During these COVID times, I have stumbled upon books from my school years that I never finished because at the time I simply wasn’t focused. One of the books that I never really finished was called “The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter by David Colbert.

This book was written to explain some of the fascinating things that were in the Harry Potter series up until The Goblet of Fire. This book alone had a lot of interesting myths, legends, and facts that aided in the creation of the Harry Potter story. Since now finishing the book I have gained more knowledge that and would like to share two intriguing stories that I thought I knew. ☺️😊

GARGOYLES

Do you all remember back in the Disney channel’s Do you all remember back in the Disney channel’s adolescence there was a show called Gargoyles? It was about Gargoyles who came to life at night and during the day turned to stone living on the roof of several French cathedrals. This was one of my favorite shows and then it mysteriously was canceled. Not cool.

When I visited France, I kept seeing these random gargoyles hanging on the side of buildings and didn’t understand their meaning. I just rubbed it off as… “oh it’s just some French thing”. Well as I read this Magical Worlds book I learned that there was an actual meaning for it. The French didn’t just want to put Gargoyles on their buildings to scare bad spirits because they were ugly – my assumption.

Legend has it the word gargoyle comes from the serpent-like dragon named Gargouille that lived in the Seine River in France. It spouted water, overturning fishing boats and flooding the countryside.

St. Romain, an archbishop of Rouen, used bait to lure the monster out the river and made the sign of the cross to quell the beast. St. Romain led Gargouille into the city and let the city’s residents kill it. Since that time architects have carved images of this creature on the waterspouts of buildings to direct rainwater away from walls of buildings. An interesting twist in the handling of infrastructure in the city.

STONEHENGE

Another story I came across was the legend of Stonehenge. According to legend, the famous wizard Merlin was asked about building a war memorial in honor of some English battle. Merlin suggested making a memorial using the stones from the Giants’ Ring on Mount

Killaraus in Ireland. He believed that these stones would last a lifetime, making the memorial a lasting homage to the battle.

The stones were initially transported to Ireland by “giants” from Africa and were believed to be connected with certain secret religious rites and had medicinal properties. It was brought to Ireland because the giants had relocated there, and they wanted to use the stones to pour water over the stones and run the water into baths to cure the sick. The water was also mixed with herbal concoctions, helping to heal wounds.

It is said that Merlin used magic to bring the stones to Stonehenge’s current location and the stones still contain healing properties. Of course there are other stories that exist as to the purpose of Stonehenge but I like this one!

Can you believe it? A giant serpent water dragon that was slain by France’s inhabitants and a well-known wonder of the world that was brought to Europe by Giants.

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