Bard's Tale Quotes

To hurt is as human as to breathe.

There are many kinds of joy, but they all lead to one: the joy to be loved.

No man or woman alive, magical or not, has ever escaped some form of injury, whether physical, mental, or emotional. To hurt is as human as to breathe.

Clever as I am, I remain just as big a fool as anyone else.

Death comes for us all in the end.

No witch has ever claimed to own the Elder Wand. Make of that what you will.

Hope springs forever.

But Death was cunning.

Magic causes as much trouble as it cures.

The heroes and heroines who triumph in his stories are not those with the most powerful magic, but rather those who demonstrate the most kindness, common sense and ingenuity.

Let muggles manage without us!

Humans have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.

And sure enough, in seeking to become superhuman this foolhardy young man renders himself inhuman. The heart that he has locked away slowly shrivels and grows hair, symbolising his own descent to beasthood.

What must strike any intelligent witch or wizard on studying the so-called history of the Elder Wand is that every man who claims to have owned it has insisted that it is "unbeatable," when the known facts of its passage through many owners' hands demonstrate that has it not only been beaten hundreds of times, but that it also attracts trouble as Grumble the Grubby Goat attracted flies.

Stories have power. Gleemen's tales, and bards' epics, and rumors in the street alike. They stir passions, and change the way men see the world.

This exchange marked the beginning of Mr. Malfoy's long campaign to have me removed from my post as headmaster of Hogwarts, and of mine to have him removed from his position as Lord Voldemort's Favorite Death Eater. My response prompted several further letters from Mr. Malfoy, but as they consisted mainly of opprobrious remarks on my sanity, parentage, and hygiene, their relevance to this commentary is remote.

A bard must know history so she does not repeat it. She tells the tales but is never part of them. She watches but remains above what she sees. She inspires passions in others and rules her own.

Children being children, however, the grotesque Hopping Pot had taken hold of their imaginations. The solution was to jettison the pro-Muggle moral but keep the warty cauldron, so by the middle of the sixteenth century a different version of the tale was in wide circulation among wizarding families. In the revised story, the Hopping Pot protects an innocent wizard from his torch-bearing, pitchfork-toting neighbours by chasing them away from the wizard's cottage, catching them and swallowing them whole.

Powerful infatuations can be induced by the skilful potioneer, but never yet has anyone managed to create the truly unbreakable, eternal, unconditional attachment that alone can be called Love

The words of the bards come down the centuries to us, warm with living breath.

This day,” said Gabriel, “this moment, is when you step out from the shadow of the past. Today you make your name. Today your legend is born. Come tomorrow, every tale the bards tell will belong to you, because today we save the world!” Clay sighed in relief. There’d been a hammer, after all. Gabriel tore Vellichor from its scabbard and leveled it at the encroaching Horde. “This is not a choice between life and death, but life and immortality! Remain here and die in obscurity, or follow me now and live forever!

As the sun fell below the horizon, Sir Luckless emerged from the waters with the glory of his triumph upon him, and flung himself in his rusted armor at the feet of Amata, who was the kindest and most beautiful woman he had ever beheld. Flushed with success, he begged for her hand and her heart, and Amata, no less delighted, realized that she had found a man worthy of them.

All brains are bards, all selves audiences to the tales of who they are.

Come gather 'round hardy men of the steppes and listen to my tale of heroes bold and friendships fast and the Tyrant of Icenwind Dale of a band of friends by trick or by deed bred legends for the bard the baneful pride of the one poor wretch and the horror of the Crystal Shard.

The wind went mute and the trees in the forest stood still. It was time for the last tale.

Wand of elder, never prosper.

The three witches and the knight set off down the hill together, arm in arm, and all four led long and happy lives, and none of them ever knew or suspected that the Fountain's waters carried no enchantment at all.

Here, in an enchanted crystal casket, was the warlock’s beating heart. Long since disconnected from eyes, ears and fingers, it had never fallen prey to beauty, or to a musical voice, to the feel of silken skin. The maiden was terrified by the sight of it, for the heart was shrunken and covered in long black hair.

Y entonces recibió a la Muerte como si fuera una vieja amiga, y se marchó con ella de buen grado. Y así, como iguales, ambos se alejaron de la vida.

(...) “to have a hairy heart” has passed into everyday wizarding language to describe a cold or unfeeling witch or wizard.

The kindest interpretation would be: 'Hope springs eternal.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Yet long afterward, when all had passed away into distant memory, there were many who wondered whether King Taran, Queen Eilonwy, and their companions had indeed walked the earth, or whether they had been no more than dreams in a tale set down to beguile children. And, in time, only the bards knew the truth of it.

Another notable difference between these fables and their Muggle counterparts is that Beedle’s witches are much more active in seeking their fortunes than our fairy-tale heroines. Asha, Altheda, Amata and Babbitty Rabbitty are all witches who take their fate into their own hands, rather than taking a prolonged nap or waiting for someone to return a lost shoe.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of stories written for young wizards and witches. They have been popular bedtime reading for centuries,

A simple and heart-warming fable, one might think - in which case, one would reveal oneself to be an innocent nincompoop.

Concibe el amor como una humillación, una debilidad, un despilfarro de los recursos emocionales y materiales de la persona.

The bond between parent and child is the root from which all success, all well-being, grows.

This day, this moment, is when you step out from the shadow of the past. Today you make your name. Today your legend is born. Come tomorrow, every tale the bards tell will belong to you, because today we save the world!

The reason for any omission lies, perhaps, in what Dumbledore said about truth, many years ago, to his favourite and most famous pupil: ‘It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.

My refusal to remove the book from the library was backed by a majority of the Board of Governors. I wrote back to Mr Malfoy, explaining my decision: So-called pure-blood families maintain their alleged purity by disowning, banishing or lying about Muggles or Muggle-borns on their family trees. They then attempt to foist their hypocrisy upon the rest of us by asking us to ban works dealing with the truths they deny. There is not a witch or wizard in existence whose blood has not mingled with that of Muggles, and I should therefore consider it both illogical and immoral to remove works dealing with the subject from our students' store of knowledge.(4) This exchange marked the beginning of Mr Malfoy's long campaign to have me removed from my post as Headmaster of Hogwarts, and of mine to have him removed from his position as Lord Voldemort's Favourite Death Eater. (4)My response prompted several further letters from Mr Malfoy, but as they consisted mainly of opprobrious remarks on my sanity, parentage and hygiene, their relevance to this commentary is remote.

One can fight money only with money! from my Tale Of The Rock Pieces.

My tale starts and ends with Hekla, and I will tell it as it happens, in the manner of the bards.

Human efforts to evade or overcome death are always doomed to disappointment.

But in a song or a tale, anything is possible

No man or woman alive, magical or not, has ever escaped some form of injury, whether physical, mental or emotional. To hurt is as human as to breathe.

There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight.

Lumos (noun; lu-mos): 1. A spell to create light, also known as the Wand-Lighting Charm. (Origin: the Harry Potter series) 2. A nonprofit working to end the institutionalization of children. It

All praise and honor! I confess That bread and ale, home-baked, home-brewed Are wholesome and nutritious food, But not enough for all our needs; Poets-the best of them-are birds Of passage; where their instinct leads They range abroad for thoughts and words And from all climes bring home the seeds That germinate in flowers or weeds. They are not fowls in barnyards born To cackle o'er a grain of corn; And, if you shut the horizon down To the small limits of their town, What do you but degrade your bard Till he at last becomes as one Who thinks the all-encircling sun Rises and sets in his back yard?

When the Bards and Minstrel spin their tales and sing songs of legends, mine will be the sordid tale of longing, lust and lascivious loving for I am a synergistic Sympath and in me lays the path to Heaven.

In Poems of Love and Light: The Light of The Sun…Our Breath as One, the tenor seems to have changed slightly, as the progression of Love and lovers is, in many cases (if not all) quixotic, dependent upon mutual understanding, the conditions of the moment, the awareness of the future, as well as the mundane life, in which we all must exist, embracing real life, as is the natural state, which sentient individuals traverse – illusion may help those in the ‘moment’, but does nothing for the long-term, except misdirect it. Poetry has always been a way to leave something for those who come after, a legacy of inspiration, methodology, spirit, love, emotion, historical sense and utility, depending upon the subject matter, intentions of the bard, and the situations, which frame the creation of that sense of experience, with which the Poet receives his Muse. Poems of Love and Light: In The Light of the Sun, Our Breath as One

El corazón que ha encerrado se marchita lentamente y le crece pelo, lo que simboliza su propio descenso a la animalidad. Al final queda reducido a una bestia violenta que obtiene lo que quiere por la fuerza, y muere en un vano intento de recuperar lo que ya está fuera de su alcance para siempre: un corazón humano.

He shrugged. 'If we keep pulling threads, trying to see which ones make the pattern, we unravel the cloth and left with nothing but tangles. Let's have no more talk of debts.' He cocked his head and studied my ash-smeared hair and face. 'On second thought, you do owe me the tale of how you contrived my rescue. May Lugh give me the art to do it justice!

This was a desperate contest. Each move and counter move a fear and sweat-soaked thread to be woven later into fireside verse by those who had the gift. For now, though, they made just a dreadful, discordant song. The clank of blade on shield boss. The dull thud of sword on limewood boards and, now and then, the scrape of a blade's edge across iron ringmail or down bronze scales. And always the breathing, ragged and urgent. A man's lungs pumping in his chest like forge bellows, feeding the fire of hate and the blood lust. These sounds told the true story. They were the lyre strings before they are tuned to melodious accord, before the bard's fingers caress them to lift our hearts and our ideals. No glory now. Just two men hacking at each other with sharp steel. Each craving the other's death. Both desperate to live.

I can only use my imagination.” Bard shook with laughter. “My, but it makes an amusing picture—and tale.” “Don’t you dare!” She wouldn’t put it past Bard to make some outrageous ditty of it. His talent for fashioning absurd lyrics was going to drive the more conventional masters at Selium out of their minds. “There once was a girl from Corsa,” he began, “who rode a big red horsa—” “Ugh!” Karigan scooped up handfuls of pine needles from the ground and tossed them at him.

Teaching is a sacred art. This is why the noblest druid is not the one who conjures fires and smoke but the one who brings the news and passes on the histories. The teacher, the bard, the singer of tales is a freer of men's minds and bodies, especially when he roams without allegiance to one chieftain or another. But he is also a danger to the masters if he insists upon telling the truth. The truth will inevitably cause tremors in those who cling to power without honoring justice.

The night draws to an end, the dream dims in the pale silver of awakening. Kruppe ceases, weary beyond reason. Sweat drips down the length of his ratty beard, his latest affectation. A bard sits, head bowed, and in a short time he will say thank you. But for now he must remain silent, and as for the other things he would say, they are between him and Kruppe and none other. Fisher sits, head bowed. While an Elder God weeps. The tale is spun. Spun out. Dance by limb, dance by word. Witness!

It made a romantic tale. The young rouge, cheating death, returning to his grieving lover. But in reality? Ashyn had always known life did not resemble one of her book stories or Moria's bard tales, and yet there was a part of her that hoped it did. The more she saw, the more she realized she was wrong. People made up stories because that is what they wanted from their world. A place where goodness, kindness, and honor were rewarded. They were not rewarded. The people of Edgewood could attest to that. - Sea Of Shadows

D’you think he knew the Ministry would confiscate his will and examine everything he’d left us?” asked Harry. “Definitely,” said Hermione. “He couldn’t tell us in the will why he was leaving us these things, but that still doesn’t explain…” “…why he couldn’t have given us a hint when he was alive?” asked Ron. “Well, exactly,” said Hermione, now flicking through The Tales of Beedle the Bard. “If these things are important enough to pass on right under the nose of the Ministry, you’d think he’d have let us know why…unless he thought it was obvious?” “Thought wrong, then, didn’t he?” said Ron. “I always said he was mental. Brilliant and everything, but cracked. Leaving Harry an old Snitch--what the hell was that about?” “I’ve no idea,” said Hermione. “When Scrimgeour made you take it, Harry, I was so sure that something was going to happen!” “Yeah, well,” said Harry, his pulse quickening as he raised the Snitch in his fingers. “I wasn’t going to try too hard in front of Scrimgeour, was I?” “What do you mean?” asked Hermione. “The Snitch I caught in my first every Quidditch match?” said Harry. “Don’t you remember?” Hermione looked simply bemused. Ron, however, gasped, pointing frantically from Harry to the Snitch and back again until he found his voice. “That was the one you nearly swallowed!” “Exactly,” said Harry, and with his heart beating fast, he pressed his mouth to the Snitch.

Stars flicker above, points of bright ice in a dark river. I pull a heavy sheepskin around my legs and stretch my feet toward the fire. Despite the cold, Liam plays his flute, the sound whistling through the night. Soon my eyes are heavy, my head nodding.I open my eyes at the deep melodious baritone of Salvius’s voice telling a tale. Liam’s flute is silent now. I have heard Salvius tell many tales on market days; he is known for his memory of wandering minstrels and mummers who visit us at Whitsunday and through Midsummer. Salvius is a mockingbird: he can give a fair charade of the rhythmic tones of any wandering bard or any noble of the Royal Court.In this darkness, his eyes catch the light like a cat in the night.

He remembered an old tale which his father was fond of telling him—the story of Eos Amherawdur (the Emperor Nightingale). Very long ago, the story began, the greatest and the finest court in all the realms of faery was the court of the Emperor Eos, who was above all the kings of the Tylwydd Têg, as the Emperor of Rome is head over all the kings of the earth. So that even Gwyn ap Nudd, whom they now call lord over all the fair folk of the Isle of Britain, was but the man of Eos, and no splendour such as his was ever seen in all the regions of enchantment and faery. Eos had his court in a vast forest, called Wentwood, in the deepest depths of the green-wood between Caerwent and Caermaen, which is also called the City of the Legions; though some men say that we should rather name it the city of the Waterfloods. Here, then, was the Palace of Eos, built of the finest stones after the Roman manner, and within it were the most glorious chambers that eye has ever seen, and there was no end to the number of them, for they could not be counted. For the stones of the palace being immortal, they were at the pleasure of the Emperor. If he had willed, all the hosts of the world could stand in his greatest hall, and, if he had willed, not so much as an ant could enter into it, since it could not be discerned. But on common days they spread the Emperor's banquet in nine great halls, each nine times larger than any that are in the lands of the men of Normandi. And Sir Caw was the seneschal who marshalled the feast; and if you would count those under his command—go, count the drops of water that are in the Uske River. But if you would learn the splendour of this castle it is an easy matter, for Eos hung the walls of it with Dawn and Sunset. He lit it with the sun and moon. There was a well in it called Ocean. And nine churches of twisted boughs were set apart in which Eos might hear Mass; and when his clerks sang before him all the jewels rose shining out of the earth, and all the stars bent shining down from heaven, so enchanting was the melody. Then was great bliss in all the regions of the fair folk. But Eos was grieved because mortal ears could not hear nor comprehend the enchantment of their song. What, then, did he do? Nothing less than this. He divested himself of all his glories and of his kingdom, and transformed himself into the shape of a little brown bird, and went flying about the woods, desirous of teaching men the sweetness of the faery melody. And all the other birds said: "This is a contemptible stranger." The eagle found him not even worthy to be a prey; the raven and the magpie called him simpleton; the pheasant asked where he had got that ugly livery; the lark wondered why he hid himself in the darkness of the wood; the peacock would not suffer his name to be uttered. In short never was anyone so despised as was Eos by all the chorus of the birds. But wise men heard that song from the faery regions and listened all night beneath the bough, and these were the first who were bards in the Isle of Britain.

a photograph of the original letter that Dumbledore had written Grindelwald, with Dumbledore’s familiar thin, slanting writing. He hated seeing absolute proof that Dumbledore really had written those words, that they had not been Rita’s invention. ‘The signature,’ said Hermione. ‘Look at the signature, Harry!’ He obeyed. For a moment he had no idea what she was talking about, but, looking more closely with the aid of his lit wand, he saw that Dumbledore had replaced the ‘A’ of Albus with a tiny version of the same triangular mark inscribed upon The Tales of Beedle the Bard. ‘Er – what are you –?’ said Ron tentatively, but Hermione quelled him with a look and turned back to Harry. ‘It keeps cropping up, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘I know Viktor said it was Grindelwald’s mark, but it was definitely on that old grave in Godric’s Hollow, and the dates on the headstone were long before Grindelwald came along! And now this! Well, we can’t ask Dumbledore or Grindelwald what it means – I don’t even know whether Grindelwald’s still alive – but we can ask Mr Lovegood. He was wearing the symbol at the wedding. I’m sure this is important, Harry!’ Harry did not answer immediately. He looked into her intense, eager face and then out into the surrounding darkness, thinking. After a long pause, he said, ‘Hermione, we don’t need

I would travel far and wide...seeing, listening, creating. I would weave tales for an enthralled audience. A song would be heard throughout the kingdom, and I would be a part of that. You would normally think that a bard would pick up his tales from stories heard in his travels or, perhaps, from personal observation of these events. Perhaps some bards would create the stories themselves or, at least, adapt the original versions heard... But what if the bard were really more than a bard? What if he were once a gallant knight or an old sea captain...perhaps even a forgotten prince? What if the stories he told, what if the characters brought to life in his stories, were really of his comrades and himself? Stories from long ago that he finally wished to be heard? What if those who listened to his tales, all the while assuming that they were far disconnected from their communicator, were really listening to the narrative of a wanderer intimately connected to it all? And where would such an individual go when his final days as an “official” bard were spent? Perhaps he would decide to retire in a lighthouse. For, surely, no place would be more fitting for the hero emeritus. He would gaze upon the glorious sea in recollection...guiding others with the beacon of light atop his home as he had once been shepherded. The adventurer became the storyteller...and then the Sentinel of the Sea.

Zac dangled his legs off the edge of the building, hanging onto every word I said as though I were some old time bard telling an epic war tale. I tried to be as detailed as possible, and I knew that I was doing a good job when he'd lean back and shut his eyes. He'd breathe slowly and watch the pictures that I painted for him with my words. He'd smile, not a cunning toothy one, but a sincere smile that comes only from being truly happy. I'd sit across from him and just watch his reactions. We could be up there for hours. I would see the sunset across his face and be as captivated with his skin's changing colours as he was with my everyday stories. That's when I learned to dislike winters.

Galaxies unfurling, being created and destroyed - it was all happening out there. The universe is infinite and ever-expanding, so why not imagine the inevitable?

To Miss Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.

Bard: Novice Rank 0 —Psychic Barrier: Novice Rank 0 Psychic Barrier: Burn mana to increase your resistance to Mind magic and all other Charisma effects.

A worthy tale is one that unsettles its hearers, spurns them to act in such a way to change their lives for the better. Flourished tales might earn a bard quick fame, but they only bolstered the vanity of a people. Sétanta hoped to tell tales that would inspire people to strive toward greatness. Not to delude crass people into believing that they had achieved greatness already.

Asha, Altheda, Amata, and Babbitty Rabbitty are all witches who take their fates into their own hands, rather than taking a prolonged nap or waiting for someone to return a lost shoe.

While rituals helped man cope with the many material challenges of the world, they did not offer man any spiritual explanations about life. For that stories were needed. And so, during yagnas, and between them, bards were called to entertain and enlighten the priests and their patrons with tales. In due course, the tales were given more value than the yagna. In fact, by 500 CE, the yagna was almost abandoned. Sacred tales of gods, kings and sages became the foundation of Hindu thought.

readers appreciate The Tales of Beedle the Bard. It is the belief of all who knew him personally that Professor Dumbledore would have been delighted to lend his support to this project, given that all royalties are to be donated to Lumos, a charity which

And when I told you the tale o’ Bael the Bard and how he plucked the rose o’ Winterfell, I thought you’d know to pluck me then for certain, but you didn’t. You know nothing, Jon Snow.

Miss Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.

In every corner of Ireland to the remotest headland, the stories of the Fian awake the admiration, and excite the emulation of our people. Round every hearth, in every cottage, on every hillside in Eirinn, the Fian is the enchanted word with which the seanachie awakes the instant interest and for as long as he likes holds the spellbound attention of man and child, of learned and simple, rich and poor, old and young. The best of the stories of the Fian are preserved to us in the poems of Oisin, the son of Fionn, the chief bard of the Fian, in the Agallamh na Seanorach, and many other fine poems of olden time. The Agallam na Seanorach (the Colloquy of the Ancients), by far the finest collection of Fenian tales, is supposed to be an account of the Fian’s great doings, given in to Patrick by Gisin and Caoilte — more than 150 years after. After the overthrow of the Fian, Caoilte is supposed to have lived with the Tuatha De Danann, under the hills — until the coming of St. Patrick.

Titles available in the Harry Potter series (in reading order): Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Hogwarts Library Books: Quidditch Through the Ages Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them The Tales of Beedle the Bard Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two: The Official Playscript of the Original West End Production Based on an original story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne A play by Jack Thorne

William pondered what his next discovery might be. He knew that readers were vexed by the possibility that their Bard might have been Catholic. There is, after all, that suspicious reference to Purgatory by the ghost of Hamlet’s father. In an era when anti-Catholic legislation was favorably viewed by many, such papist skullduggery was improper in a national literary hero. And so, on Christmas Day of 1794, William presented his nation with a fine gift—Shakespeare’s Profession of Faith, in which he disowns any Catholic sympathies. His father was awed by the import of this, so much so that he could no longer keep the discoveries secret. All holiday frivolity was to be set aside now. —

the Fian na h-Eireann were gone forever. Yet, though dead, they live. The lays of Oisin, the Dialogue of the Ancients, and innumerable other Finian poems and tales have kept, and will keep, their name and their fame imperishable.[23] Not only is the Fian in general immortalised, but the names, the qualities, and the characteristics of every one of Fionn’s trusted lieutenants — Oscar who never wronged bard or woman, Gol the mighty, Caoilte the sweet-tongued, Diarmuid Donn the beautiful, the bitter-tongued Conan, and the rest of them, have lived and will live. Even their hounds are with us, immortal. Bran, Sgeolan, and their famed fellows still follow the stag over the wooded hills of Eirinn, and wake the echoes of our mountain glens, by their bay melodious.

Sufrir es tan humano como respirar. Sin embargo, los magos parecemos especialmente propensos a creer que podemos modelar la existencia a nuestro antojo.

She smiled. “So. Are we... partners?” How many women down the ages had smiled at men in just this way and asked a similar question? Women whose minds were like those of men, only subtler and more dangerous. And how many men had those women consigned to misery and death by luring them into undertakings which, to those looking back, hearing the tale unfold in bard’s song or seeing it acted upon a festival stage, are easily seen for abject folly?

Prologue When the ancient bards wove the tale of the great O’Quinlan clan in Navan, Eire, they foretold of destinies that would forever change the lives of these noble warriors. One might deem that it all began with the eldest male, yet, the story began with the youngest – a daughter. To protect Fiona O’Quinlan from the enemy of their clan, her brother, Desmond, sought out a Fenian Fae Warrior to escort her to safety during a fierce battle. However, as with any request to the Fae, all did not go as Desmond wished. The Fae had already set in motion their own plan, and their sister was sent to another time. The O’Quinlan clan would not be reunited with Fiona for many years. When they were, they were told her fate was destined with another – Alastair MacKay, a feared, and battle-scarred Dragon Knight. Though Desmond and his brothers eventually accepted their sister’s love for the MacKay, Desmond harbored lingering doubts over the match. And as one year bled into the next, Desmond’s anger at the MacKay grew. Unbeknown to Desmond, his time had come to fulfill the bardic prophecy and take his place as a ruling warrior. Furthermore, in order to step forward on his journey, he must relinquish the fury of the past and open his heart and mind to only one emotion. Love.

It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.” Whether

Jason could tell a yarn. He could hardly talk without telling a yarn; according to his zealous world view, every day was an adventure. He would relate his experiences like a combination of a bard, radio talk-show host, and bawdy

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Well, maybe it wouldn't happen so often if you just didn't dress so- so-" "So what, Kevin?" He shook his head, miserably embarrassed, wishing he'd kept his mouth shut. "You know." "Ah, our little bardling is a prude!" "I am not! But you-" "Go around asking for it? Is that what you're trying to say? Listen to me, and listen well: I am a woman in a man's world. I'm not complaining; that's just the way things are. And as a woman, sure, I could wear a nice, proper gown that restricted every step I took, the sort of thing a lady wears - and get killed the first time I needed to move quickly. I could wear full armor, too, always assuming I could afford the expensive stuff - but I spend a lot of my life on board ships. People who wear full armor on ships tend to have really short lives if they fall overboard! "I ... uh... never thought of that..." "I realize that!" All at once, Lydia grinned. "Besides, when I do have trouble, the fools generally so busy looking at my... ah... endowments that they never see my knee or fist coming. So now, enough lecturing. We still have some rat-hunting to do!

humans have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them. But

He was angry that he had been cheated out of three new victims, for travelers usually drowned in the river.

Albus Dumbledore on ‘Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump’ The story of ‘Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump’ is, in many ways,

The political content of Shakespeare’s plays, with their tales of banished rulers (for example, The Tempest) or princes unjustly driven into exile (Pericles), had an immediate relevance to a nation restoring a banished monarch. Hamlet was so popular that in 1695 two rival companies staged simultaneous productions. The Earl of Shaftesbury called it that “piece of Shakespeare’s, which appears to have most affected English hearts,

His father, John, who came from the nearby village of Snitterfield, was fined for keeping a dung heap outside his house. Across different tellings of the tale, the dung heap takes on a kind of symbolic quality. Anti-Stratfordians recount the detail gleefully—as though to say, this story stinks of shit.

The story of Shakespeare’s rise from humble origins, from an apparently illiterate family in a provincial town, to literary immortality is cozy, comforting, compelling, a tale with all the warmth, cheer, and assurance of English firesides. But it is an imaginative construction.

The beginning of “Shakespeare” as a literary identity occurred not with a play but a poem. In April 1593 the comic-erotic poem Venus and Adonis was entered in the Stationers’ Register, a book that functioned as an early form of copyright law. It was entered as an anonymous work, without an author’s name. Adapting tales from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the poem tells a story of seduction.

In Wales they were specifically trained in the old tongue and were primarily members of the bardic orders. Their task was to memorise countless tales, prose, poetry, and songs, and to retain this information and knowledge and then transmit it via the narrative tradition to the people. They were simultaneously servants of society, tradition, the gods, and the spirit of culture and heritage. Within the Welsh language another meaning for the word bard is daroganwr, meaning “prophet,” and it is true that much of the old poetry of the Celtic bards contains prophecies, some of which have been realised and others which speak of things yet to come.

Your kind have forgotten the old ways,” says Eirne. “You have forgotten the importance of the tales, the wisdom of the past, the strength that rises from tree and stone and stream, the bond between one world and the other.

انسان‌ها مهارت خاصی در گزینش چیزهایی دارند که دقیقاً به ضررشان است (آلبوس دامبلدور)

انسان‌ها مهارت خاصی در گزینش چیزهایی دارند که دقیقاً به ضررشان است

It is only in recent years that tales of dragons and mythological beasts have been relegated to the ranks of "mere" children's stories and fairy tales. But it is wise to remember that such stories shaped humankind's love of literature, of all manner of written work. The image of the roaming bard, gracing the ears of his listeners with an account of gods and goddesses, of Cerberus and the Minotaur, of narratives now considered as classics set aside for serious study in their original and ancient languages, is one we would do well to remember. Those tales are the foundation of us, of our very societies. And so perhaps we should not be so quick to dismiss something "fantastical" as being beneath notice, as it would be akin to dismissing a gleaming facet of human history from our time on this earth.

Tamper with the deepest mysteries – the source of life, the essence of self – only if prepared for consequences of the most extreme and dangerous kind.

A dead man can’t stand to profit, and I've no interest in risking my life for nothing!" -Emrys of Fydria

It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.

It addresses one of the greatest, and least acknowledged, temptations of magic: the quest for invulnerability.