| Magical Myths 101 Lesson Eight |
| We continue our famous witches and wizards. Ptolemy � lived in Alexandria, Egypt, in early part of the second century A.D., where he was an astronomer and mathematician. He collected the worlds� knowledge of these fields into a book, eventually known as Almagest. This book influenced scholars for more than a thousand year. He concluded that the earth was the center of the universe and all the celestial bodies revolved around it, this was known as the Ptolemaic System�, it was later disproved in 1550 by Nicolaus Copernicus. Aberic Grunnion � this name must have been inspired by the Alberich who is a powerful wizard in the German epic poem Nibelwngenlied. The poem is a mythical account of a historical event, the defeat by the Huns of the Kingdom of Burgundy (now called France) in A. D. 437. His story is the basis for many modern works, one an opera by Richard Wagner written in 19th century, called the Ring Cycle. In Wagner�s version of the story of Alberich is king of the Dwarves, full fo hate and ambition. When he discovers a hoard of gold guarded by unsuspecting maidens, he does not hesitate to swear off love forever to win it. He used the gold to make a ring that gives him great power. (Sound familiar? If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, I am sure it does.) When the ring is stolen from him, he places a curse on it. Anyone else who wears it will suffer greatly. As the story goes on, others try to win the ring, paying the price for their desire. One hero of the Ring Cycles wins a prize from Alberich that will be familiar to Harry Potter fans, an invisibility cloak. |
| Nicolas Flamel � was born near Paris about 1330. He tried several career such as poet, painter, and public speaker before pursuing an interest in astrology. Then in 1357, he was visited in a dream by an angel who showed him a book and said, �Flamel, look at this book. You will not in the least understand it, neither will anyone else, but the day will come when you will see in it something that on one else will see.� The next day he saw that same volume in a book sellers stall, offered for a cheap price because no one could understand its writing. With great effort and the help of a scholar who could read Hebrew, Flamel decided the text, which seemed to be a manual for transmuting basic metals into gold!
Sadly, the instructions called for a special ingredient, a philosopher�s stone, without describing it specifically. Flamel experimented fro decades to find the mysterious substance. On January 17, 1383, as he related in his memoir; �Finally I found the object of my search and I knew it by its strong smell and with it I accomplished the magic. I had learned the preparation of the first agent and had only to follow y bookwork by word. The first time I carried out the operation, I work with quicksilver and translated about 1.2 pounds of it into pure silver, better than sliver from a mine. I put the results to the test several times. Later I accomplished the operation with the read stone on a similar amount of quicksilver on the 25th day of April of the same year when I transmuted the quicksilver into about the same amount of gold. |
| This description � �its strong smell� � led other alchemists to believe the philosopher�s stone was sulfur. But no one is known to have repeated the process successfully.
According to history, Flamel died in 1410, a few years after his wife, Perenelle. However, some of his followers believed that in addition to creating gold Flamel produced the Elixir of Life, which offers immortality. They said he and his wife actually lived on, sustained by the elixir. In Harry�s world, the faithful were proven correct. At the beginning of the Sorcerer�s Stone (Philosopher�s Stone), Flamel and his wife are both alive and well, despite being just shy of 660 years old. Unfortunately, when the stone is destroyed, their elixir can no longer be produced. So they were to get their things in order for their eventual end. |
| Quiz:
1.) Name each witch or wizard we cover in this lesson. 2.) How did Patolemy's collection of the world's knowledge of astrology and math into a book, help? 3.) What is the Ring Cycle? 4.) What "It's strong smell" mean? 5.) Elixir of Life - who made it and what is it? 6.) How long did Flamel and his wife live? 7.) How did they get to this age? 8.) When did they die? 9.) How was the stone destroyed? |
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