[HPforGrownups] Blood and tapestries for my lord Voldemort (can't remember the original title)

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 103093

Catlady wrote:
>Which is why Steven/asian_lovr2 made up the term "fullblood" for the
>ones who can' *prove* that they're "pureblood". In CoS, Ernie
>Macmillan said: "I might tell you that you can trace my family back
>through nine generations of witches and warlocks and my blood's as
>pure as anyone's". Which, while raising the question of what he/JKR

I'm always reminded when we talk about "purebloods" of the bit in Voltaire's
"Candide" about

"...he could produce no more than threescore and eleven quarterings in his
arms; the rest of the genealogical tree belonging to the family having been
lost through the injuries of time"

and wonder exactly how many quarterings Ernie (or indeed Sirius) would bring
to the table.

It's also worth mentioning that it always seems to me that Ernie's saying
that slightly nervously, almost as if he's not quite convinced that 9
generations is _quite_ enough to make him a pureblood.

>means by 'warlock', suggests that Nine Generations is the definition
>of "pureblood". OoP showed the Black Family Tapestry, going back to
>the fifteenth century (1400s), so I immediately wondered whether the
>reason it stopped there is that the very next ancestor back was a

Or possibly that's the point that a shrewd individual invented and patented
the "Family Tapestry" ("A must for all wizardly families of distinction and
delicacy"!)

>Muggle. How many generations fit in roughly 500 years depend on what
>age the people tend to start child-bearing: it could range from 25
>generations if each of Sirius's ancestors was born when its parents
>were 20, to 5 generations if each was born when its parents were 100.

Usual definition of a "generation" in our world is 30 years - a WW one would
depend on exactly how much longer they live. If we assume (as we often do)
that wizarding folk live twice as long and their generation is 60 years,
then Ernie's family would also go back 540 years, once again to the 15th
century.

That travelling tapestry saleswitch must have done a _very_ persuasive job!

Cheers

Ffred

O Benryn wleth hyd Luch Reon
Cymru yn unfryd gerhyd Wrion
Gwret dy Cymry yghymeiri