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:
Enjoy!
