So goes the Grimm's Fairy Tale story if Cinderella doesn't get back by midnight. Her fairy godmother had turned a pumpkin into a coach, mice into horses, a rat into a coachman, and lizards into footmen.

Why pumpkins in such stories? Has anyone read Harry Potter? They are selling pumpkin juice in the UK based on that series. What's up with pumpkins? Why are they popular in magic?

Well, they come into harvest in the autumn, when everything is magical--the Celtic pagan holidays of Samhain and Mabon[autumnal equinox] occur in fall. The variegated colors of pumpkins are so bright amidst the decay and desolation of fall; I personally love the season but you must admit it can be dreary. Pumpkin colors last long after the leaves are down. Plus, they're round and full of seeds, all of which suggested fecundity to ancient peoples.

Thanks Tamukha, I'm not sure the ancient Celtics knew of pumpkins, a discovery from the Anericas, but they must have seemed wonderful and magical when they arrived in Europe. Pumpkin weighing is a part of harvest fairs here.

loeve Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So goes the Grimm's Fairy Tale story if Cinderella
> doesn't get back by midnight. Her fairy
> godmother had turned a pumpkin into a coach, mice
> into horses, a rat into a coachman, and lizards
> into footmen.
>

Actually that version of Cinderella was by Charles Perrault. This article talks of fairy tales as having "far-fetched" elements.

"The fairy tale itself became popular among the précieuses of upper-class France (1690–1710),[30] and among the tales told in that time were the ones of La Fontaine and the Contes of Charles Perrault (1697), who fixed the forms of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.[37] Although Straparola's, Basile's and Perrault's collections contain the oldest known forms of various fairy tales, on the stylistic evidence, all the writers rewrote the tales for literary effect.[38] [en.wikipedia.org]


I'm still trying to get a feel for the place of pumpkin juice in Harry Potter. It might be an A. K. Rowling play on "soul cakes", an All Souls Day practice where you could release a soul from purgitory by eating a soul cake. But there's also the "witches turning people into pumpkins" (wikipedia) idea which is kind of edgy.

loeve,

I assumed that pumpkin juice was contrived because kids today associate orange pumpkins with Halloween, so it would suit as the imaginary favorite beverage at an imaginary school of witchcraft and wizardry. As you note, the Celts didn't have pumpkins(the witchiness of the season is an amalgamation of their autumnal practices and newer traditions), and carved turnips ritually, but "turnip juice" lacks a certain literary zing

Oh I see, JK Rowling is British and there the name pumpkin refers to a number of what
Americans would call squash, so when they drank pumpkin juice it could have
referred to any number of varieties of squash including the Halloween pumpkin,
beautiful and nutritious fruit --


[search.aol.com]

I see the connection of the Halloween pumpkin to the Celtic turnip --

"...Dressed in black cloaks they were nearly invisible in the night, except for the leering faces of the carved turnips. Anyone peeking out the window on Samhain night would be frightened out of their wits, thus leaving the way clear for the witches to proceed to their Sabbat." [sacredwicca.viviti.com]

I also see that witches want nothing to do with turning people into pumpkins. Funny idea though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2010 01:49AM by loeve.

Miles Batty, a teacher of WitchCraft says this about the Harry Potter series --

"The stories JK Rowling writes are a delightful look at fictional Witches and Wizards, but have very little basis in real-life WitchCraft or Wicca. Her characters are based on common childhood - or muggle - assumptions about Witches, using and exploiting stereotypical conventions. The religious aspect of the Craft is non- existent at Hogwarts, and magic is used primarily as a problem-solver, curative or entertainment. A Witch like Hermoine Grainger has as much to do with real Wicca, as a squishy fellow in angular shorts who lives in a pineapple has to do with Demospongia Porifera."

[www.witchvox.com]

Now I've got to know about this squishy fellow who lives in a pineapple.

loeve,

I think that's a hypothetical squishy fellow living in a hypothetical pineapple!

Haha, the author of that article, Miles Batty must know SpongeBob --

"Miles Batty"

The name, Miles Batty! I'm so slow on the uptake. Miles Bat-ty! Funny! But then how is the article to be taken? Re pumpkin juice in Harry Potter, there must be innuendos, perhaps some that only the British would get.

JK Rowling read classics at Cambridge - I love the way she wrote the books with many clever references that probably go over the heads of many. I'm so glad she used the 'magic' in the way that she did and not in some wiccan way.

I think pumpkin juice merely comes from the fact that people make spooky/silly sculptures with pumpkins at halloween and put them out in their drives, gateposts at night lit by candles (do you do that in the States) and it just sounds good.

"References" is a much better word, thank you, and we do have the same tradition of carving pumpkins at halloween and putting them on the front steps lit with a candle, and so maybe that's all it is. I understand the first book was five years in the making and that JK Rowling is very educated.

Something I read about WitchCraft is that by the time a practioner developes the ability to, say turn someone into a pumpkin or to build a palace out of thin air, they have lost all desire to do so.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2010 11:24AM by loeve.

loeve,

Quote

Something I read about WitchCraft is that by the time a practioner developes the ability to, say turn someone into a pumpkin or to build a palace out of thin air, they have lost all desire to do so.

Very interesting. And instructive, even to those of us not sorceres-in-training

Did you know that Halloween as it is today only really got going in the UK in the eighties? When I was a child I had never heard of it. Now of course it is big business - but alot of the older folk frown on it as being 'American'

I think trick or treating is horrible and have never allowed my children to do it.

That's so interesting how halloween has recently evolved in the UK. The "trick" aspect has a long history in the US though locally I've noticed less since parents have wised up to the dangers.

The dangers in this country often being old people who live alone, cowering in their homes whilst the cream of British youth hurl eggs and flour at their doors because for some reason they won't open up and give the louts money!!!