Of Basilisks and weasels and rue (Was: A basilisk in the final book?)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 171265

constancevigilance wrote:
>
> OK. Here is an off-the-wall prediction for DH.
> 
> I'm thinking we might see another basilisk. Here's what I found
while researching mythical creatures in Europe at this link:
http://www.pantheon.org/areas/bestiary/articles.html
> 
> [T]he basilisk has natural enemies. The weasel is immune to its
glance and if it gets bitten it withdraws from the fight to eat some
rue, the only plant that does not wither, and returns with renewed
strength.
> 
> CV: What is rue, anyway?
> 
> Brave Ron - or any of the Weasleys, for that matter - to the rescue
when everyone is being threatened! I've always wondered why JKR was so
determined that Ron's surname be Weasley. Such an odd name and she
said it was the only one of her original surnames that was settled
from the beginning.
<snip>
>
Carol responds:

I'm not so sure about another Basilisk (who'd have hatched it and
raised it?), but I'm pretty sure that Harry will use the Sword of
Gryffindor (studded with symbolic and magically powerful rubies) to
kill Nagini, another large and probably magical snake. His ability to
speak Parseltongue will come in handy with her, too, no doubt. (I
wonder if the weasel vs. Basilisk legend has its roots in mongooses
killing snakes?)

Regarding rue: As Snape (who knows about dittany and the properties of
herbs, animals, and minerals in general) would know, as would Sprout
and Madam Pomfrey, rue is an herb with healing properties.
Botanical.com (a very interesting and informative website) describes
it this way:

"Rue, a hardy, evergreen, somewhat shrubby plant, is a native of
Southern Europe. The stem is woody in the lower part, the leaves are
alternate, bluish-green, . . .  emit a powerful, disagreeable odour
and have an exceedingly bitter, acrid and nauseous taste. The
greenish-yellow flowers . . . blossom . . . from June to September. In
England Rue is one of our oldest garden plants, cultivated for its use
medicinally, having, together with other herbs, been introduced by the
Romans, but it is not found in a wild state except rarely on the hills
of Lancashire and Yorkshire. This wild form is even more vehement in
smell than the garden Rue. The whole plant has a disagreeable and
powerful odour. . . .

"The name Ruta is from the Greek reuo (to set free), because this herb
is so efficacious in various diseases. It was much used by the
Ancients; Hippocrates specially commended it, and it constituted a
chief ingredient of the famous antidote to poison used by Mithridates.
The Greeks regarded it as an antimagical herb, because it served to
remedy the nervous indigestion they suffered when eating before
strangers, which they attributed to witchcraft. In the Middle Ages and
later, it was considered - in many parts of Europe - a powerful
defence against witches, and was used in many spells. It was also
thought to bestow second sight." 

http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/r/rue---20.html

Ophelia includes rue in the list of symbolic herbs that she imagines
herself distributing in her mad scene in "Hamlet":  "There's rue for
you and here's some for me; we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays."
The site explains Ophelia's meaning this way: "At one time the holy
water was sprinkled from brushes made of Rue at the ceremony usually
preceding the Sunday celebration of High Mass, for which reason it is
supposed it was named the Herb of Repentance and the Herb of Grace."

The site quotes someone named Gerard (a medieval authority on herbs?)
as stating: "If a man be anointed with the juice of rue, the poison of
wolf's bane, mushrooms, or todestooles, the biting of serpents,
stinging of scorpions, spiders, bees, hornets and wasps will not hurt
him."

So, essentially, rue is a bad-smelling herb with healing properties,
no doubt used by Snape and Slughorn in some of their antidotes. (The
idea that it would be used by Muggles as a defense against witches is
rather ironic but probably not applicable to HP.) Apparently, it
serves as an antidote to protect the weasel from the Basilisk's poison.

I agree that Ron's association with weasels relates to his courage,
but I don't think he'll face a Basilisk (and if he takes part in the
fight with Nagini, it seems unlikely that rue will be involved--unless
Nagini bites him and Snape heals him with it, though surely the
Healers at St. Mungo's would have tried a similar remedy on Mr.
Weasley if the properties of rue as an antidote to snake venom were
well-known(?), or Ron and Harry anoint themselves with rue as
protection against Nagini's venom on the advice of the HBP, hardly
likely now that Harry knows who the Prince is). 

at any rate, we do know from interviews that JKR is fond of weasels
and the whole mustelid family. Draco is turned into a white ferret
(does he realize that he's temporarily "weasely"?) and the Weasleys
live in a "burrow" near the village of *Ottery* St. Catchpole. (I
think that Hermione's otter Patronus indicates that her spirit
guardian is Ron, the otter symbolizing his playful side rather than
his occasional mean-spiritedness, which is IMO more like a weasel. The
entire mustelid family is courageous, which also applies to Ron, as I
noted earlier.)

To return to "rue," the word, of course, also means "sorrow," and, as
a verb, "to regret or to feel remorse" (the etymology of the plant
name is different from that of "rue" meaning "sorrow" but I think they
must have been associated in the medieval English mind considering the
repentance symbolism alluded to by Ophelia). The whole idea of the
plant--its unpleasantness, its medicinal uses, especially in
antidotes, its association with remorse, makes me think of Snape.

Carol, who thinks that Snape's saving Ron with rue would be a lovely
way of proving to Harry which side he's on (foreshadowed by the Bezoar
incident in HBP) but thinks it's unlikely to happen