a lot of Names, interrupted with a lot of Traitors, Lily's Crush, McG/Hooch

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 154765

> Neri:
> In John Macefield's "Midnight Folk" (BTW, a classic British witch
> story, highly recommended and had probably influenced JKR somewhat)
> there's a cat named Blackmalkin and a cat named Greymalkin, both males,

Neri again:
It's of course John *Masefield* and not as I wrote before. This whole
post was full of typos – blame the late hour. 

If you like E. Nesbit's books I recommend ordering "The Midnight Folk"
from the amazon.co.uk. For some reason Masefield seems to have been
forgotten in the US, which is a great pity. The Midnight Folk is IMO
better than Nesbit's best, and will give you some idea of the
tradition that JKR builds upon in the HP series. I don't have any
proof that JKR had read Masefield but I'd be very surprised if she
hadn't. Her Madam Pince is probably an allusion to Masefield's head
witch Madam Pounce. The Midnight Folk also has a sequel "The Box of
Delights" which I gather is a popular Christmas story in the UK (a BBC
mini-series was based on it) but IMO isn't as good as The Midnight
Folk.    

> > Also according to:
> > http://www.takeourword.com/TOW126/page1.html
> > 
> > Between 1543 and 1661, Matthew Hopkins the "witchfinder-general"
> > ordered the executions of three to four thousand women.  
> 
> AD:
> He held the job for 118 years?

Neri:
At least this mistake is in the original website, not mine. As Sherrie
mentions in another post Matthew Hopkins' regain of terror was
1645-1647. For more details see
http://www.sawneybean.com/horrors/matthew.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Hopkins

But the dates of 1543-1661 approximately fit the height of the Great
Hunt in Europe.

> Potioncat:
> OK, some of the Slytherin mentality is a bit more understandable.
>

Neri:
Well, it would have been if JKR hadn't made it clear that all these
women were muggles, while true witches and wizards were never in real
danger from witch hunts. I suppose the Slytherin faction could use
them to justify muggle hunting. 

Neri