The Anchoress
I am a little perturbed. I ordered my copy of Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince ages ago, from Amazon.com, and I fear it will NOT be in my mailbox today! Amazon has not yet sent shipping notice. :-(
I am terribly vexed. I had plans to read it, immediately.
As we wait for Harry, I thought you would enjoy this piece by Dave Kopel from just about two years ago. Discussing John Granger’s excellent book The Hidden Key to Harry Potter (unhappily hard-to-get and pricey, although Granger’s other book, Looking for God in Harry Potter is also very good and you can get it thru my bookshelf) Kopel writes:
The most useful parts of The Hidden Key are the author’s extensive discussion of symbolism. Harry lives in Gryffindor House, founded by Godric Gryffindor. “D’or” being French for “of gold,” we could translate the name as “golden griffin.” The griffin has a lion’s body and an eagle’s wings; a hybrid of the animals that are master of the sky and of the earth, the griffin was traditionally a symbol of Jesus, master of the spiritual and temporal worlds.
The unicorn, too, is a traditional Jesus symbol; pure and powerful, it could only be tamed by a virgin, as Jesus could only be incarnated by a virgin. In Sorcerer’s Stone, drinking its blood brings life, and its killing is an especially hideous crime.
Sigh. I love this stuff!
I hope my book comes today. If not, well…it IS my husband’s birthday. I suppose I could lavish some attention on him! :-)
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