Tales of Beedle the Bard

Well, as a few of you potternuts might know, 6 copies of the legendary wizarding children's books was given to some of JK's friends as a parting gift with Potter and as a personal "thank you" for those who supported her in her recent works.

A seventh copy (all good comes in sevens, of course) was auctioned at Sotherby's in London on 13 December. It fetched a staggering 1.95 mln pounds (about $4mln) , by Amazon.com. All benefits went to Childrens Voice, JK's charity organisation.

The bad news is that probably none of us will ever even hold a copy. I can't see any way in which we'll be reading these tales before Rowling dies. The seven handwritten (!) copies are exclusively limited. However, Amazon.com was so nice to post a synopsis:

Enjoy here, with a small spoiler warning.

Here you will find Amazon.com's main page on the Tales, with some images of the book. I am dead sure every fantasy fan will chill at the potent "magic" eminating from this book. Worth taking a look at!

 

I was wrong

Tales of Beedle the Bard is going to be published in December, Rowling has announced! I've read there'll be a limited edition (though not very limited at 100.000 copies) which looks very interesting (to me).

Sooo...

which of the stories do you look forward to read?

There's
- The Wizard and the Hopping Pot
- The Fountain of Fair Fortune
- The Warlocks Hairy Heart
- Babbity Rabbity and her Cacking Stump
and, of course

- The Tale of the Three Brothers.

 

wellll... it''ll be £50 or $100 (about... €70?) for the special edition. That's a bit steep, innit - for that sort of money?

 

I've been looking into securing a limited copy. I'm not quite sure though they'll be available beyound Amazon.com (who bought one of the original copies).

I'm fairly sure they won't ship to anywhere beyond the US and the UK tho. Unless, that is, you import one, that is. And that won't be too hard considering there's a bias towards Amazon in the first place.

Amazon.co.uk has preorders available of both versions.

 

hmmm... for once, TFF seems totally uninterested in a new Rowling release.... remarkable.


Has ANYONE read it by now?

 

well, I read it yesterday evening.

Though I was actually looking forward to this book, I doubt it's worth the 7 euros I payed. It's comprised of 5 short stories, each with notes from Albus Dumbledore and denoted by both JKR and APWBD. There are at least a few new items of interest in the book; like, for isntance, the probable source for Aberforth's fondness of goats. As, by the way, on wand lore, in the notes for The Tale of the Three Brothers.

The book in itself is written in a rather strange way; the choice of words don't always make for the smoothe story we're used to when readin Rowling. Maybe it's a pitty she opted to have Hermione Granger translate the runes from Albus' original copy; for some reason the stories only make sense to me if I imagine Hermione reading them.

Dumbledores notes are witty as ever, though at least some of Rowlings every-day frustrations seem to be reflected as well. Still, Dumbledore hints at some unresolved mysteries; even creating some in his own right. But beyond that, I think this is mostly a nice gift to the Rowling adepts, rather then it is as a fairytale booklet...