Have you ever wondered about the deeper meaning of the Deathly Hallows symbol? First we must answer the question, “What are hallows?”
The noun hallow means “a holy person or saint.” “Hallows” is a word that refers to “the shrines or relics of saints.” The verb “to hallow” means “to make holy, to sanctify, to purify” or “to honor as holy, to regard and treat with reverence or awe” as in the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…” The October 31st celebration of Halloween is also known as All Hallows Eve, or the Eve of All Saints.
Then of course there is the Christian mythology of the quest for the Hallows of the Holy Grail in the Arthurian legends. Typically, the Grail Hallows are identified as:
1. the Sword of King David or, (alternately) the Sword that beheaded John Baptist
2. the Dish of the Last Supper
3. the Holy Grail Cup
4. the Spear of Longinus (also referred to as “the Spear of Destiny”)
The cup, dish, and the spear are part of a larger collection of objects known as the Arma Christi, or Articles of the Crucifxion of Christ. When the title of the final Harry Potter novel was released, I immediately thought of the Grail Hallows and their correspondences with the four suits of the Tarot (swords, disks, cups, and wands), then looked for parallels in Harry’s world. I expected the Sword of Gryffindor to play an important role in the final book, and it did. The dish or disk has a parallel in the Locket of Slytherin, and the cup is present as the Cup of Hufflepuff. But what of the spear? I examined the parallel with the four suits of the Tarot, and realized that a wand would be a suitable quest object in this story about wizards. I expected the Spear of Destiny would have a parallel as the Wand of Destiny in the wizarding world, and when the seventh novel was released, I discovered that this was indeed the case.
The legend of the Spear of Destiny developed from a passage in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus is found dead on the cross: “Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.” (John 19:34, NRSV) Tradition derived from the non-canonical Gospel of Nicodemus gave this Roman soldier a name: Gaius Cassius Longinus. A sculpture of the legendary saint by the brilliant Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) can be seen in Saint Peter’s Basilca in Rome. Longinus is depicted holding the Holy Lance in his right hand.
In 326 A.D. St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, discovered relics thought to be the Arma Christi while on a pilgrimage in Jerusalem. Among the relics were the True Cross of Christ’s crucifixion, the crown of thorns, the pillar at which Christ was scourged, and the Holy Lance. A legend later associated with this Holy Lance claimed that whoever possessed it would be able to conquer the world. A group of knights found a lance believed to be the Lance of Longinus beneath St. Peter’s Cathedral in Antioch during the First Crusade. Possession of the alleged Holy Lance spurred the crusaders on to victory.
Harry Potter enthusiasts should notice that “Antioch Peverell” is the name of one of the three brothers who once possessed the Deathly Hallows. Antioch was the brother who wielded the Elder Wand, also known as the Wand of Destiny. Throughout history there have been many legends surrounding the relics that were thought to be the Lance of Longinus, the Holy Lance that came to be known as The Spear of Destiny. Likewise in the fictional wizarding world of Harry Potter there were many legends surrounding the Elder Wand. Like the would-be conquerors throughout history who thought that the army who possessed the Spear of Destiny would be invincible, in Harry’s world, the wizard who possessed the Elder Wand was thought to be unbeatable.
One candidate for the title of Holy Lance, allegedly the spear that was found by St. Helena and once belonged to Constantine the Great, was possessed by the Holy Roman Emperors. It was believed to have contained one of the nails used in the crucifixion. This lance was called the Hofburg Spear, and it was kept in Austria’s Hofburg Museum until Adolf Hitler had it removed.
On March 12, 1938 Hitler went to the Hofburg Museum to visit the supposed Holy Lance on the very same day that Nazi Germany took control of Austria. Hitler believed this relic was truly the Spear of Destiny, and possession of it would make him invincible. On October 13, 1938 Nazi troops moved the Hofburg Spear from Vienna to Nuremberg where it was on display at St. Katherine’s Church for much of the Second World War. During the Allied Forces’ bombing of Germany the spear was moved to a secure underground bunker in Nuremberg.
It is interesting to note that in Harry’s world, the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald, who was obsessed with the Wand of Destiny, was kept in a prison called Nurmengard.
The Hofburg Spear came into the hands of U. S. troops under the command of General Patton on April 30, 1945 at 3:00 p.m. when Nuremburg Castle was captured. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945 at 3:30 p.m., just a half hour after he lost his “Spear of Destiny.” The lance was returned to the Hofburg Museum in January 1946, where it has remained until this day.
Note that Hitler’s defeat takes place in 1945, the same year that Dumbledore defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald and became the new owner of the Wand of Destiny. When asked if it was a coincidence that Grindelwald was defeated in 1945, Rowling said, “No. It amuses me to make allusions to things that were happening in the Muggle world…” (Anelli, 16 July 2005)
Hitler’s obsession with the Spear of Destiny may have been the result of his passion for the operas of German composer Richard Wagner. Wagner’s opera Parsifal, composed in 1882 was one of Hitler’s favorites. The story of the opera is about Parsifal (known as Percival in the English versions of the tale), who is one of the knights who is questing for the Grail Hallows. The opera’s plot is partially derived from Parzival, a German Medieval romance written in 1202-1210 by the poet Wolfram von Eschenbach. In the opera, the Spear of Destiny is glorified.
In the book Gemstone of Paradise: The Holy Grail in Wolfram’s Parzival, author G. Ronald Murphy, a Jesuit priest, explains that the grail stone in Wolfram’s romance was probably an altar stone, symbolic of the stone that was rolled across the entrance of Jesus’s tomb before the resurrection. Father Murphy thought that Wolfram may have been inspired to imagine the Holy Grail as a stone because of his encounter with a portable altar of the type used on the crusades. This small altar was a container for holy relics (hallows), as well as holding the consecrated bread of the Eucharist inside it beneath the removable altar stone.
Father Murphy translated the Latin inscription on one such an altar as follows: “The altar of Christ’s cross is one with this table, and this is therefore the proper place for the sacrifice of the victim who secures life.” He later wrote, “This is the wood and the stone that guarantee the passage of Good Friday to Easter Sunday, death to life. The portable altar, and perhaps this very portable altar, is Wolfram’s special stone of Resurrection, the phoenix stone in Wolfram’s language…” (Murphy 185)
Indeed, this is how Wolfram describes the stone. In A. T. Hatto’s English translation of Parzival, the passage describing the powers of the Grail Stone, or Stone of Resurrection, reads as follows: “By virtue of this Stone the Phoenix is burned to ashes, in which he is reborn—Thus does the Phoenix moult his feathers! Which done, it shines dazzling bright and lovely as before.” (Parzival 239) According to Wolfram, the phoenix’s power of Resurrection is from the power of the Grail Stone. In Harry Potter, Dumbledore hides the Deathly Hallow known as the Resurrection Stone within the Golden Snitch, a physical representation of the winged solar disk, a phoenix symbol. One symbol of resurrection is hidden inside of another.
Wolfram von Eschenbach was known to have an interest in alchemy. In alchemical language the Holy Grail, or phoenix stone, was in fact the Philosopher’s Stone. The Medieval tales of the quest for the Holy Grail, like the alchemist’s path to the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone, is symbolic of the pursuit of spiritual perfection. That J. K. Rowling is aware of the connection between Wolfram’s Grail Stone and the alchemical Philosopher’s Stone is suggested in a footnote on page 99 of Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Here, Rowling prompts her readers to make the connection between the Philosopher’s Stone and the Resurrection Stone from “The Tale of the Three Brothers:” “Many critics believe that Beedle was inspired by the Philosopher’s Stone, which makes the immortality-inducing Elixir of Life, when creating this stone that can raise the dead.” (TBB 99) I had developed my theory of Parzival’s Grail Stone as the inspiration for the Resurrection Stone Deathly Hallow in 2007, before The Tales of Beedle the Bard was published. When reading Rowling’s footnote from page 99 in December of 2008, I was delighted. I see this footnote as evidence that my theory of the hallows is a plausible one. Two of the three Deathly Hallows of Rowling’s fiction—the Wand of Destiny and the Resurrection Stone—seem to have been inspired by the Grail Hallows of Arthurian legend. The legendary knight Parzival, or Perceval, was the hero of many Medieval romances, one of which was La Folie Perceval. Perceval in this version of the tale was thought to have been influenced by the character of Payne Peveril in Fulke le Fitz Waryn (1260 A.D.). A Welsh poem called Peveril also featured a character similar to Perceval. Perhaps the name “Peverell” (the surname of the three brothers who possessed the Deathly Hallows) may have been derived from Peveril. Antioch Peverell was the master of the Elder Wand, and Cadmus Peverell held the Resurrection Stone. But what of the third Deathly Hallow, the Invisibility Cloak of Harry’s ancestor Ignotus Peverell? For the answer, perhaps we must turn to the ancient mythology of the British Isles.
The legend of the “Thirteen Treasures of Britain” also known as the “Thirteen Hallows of Britain” describes an impressive collection of magical objects that would not seem out of place in Harry’s world. The twelfth treasure, for instance, is a magical chessboard with “living” chess pieces, not unlike the Wizard’s Chess game that Ron Weasley is so fond of playing.
The thirteenth hallow in this collection is known as “The Mantle of Arthur” with the power to make the wearer invisible. This is very much like the Invisibility Cloak that was given to Harry by Dumbledore during his first Christmas at Hogwarts, the cloak that is the third of the Deathly Hallows.
Rather than four Grail Hallows or thirteen Hallows of Britain, Rowling creates a trinity of Deathly Hallows, represented by a vertical line and circle contained within a triangle.
This is the symbol that was mistaken for the “Peverell coat of arms” by Marvolo Gaunt. (HBP 207) The vertical line represents the Elder Wand, or Wand of Destiny, which is all-powerful. The circle represents the stone with the power of resurrection, and finally, the triangle represents the cloak with the power to make the wearer invisible. Thus, the three Deathly Hallows are that which is all-powerful, the power of resurrection, and the presence that is invisible. In Christianity, this could symbolize the Holy Trinity: the all-powerful Father, the resurrected Son, and invisible presence of the Holy Spirit.
The circle in Christian symbolism represents eternity because it has no beginning and no end. (Luna Lovegood explains this on page 587 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.) A bright ring, the circular halo, is used to represent sanctity in Christian art.
In addition to the Trinitarian symbolism of the Deathly Hallows, in the Harry Potter series there are a trio of protagonists on a quest, not unlike the trio of knights who find the Grail in the Medieval Christian romance The Quest of the Holy Grail. Galahad, Perceval, and Bors are the three knights who find the Grail.
Galahad is identified as a symbol of Christ in the narrative of The Quest of the Holy Grail. He is compared to the “lily of purity” and the “true rose, the flower of strength and healing with the tint of fire.” The nature of his quest is a spiritual one which ends in his death after finding the Holy Grail. The angels carry him up to heaven along with the Holy Grail and the Spear of Destiny. Harry Potter is the character in Rowling’s saga that is most like Galahad. His quest is a spiritual one which involves self-sacrifice: he experiences a kind of death and resurrection that saves the wizarding world. Just as the Grail and Lance are taken up to Heaven, never to be seen again, Harry deliberately loses the Resurrection Stone in the forest and also renounces the power of the Elder Wand. The story ends with Harry declaring his intention to return the “Wand of Destiny” to Dumbledore’s tomb where it cannot be used again.
Galahad’s companion Perceval triumphs over temptations of the flesh in his many adventures, which include being tempted by the Great Serpent, Satan, in the form of a beautiful temptress.
Perceval’s sword, like the Sword of Gryffindor, takes the shape of the Cross, the symbol of Satan’s ultimate defeat.
Perceval also rescued a lion’s cub from certain death when he struck the head of the serpent that was trying to devour it. Perceval was then befriended by the King of Beasts. The lion, of course, is a symbol of Christ.
Bors, unlike Perceval, faced intellectual temptations on the quest. He had to make difficult decisions concerning moral dilemas, as when he had to decide whether to rescue his beloved brother Sir Lionel or an innocent maiden who was being abducted by an evil knight. He made the correct decision to rescue the the defenseless girl rather than saving his warrior brother. Bors is most like Hermione, the thinker of the heroic Trio. Together the three knights Galahad, Perceval, and Bors, and the three young wizards Harry, Ron, and Hermione represent the spirit, body, and mind, the “soul triptych” that John Granger first identified in his excellent book The Hidden Key to Harry Potter.
In The Quest for the Holy Grail there is another important parallel with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Galahad, Percival, and Bors were wandering through a forest when they saw a “white hart with its four attendant lions.” The three knights followed the white stag, which led them to a chapel where the Mass was being sung by a holy hermit. Inside the little church the four lions transformed into the four living creatures that symbolize the four evangelists–the man (St. Matthew), the eagle (St. John), the lion (St. Mark), and the bull (St. Luke). The white stag transformed into a man enthroned as Christ the King. The hermit explained the symbolism of the miracle that the knights had witnessed:
For to you has Our Lord revealed His secrets and His hidden mysteries, in part indeed today; for in changing the Hart into a heavenly being, in no way mortal, He showed the transmutation that He underwent upon the Cross: cloaked there in the mortal garment of this human flesh, dying, he conquered death, and recovered for us eternal life. This is most aptly figured by the Hart. For just as the Hart rejuvinates itself by shedding part of its hide and coat, so did Our Lord return from death to life when he cast off his mortal hide, which was human flesh He took in the Blessed Virgin’s womb.—The Quest of the Holy Grail (244)
It is only after they have had the vision of the transformation of the white stag that the three knights are able to find the Holy Grail. In The Grail: Quest for the Eternal, John Matthews explains the symbolism of the white stag with relationship to the Holy Grail quest:
To reach the temple of the Grail, the knights who set out from Camelot must undergo many tests and experience terrible ordeals. But often, when the way seems darkest, the enigmatic white stag or hermit figure appears, to lead them forward through the mazes of forest and hill. In medieval iconography the stag was identified with Christ and the soul’s thirst for God, which accounts for its appearance in this context. (Matthews 88)
The appearance of the White Stag in the Quest for the Holy Grail has a direct parallel in the appearance of the mysterious Silver Doe in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have had no success in destroying the Horcruxes until the Silver Doe appears to lead Harry to the forest pool when the Sword of Gryffindor lay hidden beneath the ice.
Intrigued by this blog post? You can read more in The Lord of the Hallows: Christian Symbolism and Themes in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter by Denise Roper. It is available at www.outskirtspress.com/thelordofthehallows.
Good job explicatingthe Hallows! But be careful when connecting the Grail Hallows/Tarot signs with the Houses because those are firmly linked to the Elements. Occultists started connected Tarot suits and Grail Hallows in recent centuries but there are many variants and no consistency. But therefore the Founders’ treasures can match horcruxes without having to simultaneously match the suits appropriate to the Houses and Elements: Slytherin is Water and Cups, Ravenclaw is Air and Swords, Gryffindor is Fire and Batons, Hufflepuff is Earth and Coins. But S= locket, R=diadem, G=sword, and H=cup. Only G’s sword survives.
The shape of halos in Christian art varies accoiunting to the hallowed subject wearing it: a circle with a cross for Christ, plain circle for saints and angels, a triangle for God the Father, square for a living persion, polygonal for allegorical persons like virtues.
A hallow can also be a sacred place or ancient building or particular day. Raymundo Christian
Perelandra wrote: “Good job explicatingthe Hallows! But be careful when connecting the Grail Hallows/Tarot signs with the Houses because those are firmly linked to the Elements.”
The Grail Hallows/Tarot signs correspondences were first identified by Jessie L. Weston in “From Ritual to Romance,” written decades before Harry Potter. I agree that Rowling did not follow Weston’s Hallows/Tarot formula when matching the Tarot suits with the four houses, but there are correspondences between the Grail Hallows and the Deathly Hallows and with the relics of the Four Founders.
Thanks for your comments and the information about halos. 🙂
Good job, Denise! I’ll have to save this.
[…] The Deeper Meaning of the Quest for the Deathly Hallows (a Grail Hallows Comparison) https://phoenixweasley.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/the-deeper-meaning-of-the-quest-for-the-deathly-hallo… […]
When Rowling began writing her books, my son was roughly 7 years old, at a time when he was learning to read with earnest. Beginning with the Sorcerer’s Stone, we read each and every book together, side by side. We also went to see the movies — most of them on opening day; money problems have kept us from seeing the Deathly Hallows movies, a fact that breaks my heart.
When we began to read the books, I discussed them with a Protestant friend of mine. She began telling me how she thought the Harry Potter books were “evil” because of their setting in the “magical” world, which she associated with Satanic magic, the calling on Beelzebub to support one’s magical abilities, etc.
I kept trying to tell her that Dumbledore symbolized God the Father, Voldemort symbolized Satan, and Harry symbolized Jesus – the one who would ultimately save the wizarding world as opposed to Jesus saving all of humanity. She denounced the books one by one.
I am a Roman Catholic, and could see much of the early Christian symbolism as I read and have reread the books. She, on the other hand, is a Born-Again Christian; my association with Protestant Christians has told me that in their beliefs, they tend to skip from Easter to the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, in which they place all of their faith, instead of the Roman Catholics who place faith in the Bible and Tradition, which follows the Apostles from the time Jesus called them through the Acts of the Apostles and other non-canonical books and Sacred Tradition that give a documentation of the Apostles after the Assension. Catholics also believe in the Eucharist, something in which most Protestant Christians (and my friend) do not believe (at her church, they sent around containers of leavened bread and test tube-shaped containers of grape juice: these are mere symbols of the Body and Blood of Christ instead of the Catholic belief in Transubstantiation.
I am fascinated by what you have written here; in it I see both things I caught as I have read and reread the books more than a dozen times and things I had not thought of or known. Where can I get a copy of the book you published regarding the Harry Potter books? I would love to read it.
Thank you for your time and insight.
Sincerely,
Peggy Pinto
Peggy, thanks for your insightful comments. I am a Roman Rite Catholic also, and I think that since you share my religious beliefs, you will understand and probably
agree with the theology upon which my interpretation of Harry Potter is based. I agree with you about Transubstantiation and the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. Any Bible-alone Christian who denies it ought to read John chapter 6 and ponder its meaning. Jesus was not speaking symbolically in that discourse!
The Lord of the Hallows: Christian Symbolism and Themes in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter is available from online book sellers such as these:
http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Hallows-Christian-Symbolism-Rowlings/dp/1432741128/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301809006&sr=1-1-spell (I have gotten some good reviews here.)
http://www.outskirtspress.com/thelordofthehallows (This is my publisher’s site.)
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch.detail?invid=9935342411&keyword=lord+of+the+hallows&qwork=11556851&qsort=&page=1
That last link is to my own alibris.com bookstore. You can buy a signed copy from me there which will include a few freebies as well. 🙂
One of your graphics shows a triangular halo.
Because this is somewhat rare, I was wondering about its origin. Where did you find it?
The triangular halo is used in artwork of God the Father to denote the Holy Trinity. The stained-glass artwork that I posted here is from EWTN, the Catholic cable network.
I was trying to find out more on it’s history. Like most symbols, the church took them from the Druids mostly as far as I could find. Does anyone happen to know the history of Deathly Hollows symbol and/or meaning/history?
Hi,
You might want to read what i have researched as well. You might find something about the Peverells and other things 🙂
Nice work. I already worked out that hidden symbolism in 2008 🙂 But nice work though. I am your fan 🙂
http://rowlingcode.blogspot.com/2010/06/disclaimer-einsjam-believes-in.html
Hi! I’m a real fan of Harry Potter’s clues. Do you have your book translate at spanish already?
I don’t mind to read it in english, but is a little difficult to get it in Mexico City. Maybe if it is already translated, could be easier.
Thank you!!!
Actually, the Deathly Hallows symbol is almost identical to the Russian arsenal stamping on various weapons. Check out the stamp on the rear of the slide of this Makarov pistol: http://www.makarov.com/graphics/Russian_military_Makarov_small.jpg
Pretty similar, eh? The circle is just outside the triangle, instead of inside it.
The point is, I doubt this symbol has much to do with either. Things can happen to look similar by chance.
So much parallels I would never have noticed.