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Chapter 2
    Creatures of All Shapes and Sizes
    In This Chapter
    •Looking at creatures who are mainstays of Celtic and Old English folklore
    •Defining the classic creatures with Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman roots
    •Reviewing creatures from other mythologies and folktales around the world
    •Inspecting creatures that came straight from the mind of J.K. Rowling
    Creatures abound in the wizarding world, and most of them are not the least bit friendly. In this chapter, you not only sort through which creatures to avoid in a dark alley, but also discover the mythological, Biblical, and literary traditions of these creatures. Although this chapter discusses nearly 50 creatures, it is not an exhaustive list. Other creatures are lurking in the wizarding world, but they are not substantial enough to warrant entire sections in this chapter.

Creatures with Celtic and Old English Roots
    The Harry Potter novels are British in origin and J.K. Rowling is Scottish, so it isn’t any wonder that the novels draw heavily on Celtic and Old English folklore. The creatures in this section were all thought—by Celtic and Old English peoples—to exist, but sightings were surely rare!
Augurey
    The Augurey, also known as the Irish Phoenix, is a small, dark-colored bird that, like a banshee, has a cry that predicts the death of the hearer. As with the banshee, people have died from a heart attack upon hearing the cry, panicked as they were. The Latin augur means soothsayer or fortuneteller.
Banshee
    The banshee, also called the Irish Death Messenger, originated as a spirit or ghost who appeared to members of five select Irish families, foretelling them of their death by singing (or, in some versions, screaming) a lament. Akin to fairies, elves, pixies, and mermaids, singing banshees are always women and are usually fair, tall, and waifish, with long white or golden hair. Screaming banshees, however (as opposed to those singing a lament), tend to be more haglike than fair, and instead of being a messenger who gives a welcome forewarning—thus offering the about-to-be-dead a little extra time to put his or her affairs in order—are a messenger of death whose presence sometimes actually frightens a person to death. Banshee comes from the Irish bean sidhe, meaning “woman of the fairy mound.”
    Wizards, especially Irish wizards, believe in banshees as much as the next person, and these predictors of death in the wizarding world are not pretty: they are thin, greenish, dark-haired women whose shriek is unbearable.
    MAGIC TALE
    Ghosts have a long literary history, beginning with Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Perhaps literature’s most famous ghosts are Banquo, the ghost in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and the ghosts who torment Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Gothic novels, at their height, also furthered the cause of ghosts in literature and led to the popularity of the ghost story, which continues even today.
Boggart
    Long a part of British folktales, the boggart is a vexing but admittedly lighthearted creature that annoys people in small ways—moving objects around, touching or poking people, making noises, and so on. A similar creature is the Scottish bogill (also spelled bogle), a creature reputed to enjoy driving people crazy in little, annoying ways.
    In the wizarding world, a boggart is a shapeshifter that appears to be whatever the nearest observer fears most; it lives in small, dark spaces like dresser drawers and wardrobes. A boggart is not so much dangerous as frightening, like its folkloric counterparts. A boggart can be eradicated with the Riddikulus! incantation.
Elf
    From the Old English ælf , elves have historically been portrayed as tiny, lithe creatures, and may be either fair or dark in their skin and hair coloring. Also called fairies, pixies, sprites, and brownies, these mischievous— sometimes, downright