Modernizing Chaucer and the New Lessons Learned

I realize this is very late, but here is the additional JK Rowling story from both Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the Tales of Beetle the Bard, as told in the film by Hermione.

This is called The Three Brother’s Tale, and is apparently based upon the Pardoner’s tale. However, instead of there being three friends who go looking for death, as in the Pardoner’s tale, three brothers, who are also wizards, approach a dangerous creek and meet Death, who feels he was cheated out of their lives. Greed and pride are still integral parts of the story, but instead of the brothers killing each other for money, as the three friends plot to do, Rowling’s story involves more of the gain of power.

In Rowling’s story, Death pretends to be kind to the brothers, and offers each an object. The eldest, who lusts the most for power, demands the most powerful wand in existence. The second brother wants to humiliate Death, again lusting after power, and asks for the power to bring back the dead.  The youngest brother simply asks for something to hide him, from both Death and his enemies, but as an added benefit, allows him to observe the world without disturbing it.

We are then told that the eldest brother goes on a power bender, settling old quarrels with rivals, killing them. Because of his arrogance, a thief comes and kills him in the night, taking the wand for himself.  The second brother is driven mad because he returns to life his fiancé, whom he could not touch.  He kills himself because of the intense longing he dangled in front of himself, and thus, Death was able to claim two of the three brothers.

But the interesting part of the story, and where it differs the most from Chaucer’s original, is where the third brother offers us hope. In the Pardoner’s tale, all three friend-thieves decide to kill each other to take the gold, which they found in the forest, as each hungered for wealth and suffered from avarice.  The youngest brother, however, with his cloak of invisibility, simply wanted to hide from Death and any other enemies he might have.  He was not concerned with taunting and manipulating death, or with meting out punishment to any who had wronged him. Instead, he chose to simply side-step the problems he might face, until he was ready to pass into the next life, or, through observation, to gain a new perspective in a given situation.  He chose learning over power.

The hopeful message of the third brother’s story is one where self-actualization is found through knowledge—the knowledge of both self and one’s world.  It’s clear that his brothers were not content in themselves, and thus asked for external stimuli to support themselves. The third brother must be someone who was driven instead by internal motivation, and desired to maintain his happiness in his daily life to spend time with his family.  Thus, he passes on his cloak to his children, who passed a legacy of high self-esteem to the next generation as well, realizing the power to unobtrusively look at the world without disturbing it allows you to understand it that much better.

Thus the power of Rowling’s story is not the simply children’s story it is slated to be.  It offers a calm and quiet lesson to all—when given the opportunity to dominate or humiliate, it’s best to learn and walk, even unknowingly, in someone else’s shoes. By doing so, you gain true understanding and humility.

Here is a link to the tale:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN1_h_eGitE

Enjoy!