Pensieves, Pevensies and anagrams

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Judy" <judy at j...> wrote:
  
Judy:
> I think "pensieve" is brilliant name even without being a literary 
> reference, but a link to the Narnia books would make it even better.

Geoff:
I'm inclined to the view that an anagram link between the Pevensie 
family and the Pensieve is purely a coincidence.

JKR may know the Narnia books well but I don't see any reason for a 
link or a play on words. I am a long time Narnia fan but had to go 
and check my copies for the name of the family; it's not one of those 
pieces of trivia which jump out at you immediately.

I believe that "Pensieve" is another of Jo Rowling's clever 
wordplays. We have pensive, which means "thoughtful" and Pensieve, 
which is an object full of thoughts.

This is very much in the tradition of Diagon Alley, Knockturn Alley, 
Grimmauld Place and Umbridge.

Harking back for a moment to Pensieve, another thought which I have 
had in the past is whether there is a second level here because the 
word "riddle" has an older and less frequently used meaning 
of "sieve"; I still hear local people using it in the rural area 
where I now live.

There's one for the conspiracy theorists to play with when they want 
a break from Horcruxes and Snape....