Grindelwald Dumbledore Forests and Curse Scars (long)

[fiondavhar]

No: HPFGUIDX 96495

I suppose lots of you know that the Dark Wizard Grindelwald shares 
his name with a mountain town in Switzerland. I looked into the 
etymology of that name, and found this. 

"Wald means "woods," but speculation over Old Germanic Grindel most 
probably narrows the meaning down to either "fence" or "shelf." Hence 
we can conjure up some pretty powerful imagery, such as "Wooded 
Shelf" or maybe even "Barricade Forest"..." or this - 'Grindel 
means "fierce, angry" and wald is German for "forest"'.

So, fierce forest or barricaded forest, in this case, barricaded by 
the fierce mountains. "The mountains, which had previously been 
considered threatening and inhospitable forces of nature (teeming 
with dragons, gnomes and spectres)..." (I liked that line when I 
found it!)

Now doesn't that sound similar to some of the places we have 
recentley been introduced to? For example, where Hagrid went looking 
for the Dragons? I suppose it is to far South for that, unless Hagrid 
took a very round-about way, but I find the reference to magical 
creatures intersting nontheless.

Now, Dumbledore defeated the Dark Wizard Grindlewald in 1945, the 
same year as World War II was resolved in Europe, despite continuing 
in the pacific. We have not been given any information on how this 
happened, which suprises me seeing as such a defeat would likely be 
well documented, and it seems the sort of thing that Hermione would 
be on about all the time considering current affairs.

 Somebody (apoligies for not knowing who) said recentley that 
Dumbledore might have a curse scar of his own, which is an idea that 
I find very interesting. I always took that line in GoF - "You'll 
forgive me, Dumbledore, but I've heard of  a curse scar acting as an 
alarm bell before..." (GoF pg 613, canadian hardback) - to be a 
flint, that there should have been a "never" in there, but I am 
beginning to wonder. 

Fudge seems to be saying this line with a negative implication, as 
though whatever alarm bell curse scar he was referring to had been a 
fiasco, or a fairy tale, or simply a very bad wizard's, alerting him 
of his opponants actions. If it were Dumbledores curse scar, you 
would think he would treat the matter with more belief and respect. 
Could Godric Gryffindor possibly have been rumored to have a curse 
scar? Or even Salazar Slytherin? Maybe it is a thing of wizarding 
fairy tales. But then, wouldn't Ron know about it? If Dumbledore had 
had one, wouldn't Hermione know about it? If Gryffindor had a curse 
scar, could he and Harry be one and the same? Where do Dumbledore and 
Grindelwald fit in to all this? Or the Knights of Walpurgis (probably 
attached to Slytherin and/or Grindlewald) and the Death Eaters? Might 
the barricaded forest have somthing to do with the forbiddin forest? 
Why is it so over-run with Dark creatures?

In any event, I apoligize for the length, and hope someone will be 
patient enough to read through and reply.

Bonny