Beedle Talks: The Cackling Stump Explained

"Beedle the Bard was a storyteller who wove his tales in the 15th century. Although much of his life remains a mystery, we do know he was born in Yorkshire and that he was a wizard. There is also one surviving woodcut that depicts him with ‘an exceptionally luxuriant beard’. Aside from his facial hair, it’s impossible to truly know Beedle, but perhaps we can catch a glimpse of him in his stories. A wizard who was sympathetic to Muggles, ‘mistrusted Dark Magic’ and believed that ‘kindness, common sense and ingenuity’ were more admirable than even the most powerful magic". (W.W. Feature, "Everything you need to know about The Tales of Beedle the Bard)

Now this story is particularly interesting as it seems more grounded or "real" as Albus Dumbledore says regarding the nature of the story.

'Babbity Rabbity and her Crackling Stump' tells the story of three primary characters in the form of a King, a Charlatan, and a washerwoman. The King wanted to hire a person of magic to teach him the ways of it and so he posted an ad: "Wanted by the King: an Instructor in Magic". The ad was answered by one who claims to be a master of magic by showing a few spells that he knew of and was appointed Grand Sorcerer in Chief for the King. The boy asked the king for plenty of gold to help him with what is required to help him learn such as a wand, which was given. He went to the woods and, surrounded by trees, searched for the right branch and broke it in two. For a time, the king, when given the wand and instructed to speak rhymes, aimed the skies to practice the arts. One day, when he chanted a rhyme in the sky near the boy, laughter could be heard by a washerwoman within the castle nearby. The washerwoman who spends time cleaning and laundering for the King, cackled at the sight of him and he felt bothered. The king told him it would be a good idea to do a show in front of the crowd, which the boy disagreed with unless he made an important journey. The boy saught out the washerwoman who he saw in a window. Babbity was her name and she as cleaning the dishware with no hands but with magic. A Witch! He tells her to help him or the hounds of the King's Brigade of Witch-Hunters will hunt her. "Babbity agreed to the plan but asked one question. "What, sir, if the King attempts a spell Babbity cannot perform?" She could perform anything as the king, to him, is simple-minded. The task is simple as she hid in the bushes. She lifted her wand at a hat to vanish when the king did, lifted the horse in the air when the king was told, and then.... something she could not do. "The foolish King brandished his twig and pointed it at the dead dog. But inside the bush, Babbity smiled and did not trouble to lift her wand, for no magic can raise the dead." The King screamed, the charlatan pointed at Babbity and they went after her into the woods. The hounds sniffed by a tree; "She turned herself into a tree!" screamed the charlatan, Down it went, a voice is heard to them by Babbity for every kill of a witch, the king will feel that ax, for he cut a wich in two. As the Grand Sorceror is a person of magic, kill him, to which he pleaded he was a false wizard. TheKing amended to the stump that a proclamation would be made to protect witches and wizards. A statue was built in honor of Babbity by the stumps want and they fleed the grounds leaving Babbity out of the tree's roots, revealing she was a rabbit. and "no witch or wizard was ever persecuted in the kingdom again".

That was longer than expected to summarize. The story is more grounded with no fairy tale element to be seen, yet it is a fairy tale as it describes and explains key importance in their lives.

The KIng was an ignorant Muggle no doubt about that and the charlatan was Muggle with parlor tricks, or maybe a squib, while Babbity was a witch through and through.

The charlatan clearly knew the ways of witches to seek out a stick and the fact that he told Babbity that his imagination is limited shows he has knowledge of the source of magic. Imagination is key to the possibility of magic, even Vernon was on about it in "Philosopher's Stone" and when he bought up magic carpets. It does remind me of Ilvermorny and Muggle founder, James Steward who was flicking the wand up and down before flying backward and hitting his head. This was also seen with Langdon Shaw in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" who openly believed strange occurrences are about in the subways and "to look at the evidence".

The most grounded part of the story is the persecution of witches and witch-hunters that even, according to the Ilvermorny Anthem: "We draw our inspiration, From good witch Morrigan.

For she was persecuted, By common wandless men." Was there ever a "Bridgade of Witch-Hunters"? Was there ever really a statue built for Babbity?

Babbity, first and foremost is an Animagus, if she ever was one. "The tale of Babbity Rabbity does, however, give us one of the earliest literary mentions of an Anigmagus, for Babbity the washerwoman is possessed of the rare magical ability to transform into and an animal at will". (The Notes of Albus Dumbledore on "Babbity Rabbity And Her Crackling Stump). This could be the fairy tale element of her story as a rabbit would be a way to describe her personality. But it is known that witches and wizards can mix a potion that requires months of necessity. But as I said was she ever real? No. I would say that her name had her animal form in it shows it and even Dumbledore acknowledges this: "is open to doubt; however, some magical historians have suggested Beedle modeled Babbity on the famous French sorceress Lisette de Lapin, who was convicted of witchcraft in Paris in 1422". (TNOAD on Babbity's reality). Persecuted, and sentenced to death, she disappeared before her execution. No proof she ever was an Animagus, however, a rabbit was seen crossing the English Channel and another in King Henry VI's Court. Furthermore, she spoke as a rabbit which is not the case in the case in the form of one. When a witch or wizard transforms into an animal, they become the animal and loses all possible communication and movements of a human. Regardless, an animal is the same, and animals do talk in fairy tales like the dog in the film "Alice in Wonderland" by Tim Burton or Aslan or the beavers in "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S.Lewis.

Perhaps, important is to acknowledge that Babbity said it is hard to kill a witch and this is told of with a witch during the witch trials of one named Wendelin the Weird in his paper "Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century was Completly Pointless". Wendelin was a witch who played games with muggles by seeing how many times they can capture her and burn her as she took on many different disguises using the Flame-Freezing Charm. Contradictory, however, if it is a contradiction, in America, witches were indeed burned at the stake and never survived. It seems that those in 1600s America knew how to kill them in the same manner that former President Seraphina Picquery knew how to banish poltergeists when those at Hogwarts did not. Even more interesting is the possibility, that Lisette was not the inspiration as thought by Albus and other wizarding Historians, but rather is based on Wendelin instead, or even based on both.

Lisette is a nickname for Elizabeth. Lapin means "Rabbit" in De Lapin meaning "of the rabbit" or "of a place called Lapin". "De" is common to be in name that suggests a place of birth like Leonardo Da Vinci and like De Vinci like Beedle, as Babbity is based on a woman, Mona Lisa is as well. Babbity Rabbity is Beedle's, Mona Lisa. Lisette and Beedle are in close proximity of years alive in the 15th century, so unlike Linfred who was in 12th-century life, he could know her directly. Leonardo himself was in 1452-1519 with Mona Lisa being painted in the 1500s.

While Lisette may have been the inspiration for Babbity, as Albus says: "Beedle was inspired by real magical traditions and practices". This comes to the notion of trees.

The Charlatan broke a tree to give a wand to the Muggle King. Trees are natural things, alive, and some actually believe they can communicate to the tree to know which wood is to be used for the wand in making. These are actual beliefs and practices and to harm a tree without its acceptance to be given is troublesome and will be punished. "Trees with wand-quality wood have always been fiercely protected by the wandmakers who tend them". I once saw a video about two men who owned a wand store and in the video they talked about how they don't just grab a wood, they speak to the nearby spirits to find the right wood and communicate for acceptance to use it. The spirits in question are Dryads or wood nymphs, which are, in the Wizarding World, is in France and the United States of America. The Wood Nymphs in "Spiderwick" are Spirits and Treefolks who "can take on a humanoid shape and move a short distance from their tree, or, in extreme cases, uproot the entire tree and use the roots as a shuffling form of locomotion". (Authur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You). In the case of the Wizarding World, the spirit or Treefolks are Bowtruckles and "cutting down such trees to steal them risks incurring not only the malice of the Bowtruckles usually nesting there, but also the ill effects of protective curses placed around them by their owners".

It is common to see in many tribes how trees are protected by them and of each other. I would say one would not need to protect a tree as the trees are protected from the people. In this case, if a person is protecting a tree, then the person is guarding it and worshipping it. One would worship his or her own tree as it is a spirit tree, their spirit tree, so they can connect it to it. So, in Beedle's story, the Charalaton looked for a tree but did not ask for permission, even if he knew what to look for as he believed it to be. In this case, Babbity is a voice of the trees and as the king had cut down the tree, she was furious and lied that for every kill he will feel what he did to an innocent tree that had no qualms to Mankind until the boy stole from them per beliefs to the trees around them.

In this case, it is not the story of a king who did not learn basics or a boy who faked about himself, or perhaps not about Babbity herself. But it is about the awareness of nature, it is an environmental story of how mankind eliminated pure and living things like ourselves. It is like "The Lorax" of Dr. Suess. While the persecution of magical-kind in the fore-front, the hidden message and story is the situation of plant life. Humans can't live without trees anyway, energetically, spiritually, there is a connection that is keeping mankind alive. Without Jungles, People are Dead.

"When the grounds were deserted once more, there wriggled from a hole between the roots of the tree stump a stout and whiskery old rabbit with a wand clamped between her teeth."