Blog Post #9: Potions

 

A couple of weeks ago, our class concocted some potion recipes, with each person coming up with their own wild ingredients. Pressed for time, I decided to draw from Harry Potter and go with one of my favorite words I’ve ever heard, a bezoar. Mentioned frequently by Severus Snape throughout the book/movie series, this ingredient has always stuck with me, even though I had no idea what it actually was.

Well, after still not knowing when asked about it in the following class, I finally figured it was time to incrementally increase my Harry Potter knowledge. So, a bezoar, in real life, as an indigestible object that is either intentionally or unintentionally introduced into a person’s gastrointestinal system, was commonly thought to protect such people from poison. In the sixth movie, this belief is demonstrated when Ron accidentally consumes a bewitched bottle of sweetwine that was meant for Dumbledore. Rowling, who frequently drew from real-life magical sources, has Harry scour Professor Slughorn’s cabinets for a bezoar, force Ron to swallow it, and eventually save his best friend.

Now, this post is about more than just bezoars; in fact, I am more interested in the genesis of another one of Rowling’s magical inspirations, that being potion-making in general. Indeed, if witches truly do not exist (one of the many points I picked up on this semester), then why are potions so integral to the mythos surrounding witchcraft?

The connection between witches and potion-making appears to go back to Ancient Greece with Medea, a famous sorceress, and Hecate, the goddess of witches, both partaking in the practice. However, when it comes to Northern and Western Europe (plus, by extension, the English colonies), the relation seems to stem more from the high degree of accused witches being experts in herbal medicine. Again, rather than because of some distant historical association, the modern connection between witches and potions is localized. Indeed, such a connection seems to be the result of a mistaken conflation between women on the outskirts of society and the concoctions they created.

While my belief in this conflation is largely conjecture, it certainly seems to make sense that the kind of woman that would be an expert in herbal medicine during late Middle Ages would be scapegoated for whatever ills befell her village. Even today, in the prequel for Game of Thrones, no one batted an eye at the idea that Alys Rivers, a simple wet nurse and midwife at Harrenhal, is frequently called the Woods Witch, despite the fact that her affinity with magic is iffy at best. Furthermore, she never even uses a bezoar.