dark siders use that as a jumping off
point for their conspiracies to world domination (as it were). But I think
that if they were successful, there would be a combination of terror and
Imperio to make sure that the Muggles didn't fight back. "Prime Minister!
Deliver 1000 Muggles to Malfoy Manor by tomorrow morning for the purpose of
field labour!" - "Yes Sir". And so on...

>So the Shropshire theory doesn't contradict my deeply-held baseless
>theory that Godric Gryffindor was secretly a Welshman originally
>named Gryffydd Glyndwr.

>In my theory, Sais who couldn't pronounce nor even comprehend the
>name Gryffydd Glyndwr could see the gold gryphon logo on his surcoat
>and think he was trying to say: "Godric Gryffin d'Or". Especially if
>they were accustomed to "Godric" being a common name (logic suggests
>that that first Saxons a Welsh boy met would be those on the Welsh
>border).

I think that theory is a difficult one to sustain. The name "Gruffudd" (as
it is  spelt in Welsh) actually has an English equivalent - Gervaise, as
well as an easy pronunciation - Griffith. In the Founders' time, the
neighbours wouldn't have seen it written down anyway. Gruffudd at the time
would of course also have been "ap Glyndwr" as we are talking about a time
before the 16th century. Finally, at the time of the Founders, Shropshire
was actually part of Wales so the neighbours wouldn't have had any
difficulty with the pronunciation. Welsh was spoken there as late as the
19th century.

Godric (like Helga and Rowena) is as far as I know a name of Germanic rather
than Celtic origin.

Cheers

Ffred

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