The Tales of Beedle the Bard

A book of wizarding fairy tales left to Hermione Granger in Dumbledore's will. One of the five stories in it turns out to be the plot of the novel.

Of the three Hogwarts books that made it into our world, this is the one that matters most inside its own story, and the one with the strangest publication history outside it.

Inside the novel it is a Trojan horse. Dumbledore’s will is read aloud by a hostile Ministry looking for weapons and clues, and he leaves Hermione a children’s storybook — which passes inspection precisely because it is beneath suspicion. The Hallows are hidden in plain sight, in the format guaranteed to be dismissed by adults: a fairy tale. It is also the moment Rowling makes a quiet point about her own genre.

Outside the novel, it did something no other fictional book has done. Rowling handwrote and illustrated seven copies, bound in leather with moonstones. Six went to people who had helped the series exist. The seventh went to auction and sold for close to two million pounds. For a period in 2007 this was simultaneously a fictional book, a unique manuscript, one of the most expensive modern books ever sold, and a charitable instrument. The general edition followed in 2008 with Dumbledore’s commentary intact — annotations by a fictional headmaster on fictional folklore, published in our world.

On the readability rating. Yes, entirely — and “The Tale of the Three Brothers” is additionally reproduced in full inside Deathly Hallows, so you can read the crucial story twice, in two different books, one of which is inside the other.

In-world history

Beedle wrote in the fifteenth century. The tales are as familiar to wizarding children as Cinderella is to Muggle ones, which is why Ron is baffled that Harry and Hermione have never heard of them — the first time the series shows a cultural gap rather than a magical one. Dumbledore's private annotations to the tales survive in the Hogwarts archive.

Why it matters

Dumbledore leaves it to Hermione precisely because it looks like nothing. Buried in a children's storybook is the only surviving account of the Deathly Hallows — the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility — and the symbol that lets Harry recognise them. The most important document in the series is disguised as a nursery book.

Appearances

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007) — J. K. Rowling Bequeathed to Hermione by Dumbledore; "The Tale of the Three Brothers" is told in full in ch. 21

Editions in our world

Seven handwritten copies, 2007 Written and illustrated by J. K. Rowling, bound in leather with silver and moonstones; six given as gifts, the seventh sold at Sotheby's in December 2007 for just under two million pounds in aid of the Children's Voice campaign.
Bloomsbury and Scholastic, 2008 General publication, with commentary by Albus Dumbledore, in aid of the Children's High Level Group — later Lumos.

Connected volumes

Related to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them · The Wizarding World
Related to The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore · The Wizarding World
Related to Mr Bunnsy Has An Adventure · Discworld
Related to Where's My Cow? · Discworld

Catalogue record

Category: Folklore
World: The Wizarding World
Language: The original runes; translated by Hermione Granger
First appearance: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 2007
Readability: Published in our world