history of wizards

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 82798

<< It depends on where you'd put the ratio of wizard:muggle 
(something which I deliberately soft-pedalled, given the lack of
consensus on-list and the lack of a definitive answer in canon!) I
tend to work on a personal rule-of-thumb ratio of 1:100, >>

If the population of the UK is almost 60 million and the wizarding
population of the UK is around 20,000 or 30,000, then the ratio would
be around 1:2000-3000. 

Which suggests that many ancient vilages had no wizard at all. Or 
that a *lot* (90%?) of wizarding folk were killed off during the time
 of persecuation by Muggles. Or that wizarding folk didn't participate
in the population explosion of the 20th century ...  

<< The other side to the discussion, of course, is that some wizards
would have  actively _wanted_ to meddle with muggles, to hold power
over them, to enslave them. I'm sure that that tradition is equally
ancient as the tradition of holding aloof, though definitely a
minority tradition. >>

Oh, I'm not so sure it was always a miniority tradition. That's 
always been a very popular desire among Muggles, altho' sometimes
rationalised into nationalism, claiming that we only want to help Our
Nation have power and enslave other nations instead of we personally
enslaving other people. And wizards are just human (fallible, eager
for as much gold and life and power as they can get, etc) as Muggles.

Anyway, that method is how I believe the Malfoy ancestors go so much
money ... making villagers pay taxes to them or else have a dragon
sicced on their village, putting villagers under Imperius to work in
some kind of mine from which Malfoys sold the ore, etc.