As every Harry Potter fanatic will tell you, 'The Tales of Beedle The Bard' played a key role in the conclusion of the Deathly Hallows.
Professor Dumbledore bequeathed this collection of fairy tales compiled by a 15th-century bard to Hermoine, with the hope that she would find it "entertaining and instructive".
Later she reads out from it "The Tale of the Three Brothers", a fable about what happens to those who try to cheat Death.
This tale and four others are now brought together in a short book, which was published in a limited edition last year. As an added bonus this edition contains the notes of Professor Dumbledore himself, whose annotations, Rowling informs us in her introduction, were found among his papers in the Hogwarts Archives.
In the first story, "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot", a kindly old wizard makes potions to solve the problems of all his neighbours – even the muggles. After he dies, he passes his "lucky cooking pot" onto his son who proves less generous with his spells. Soon the pot becomes plagued with "hungry slugs" and horrible odours that will remain until he does the right thing.
A later tale, "The Warlock's Hairy Heart", draws on a similar kind of symbolism. A fearsome wizard hides his heart in an enchanted crystal casket, so that he can pursue his worldly ambitions without the encumbrance of love. One day he decides to restore it to his chest, but by this time it has grown so shrunken and hairy that it cannot temper his violent instincts.
