The Tales of Beedle the Bard

As I am sure everyone is aware, J.K. Rowling has personally published The Tales of Beedle the Bard to six select friends and relations and auctioned the seventh one off at Sotheby's. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! Amazon.com is the lucky beholder of the seventh handwritten and illustrated copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. They have bought the most impossible to obtain book at the famous auctioneers known as Sotheby's in London for a mere £1,950,000 (roughly $3,825,000 or 390,000 galleons).  All proceeds have gone to Ms. Rowling's charity The Children's Voice.

Many Harry Potter fans are disappointed that Ms. Rowling did not publicly publish the tales stating that she could have raised more money for her charity if she had.

The question now comes to Amazon.com as to whether they will be allowed to publish the book in the future. If so, how long into the future must we (her devoted fans) wait?  Currently there is no word about publication or future publication.  Although, Daphne Durham of Amazon had the privilege to read the book and wrote fascinating synopses of each of the five tales. If you wish to read these, please visit www.amazon.com/beedlebard.  Amazon has also included three pages of photos of the book at auction.

As for the tales, each one includes a moral for the wizarding world to learn from. Trying not to give anything away to those of you who wish to read the synopses, the first tale is entitled The Wizard and the Hopping Pot. The moral of this tale is using magic for good.  The moral of The Fountain of Fair Fortune is that magic does not always have to be used to solve problems rather look within yourself to find the solution. In The Warlock's Hairy Heart, the moral is one that Voldemort should have followed rather than following the story. Love is important to life and to live. It is also the darkest tale told. We hear mention of Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump from Ron Weasley in the seventh book. It is a clever tale of outwitting our adversaries.  Definitely one you can hear Mrs. Weasley telling her children around a crackling fire. The last and final tale is told entirely in Deathly Hallows, The Tale of the Three Brothers, which we now know may not have been made up.  This tale's moral is about choosing wisely (the third brother), using wisely (the second brother), and communicating wisely (the first brother).

In a recent interview on Pottercast through The Leaky Cauldron news website, J.K. Rowling talked a bit about the tales. The two part interview also revealed the airing of a documentary in the UK on iTV. This documentary covered her last year in writing the final novel in the Harry Potter series. Visit www.itv.com to try to view the documentary by searching for J.K. Rowling. (I will have to wait until it comes to the US in some media form whether it be on television or DVD. I had difficulty finding and viewing the documentary.)

As devoted fans of J.K. Rowling's, we all hope that one day that The Tales of Beedle the Bard will be publicly available to have in our own homes. Until then, it is rumored that Amazon.com will be touring with the book to libraries and schools across the United States. No word on whether they will take the tales abroad.

New Spotlight

There's a new spotlight today on Flourish&Blott's, Magical Desktops.

There you can find some great wallpapers, amongst other things. I really recommend a visit! Either click the button on the right hand side of your screen (found under 'Spotlight') or visit www.magicaldesktops.com.

(Rachel also has another site, www.goldendesktops.com, for all fans of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series!)

Welcome, Welcome!

So, as you can see, we've finally moved in here at Flourish&Blott's.info. We're still getting comfortable, but we'll soon be ready.

You'll be able to new pages and features being added daily. Please be patient as we iron some of the creases in the behind-the-scenes world of a website. After all, you'll benefit in the end.

I hope the majority of features will be available to you all by next week. If not then, by the end of the month.

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