As a long time fan of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, I was somewhat surprised to find what I took to be at least two incidental references to his work in the latest Harry Potter book.
In the Order of the Phoenix there is a minor character named Willie Widdershins. The only other place I have ever encountered the word “widdershins” is as one of the four primary directions on Discworld (Hubward, Rimward, Turnwise, & Widdershins). So that one just kind of jumped out at me.
There also seems to be a popular band called the Weird Sisters in Harry Potter’s world. In the Order of the Phoenix one of the witches wears a Weird Sisters T-shirt on a couple of occasions when appearing in public. And from researching this idea, it appears that the band appeared in at least one of the earlier books as well. Even though the spelling is different, it certainly struck me as a possible reference to the first of the Discworld witch books, Wyrd Sisters. Since Wyrd Sisters was published in 1988, and the Potter series didn’t come out until the early to mid 90’s, Rowling would almost certainly have been aware of Pratchett’s work.
So, am I imagining things here, or is Rowling giving a subtle nod to pTerry? Are there any other hidden references that I might have missed in the earlier Potter books? Has all this been discussed before and I just missed it (I did a search and didn’t find anything, I swear!)?
And “widdershins” goes back a long way too. It was once the standard word for counter-clockwise. These are only random similarities between the two series.
Main Entry: wid·der·shins
Pronunciation: 'wi-d&r-sh&nz
Function: adverb
Etymology: Middle Low German weddersinnes, from Middle High German widersinnes, from widersinnen to go against, from wider back against (from Old High German widar) + sinnen to travel, go; akin to Old High German sendan to send – more at WITH, SEND
Date: 1513
: in a left-handed, wrong, or contrary direction : COUNTERCLOCKWISE
I thought it was “deosil”. Google gave me “A magical practice in Ireland of walking around sacred objects while pointing the right hand at them. The ritual is suppose to bring good luck, cure of diseases, and protection.” for deiseal.
(http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/d/deiseal.html)
Lemme clarify. The definition you have is correct. Deasil (or any of its variants) means right-handwise, or motion with continuous turning to the right, ie clockwise. It is a Celtic term related to magic, but its counterpart, widdershins, is also used in the same context. Hence, it’s not unusual that you should find this word in a book like Harry Potter and Discworld, as both deal with magic. I doubt that Potter is referencing Pratchett.
D’oh. My apologies. I found and cut and pasted that definition without ever registring that it actuially meant going round something clockwise. As you said.:smack:
I wouldn’t be surprised to find Harry Potter and Discworld making nods to each other. They both depend on satirical references to popular culture for part of their humor and they certainly share some other thematic elements. I would find it kind of surprising if they totally ignored each other, actually.
Everyone else has said it, there is nothing in either reference that necessarily connects to the Discworld series, given that both ‘wierd sisters’ and ‘widdershins’ go back a long way. However, I suppose they could still be connected, it’s just that it is just as likely they aren’t.
In a recent book by Tim Powers that I just finished (Last Call), the characters are performing “magic” through playing poker with Tarot cards, and use these terms. However, they’ve bowdlerized them to “windshield” and “diesel”.
Thanks all for your feedback. I was aware that widdershins was an old germanic word meaning counterclockwise, but had never seen it used anywhere else but in Pratchett’s Discworld books. Maybe it is more common across the pond than here in the US.
As for the Weird Sisters thing, I knew that Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters was a sendup of Macbeth, but I had forgotten (given the quarter century plus that has passed since my highschool drama class performed it) that Shakespeare referred to the witches as “weird sisters”. Thanks, fishcheer15, for your link that illustrated that point. And shame on me for missing the connection in the first place.
So, I will be happy to chalk it all up to mere coincidence and accept that I was, indeed, imagining things that weren’t really there. But it would have been a cool “conspiracy theory” kind of thing if there had been any substance to it. Oh, well.
In Pratchett’s The Last Hero there’s an illustration of Ponder Stibbons that strikes me as being very Potter-like: thick round black-framed glasses, black hair, and the hat.
Side question: Is the “wide-brimmed wizard’s hat” a British thing? Whenever I read the books I always picture a Mickey Mouse “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” type hat (just the cone) and once in a while I’ll be thrown off-kilter by a reference to a brim, like in The Last Continent. What I see in the HP movie I’d call a witch’s hat.
I don’t know the history of wizard’s costuming, but I have read The Hobbit recently. Tolkien definitely says that Gandalf’s hat has a brim in one of the first description’s of him. Tolkien may have gotten his own ideas about wizards from somewhere else, but he would certainly be influential.
For what it’s worth, the terms deosil and widdershins are quite common in Wicca and many other modern Pagan traditions, in the States as well as in other Anglophone countries. Sometimes it’s a case of “why use a boring word when you can use an archaic one?”, sometimes it’s to differentiate between when stuff just happens to be going that way (counterclockwise to unscrew something) and when there’s a specific purpose or meaning attached to the direction (deosil to draw, widdershins to banish).
I don’t know whether Pratchett is directly referring to Harry Potter or vice versa, but I do think that either he’s Pagan or he knows a lot of Pagans. The saying “Three witches is a coven, two is just an argument” comes to mind.
– Dragonblink, High Priestess, taking the opportunity once again to brag that her beat-up copy of Macbeth is autographed by Terry Pratchett.
I read in another thread in here (that I cant find right now-sorry) that in one of the Discworld novels one of the wizards at the Unseen University mentions a student named Harry who was very good at playing games on a broomstick.
That certainly looks like a HP reference in a Discworld novel
