★★★★☆ Insight into Dumbledore's mind

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

JK Rowling

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Hermione received a small bequest from Albus Dumbledore -- his copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, with his handwritten notes. Hermione, the most bookish of Hogwarts students, has never heard of this book. Ron is incredulous -- from him we learn that Beedle is a sort of Wizard's Mother Goose, a collection of stories known to all Wizard children. He mentions three by name, "The Fountain of Fair Fortune", "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot", and "Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump". Another, "The Tale of the Three Brothers" plays an important role in Deathly Hallows and appears there in full.

J.K. Rowling, in order to raise money for her charity The Children's Voice, wrote The Tales of Beedle the Bard, originally as seven handmade and hand-illustrated copies. Six were given away to colleagues of Rowling's, the seventh was auctioned by Sotheby, finally fetching £1.95 million ($3.98 million, €2.28 million) from Amazon. It was eventually published under Rowling's own label, Pottermore. That is the version available to us plebians, which I am here reviewing.

It's a very short book. There are only five tales: aside from the four mentioned in Deathly Hallows, we have "The Warlock's Hairy Heart". But, in addition to the stories themselves, we have Dumbledore's notes (in print, although they were notionally handwritten in the copy he bequeathed to Hermione). Dumbledore's notes are as long as the stories themselves. If you're a Harry Potter fan, these notes are an irresistible insight into Albus Dumbledore's thinking. They also contain numerous little Easter Eggs that you will recognize.

I can really only recommend Beedle for Harry Potter fans, who are, of course, a not inconsiderable population. For them (us), it's easily worth the quick read.

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