basilisk / inventing spells

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 186064

Goddlefrood wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186035>:

<< Did you know that translating Basilisk from Greek to Latin gives you Regulus? According to the Aberdeen bestiary it does, for more see:

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/translat/66r.hti &
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/translat/66v.hti

Could this signify anything or is it just a bizarre coincidence? >>

Thanks for the link. The 66v says weasels defeat basilisks. Previously, I had encountered that assertion only on these mlists. Not that it's relevant, as Ron was deliberately kept away from defeating the basilisk and Ginny was unconscious.

Here are some real-life bizarre co-incidences.

1. A 'basilisk' is "Any of various tropical American lizards of the genus Basiliscus, characterized by a crest on the head, back, and tail and the ability to run on the hind legs." (from <http://www.bartleby.com/61/18/B0101800.html>) 

These lizards 'have the unique ability to "walk" on water and, because of this, they have been dubbed as "The Jesus Lizard" or "The Jesus Christ Lizard"' (from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basiliscus_(genus)>)

2. There is a genus related to raccoons named 'Bassariscus'

Pippin wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186059>:

<< We're told that wizard Baruffio said 's' instead of 'f' and ended up with a buffalo on his chest. Was there already a buffalo conjuring spell, or did Baruffio accidentally invent one? Canon saith not.

But magic seems to be a trial and error process. Perhaps the wizards themselves don't understand how it works. We know that Luna's mother was experimenting with a spell when she died, though we don't know if it was a *new* one. >>

I fell in love with the idea, proposed by a listie, that the 'arithmancy' Hermione studies is not the 'arithmancy' known to Muggles; the subject Hermione loves is not any form of divination, but rather a way to calculate magic forces -- not having the magic gene, all I can imagine is that it's something like statics and ballistics in Physics 101, and red-ox in Chem 101... here are the strengths and directions and flavors of all the magic currently in the environment, what needs to change to achieve the desired effect, what action will result in the desired change?

So maybe the desired effect is to levitate a specific object and the needed change is to, like, grab a handful of 'flying energy' that's hovering around pointed in all different directions, and concentrate it 'like a laser beam' so it's going straight into the object, and maybe the way to concentrate it is to scoop it up with your wand, and the way to 'shoot' it is a certain wave in your brain.

Having got that far on arithmancy alone, or on experienced intuition alone (people were throwing stones and javelins long before the mathematics of ballistics was invented), some combination of arithmancy and trial-and-error would find the right wand movement ('swish and flick') to scoop up the desired flavor of magic and not some other flavor. 

And I just suspect that arithmancy is not very helpful in figuring out how to make your brain do that particular wave, but experienced intuition and maybe some other academic subject ('languomancy'?) guides people figuring how saying certain sounds directs the magic brain to wave a particular way. I like that, because it accounts for, once the mage's brain knows how to wave that wave, it is no longer necessary to speak the sounds.

Also because it accounts for why the sounds are not real Latin.