“Maddie”, I asked, “What is the baddie in Snow White called? ”
I was fixed with a withering glance. “The Wicked Stepmother, of course”, she filled me in. “Wicked, because of course, she was.”
There was a pause.
“Although,”, she continued, I think the problem was really the mirror.”
I am used to double-taking where my daughter is concerned. I slammed on the cognitive brakes and put my brain into reverse.
“Holdonholdonholdon”, I urged, feeling wildly for a foothold. “Why was it the fault of the mirror?”
She explained roughly along these lines: the mirror, she felt, had a consciousness, however magical. It was therefore in a position to know precisely how much store its Machiavellian owner set in its word. It knew how much attention she accorded its enchanted glass, and yet still it chose to tell its crazed queen that there was someone more beautiful than her.
It should have known that it was putting Snow White in deadly danger.
Where to start, unpicking this one? Because although most of us feel magic, in the fairy-tale sense, does not exist, yet still the idea of enchantment plays its part somewhere in the layers of our lives, masquerading as something else.
What would a grown up say? The mirror was inert.It possessed dispassion: a detachment born of the fact it was not made to care, simply to tell.
While it could observe, it could not act or move to change events. It did not have its own judgement: just a terrible ability to see what was.
And yet, it changed everything.
There’s a chilling example of something with similar power to destroy. Once, centuries ago, the Mediaeval Greeks, hailing from Constantinople, were fabled to have possessed a weapon which vanquished their enemies and laid low all who challenged them.
It was called Greek Fire.
It could be projected at enemy ships, and with voracious rapidity the fire would have consumed the ship and everything on it. It even appeared to work on water. Its secret formula was developed, it is thought, by Constantinople chemists, and the formula has been lost to time.
Many have guessed at the composition of the deadly fire. For something approaching a recipe, we must turn to a 12th century princess, a daughter of a Byzantine emperor, who wrote an account of her father’s reign.
Anna Komnene wrote:”This fire is made by the following arts. From the pine and the certain such evergreen trees inflammable resin is collected. This is rubbed with sulphur and put into tubes of reed, and is blown by men using it with violent and continuous breath. Then in this manner it meets the fire on the tip and catches light and falls like a fiery whirlwind on the faces of the enemies.”
What power, from something which will not move itself. A hand must construct the syphon, and light the touch-paper. Defence of the realm is a necessity, and the Greeks of the time would surely have perished.
It was not the fire’s fault. The Greeks felt they had no choice; yet still men died.
Our stories are filled with a longing for something magical to take control. Take the Arthurian tales, where a force beyond our ken is at work, with Merlin at the rudder. Arthur was destined to be king, the sword in the lake said so. The sword in the stone would only come out for him. Magic had spoken, and removed any need for anyone’s conscience to ask questions.
One of the most liberating things about the Harry Potter novels is the feeling that things magical are in control: that Harry’s fate is to react to an ethereal battle between good and evil.
No one can say the battles the boy in the spectacles faces are simplistic. He fights his own demons: the spectre of abuse, the great burden of loss and bereavement. But it is all carried out against a backdrop of magic and fantasy. Destiny takes the rudder.
Yet in the middle of the fantasy there is a stark, clear picture which belies all that magic.
One day, Harry walks in on the sagacious headmaster in his office. And he is doing something rather strange.
Before him he has a bowl, and in the bowl is liquid. Dumbledore seems to be touching his head with his wand lightly, and then placing the tip of the wand in the pool in front of him.
It becomes clear that The Headmaster is using the pool. He tells Harry: ” One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.”
As objects of power go, this is one of my favourite. The mirror tells truths, enraging its owner to attempted murder. The fire devours everything in its path, inspiring those who defend to attack and kill.
Those who use these seem almost to have no choice. While the objects are dispassionate, they make their owners a victim to their passions.
But this – this simply amplifies the thoughts of its user. It brings discernment, a dispassion of an entirely different kind. To be the owner of a pensieve: that would be something.
Perhaps we want something different from our magical objects in this day and age. Perhaps the balance of power has changed.
Those old symbols: the magic lamp, the insuperable weapon, the enchanted mirror, the magic tinder-box: they all enslaved those who possessed them, just as jealousy and avarice might do.
But Dumbledore’s pensieve is a tool which might make its owner more wise. It is a tool which helps spot patterns, make links, and think clearly.
As I told a friend yesterday: I could sorely do with one right now.
And so, I look forward to the stories of tomorrow. Because, just maybe, the symbols in those fairytales will point us in the same direction as the teacher’s pensieve.
Kate Shrewsday 
Hi Kate. You could say that this blog is like Dumbledore’s bowl. What you do is to lay a pattern of thoughts on paper and can then re-read them, examine them and analyse them. I have found ways of doing this in various parts of my life. In one period they emerged as poetry – as you are aware. At other times they were writings on technical lines, aiming for a conclusion.
Sometimes the thoughts produce a circular pattern in which some sort of conclusion emerges almost by itself.
When it d does so, either the “buzz” is huge, or relief takes hold.
So Dumbledore ‘s magic bowl may have been unnecessary. He might have done just as well with pen and paper. But your Mum says the bowl was much more fun for kids to read!
Love Dad
You’re right, Dad, I think it’s a play on the whole mirror-reflection thing. Clever JK Rowling. One of my favourite magical objects of all time, bar none:-)
Reading this I came to the same conclusion as your dad about your blog being your own pensieve.
And as for step-mothers, well; without them there would be no plot, would there? And where were all the fathers, why didn’t they intervene and save their children from these cruel women? Hmph, as a long-suffering steppie myself, I think we got a raw deal in literature…
Well. jolly god point there, Cindy, I’m hmphing along with you. I have a theory the women did everything, and so naturally when something went wrong it was down to step-mum. It happens today in this very household.
I love your ‘mum’ blogs. I think they might even be mu favourite. The advent of the bunny rabbit was followed with great interest by those under 11 here.
the mirror was definitely not an inaminate object (those usually don’t have a chat with the people looking at themselves in the morror), and I think your daughter is correct and a very smart cookie.
mums are also blamed over and over, but the extra sting comes from your having tried hard for a child not your own who then delights in doing the normal ‘mum is at fault’ with the sting in the tail of ‘yoyu are not my mother’.
i also love the HP books for the levels and layers of issues they raise. so much of the ‘alternate’ fiction is a cover for mulling over and trying out these thoughts about issues like power
My daughter is indeed a smart cookie, thank you Sidey 🙂 I’ll add your views to the debate currently raging here at Shrewsday mansions.
I think you’re absolutely right: our stories have always been a way of working through issues in a way which is more detatched and therefore-possibly-slightly less angst-ridden. The Potter novels have integrity writ large through them like a stick of rock. How wonderful that they have become reading matter for a whole generation of our young people.
I’m with KatesDad on this one too.
I have had occasional glimpses of revelation when writing, where the process of writing it down leads to an unexpected place or conclusion – you Kate, seem to manage one every time you post.
Thanks, Pseu, what a lovely comment. Blogs really are pensieves, aren’t they?
PS I clicked on Cindy’s avatar to find her blog, but all I got was the gravatar info. Please can you direct me to her blog, Kate?
Follow the link on the blogroll- just checked it and it’s functioning fine. Cindy’s site is called The OnlyCin, and it is superlative 🙂
What a delight your Maddie is. I love it when children, of all ages, think outside the box. A lovely take on the mirror. I delight, as well, in the thought of writing being a pensieve. It is a wonderful tool, is it not, for finding our way outside of the box?
I think that Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling came at just the right time for children. I love the books and, yes, the movies as well, and I love the idea that they gave so many children who might not have otherwise have had that excitement of reading. The anticipation of the next book, next chapter, next word with mom or dad or grandmother or teacher reading alongside. What fun I had one cold winter day having finished The Goblet of Fire. My friend’s daughter, a kindred spirit, had been asking me if I had finished it yet and I hadn’t when she went away to college. I found a lovely stuffed owl and wrote a note to be “flown” to Elizabeth’s dorm announcing my completion of the book made it even more fun. Elizabeth is married now and teaching, Hmm. I’ve come full circle here, or is it, instead, having just climbed out of the box? Don’t ever stop writing, Kate.
I won’t if you won’t, Penny 🙂 Your owl stunt sounds just delicious, and I am in awe of someone with such a sense of fun, and the ability to make such an idea happen. Lucky Elizabeth.
A quick postscript: as you watch the final Harry Potter films, take a good close look at those forests/ They are the ones Macaulay runs in and rolls in, every day.
Oh, I can’t wait to get a look. Not sure when I’ll get to see this Harry Potter, but, when I do I will nudge whoever is next to me and say “that’s Macauly’s forest”. What fun!
🙂 I’ll be like a dog with two tails when it comes to my turn to see it…
For me too (though I hadn’t thought of it that way), writing is the pensieve that leaves me with both an archived record for future research and a clarity that affords me greater presence of mind for what needs to be dealt with today. For years, journaling, writing ‘morning pages’ (Julia Cameron), was the method; and as I became gradually more comfortable with others seeing my process, blogging took over.
Thanks for this great and thought-provoking post.
Hi Gospelwriter, good to have you drop in.
I confess my breath is quite taken away by your poetry, and it is good to see that whatever our field, the art of using our writing as a pensieve is alive and well. We all need to reflect, and journalling, or blogging, helps us.
Thanks for this comment, and for that amazing poetry.
I need a pensieve here–Maddie’s assigning responsibility to the mirror for inciting the (insecure) queen to violence made me think about how we are like mirrors, especially as we show (insecure) children–which means everybody, because we all have chinks in the armor–reflections of themselves. Our words and actions can warp the image we send back, and all too often we know it, or should know, while the questioner accepts what he sees and hears as truth and, one way or another, acts on it. Does this make sense? Or am I just boggled by another late night? I’ll think about it tomorrow.
It makes perfect sense, Kathy. A perfect pensieve example, Kathy, and I agree so roundly that we reflect visages back to our fellow men. Just like Maddie’s interpretation of the mirror, we carry a heavy responsibility 🙂
Your reflection on the pensieve has made my reflections pensive. Well done!
I love the very idea of the pensieve. I find I need one more and more, and they don’t exist. Meditation seems to be the closest I can get…