Tales of Beedle the Bard

I just read The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a set of short stories that was written by none other than Beedle the Bard, translated by Hermione Granger and compiled by none other than J.K. Rowling. Yes, the real J.K. Rowling. This wasn’t one of those stupid knock off Harry Potter companion books, this was the real thing. And it was good! The book was, as mentioned earlier, a translation of the famous bedtime stories, “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot,” “The Fountain of Fair Fortune,” “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart,” “babbitty Rabbitty and Her Cackling Stump,” and of course, the story that set the tone for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; “The Tale of the Three Brothers.” I don’t want to ruin these for any of my fellow Harry Potter fanatics, but I must say that I recommend this collection to anyone who loves Harry and company, and misses them very much. My favorite of the stories was “The Fountain of Fair Fortune.” It is about a fountain that gives anyone who bathes in it good luck for the rest of their life. It is similar to Felix Felicis, the liquid luck potion that Harry makes in Book 6, but it’s for life. In the story, there are three witches and a knight who are traveling together to reach the fountain. They decide to work together in this feat, even though they know that ultimately, only one of them will get to bathe in the fountain. Each one of them gets a chance to use their personal strengths during their voyage, and by the time they reach the fountain, they have come to accept their lives, and don’t even need the magic potion anymore! This goes to show that sometimes things that seem amazing at first aren’t really anything special. All of these stories have morals similar in theory to those of our Muggle bedtime stories, minus the magic of course! The thing that I liked the most, by far, about this book was the commentary by Albus Dumbledore. I loved Dumbledore. I cried when he died. It was so good to have him back again!