Hey guys,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In the last couple of videos, I’ve
been covering some territory in Harry Potter folklore that a lot of you may have never
heard. The folklore in Harry Potter is very rich, and deep, and I find it intriguing-
learning about the history of spells, and investigating evil witches and wizards that
existed throughout the ages. First, I discussed the story of Ekrizdis, the Dementor’s creator,
and then in my last video I discussed another evil wizard known as Raczidian who was the
first wizard in history to have a Patronus charm go all wrong. Telling the tales of these
dark wizards is huge fun for me, so naturally, for today’s video, I’m going to continue
on that path, and discuss another dark and evil wizard that you MAY have heard of: Herpo
the Foul.
Herpo the Foul was an ancient dark wizard that hailed from Greece. It’s entirely unknown
when Herpo walked the earth, but we do know that it was a long long time ago, as he is
commonly referred to as one of the earliest known dark wizards. I would imagine that Herpo
likely lived in the same era as Raczidian-just in a different part of the world. We know
that the story of Illyus and Raczidian occurred in ancient times, before the existence of
any of the modern day witches and wizards that we’re accustomed to. It was a time
when magic was, not new, but being pushed more than ever in terms of its limits. Witches
and wizards that were pure of heart were focusing on producing magic that could make the world
a better place- somewhere that was safe, convenient, and prosperous. Their goal was to make life
as seamless as possible, and in a time when ‘witch hunts’ likely still existed, I
would imagine that there would have been a huge magical focus on protective enchantments
and other spells of that nature.
However, just like in our own muggle world, not everyone that existed was pure of heart-
and there were many rotten witches and wizards that were also pushing the boundaries of magic-just,
in a negative way. These were the worst types of people: the power hungry, the bloodthirsty,
the sociopathic. Herpo the Foul was one of these people.
Herpo devoted his life to producing and creating some of the worst kinds of magic imaginable-similar
to the story of Ekrizdis who solitarily dabbled in black magic on the remote island of Azkaban
in the sixteenth century. One really interesting thing about Herpo was that he was born a parselmouth,
which meant that he was able to communicate with Snakes. Does that remind you of someone
else? We know from the Harry potter books and films that Voldemort was also a parselmouth,
and it’s been widely accepted that Voldemort was a parselmouth because he was a descendant
of Salazar Slytherin. It’s a hereditary trait. This always made me consider Salazar
Slytherin as the original parselmouth, but it turns that the original parselmouth was
actually Herpo. What this tells me is that Herpo may have been the distant ancestor of
Salazar Slytherin, which really makes a lot of sense, particularly as a lot of the forms
of magic that Herpo produced seem to mesh well with people like Voldemort and Salazar.
And what else did Herpo do? He produced the first basilisk. Okay, now we’re really getting
similar to Salazar. Salazar was of course one of the Hogwarts founders and founded Slytherin
house. He was a pure blood wizard that was born sometime before 976 AD, and given that
Hogwarts was founded around 990 AD, my best guess would be that he would have been born
sometime between 930-960 AD. This was a LONG time ago, so if we consider that Herpo was
likely Salazar’s DISTANT ancestor, then it’s hard to imagine the time period that
Herpo would have existed.
Salazar famously disliked muggle-born students, likely because during his lifetime the relationship
between muggles and witches/wizards was at an all time low.
In Dumbledore’s copy of ‘The Wizard and the Hopping Pot’ - a short story written
by Beedle the Bard, Dumbledore scribbled in notes describing the state of the relationship
between muggles and witches/wizards in those ancient times:
"As the witch-hunts grew ever fiercer, wizarding families began to live double lives, using
charms of concealment to protect themselves and their families. By the seventeenth century,
any witch or wizard who chose to fraternise with Muggles became suspect, even an outcast
in his or her own community."
Witch hunts were a part of life that witches and wizards had to deal with- they were pushed
away by the muggle population, and forced to retreat in to their own world by using
things like concealment charms. The dubious state of affairs resulted in Salazar being
a strong proponent of having only pure-blood students at Hogwarts.- a philosophy that was
ultimately passed on to other Slytherins throughout the generations. His response to muggle-born
students attending the school was to build the chamber of secrets which concealed a basilisk
that was intended to purge the school of these students. I find the similarities between
Salazar and Herpo particularly interesting, and I find it even more interesting that Herpo
was responsible for the creation of the first-ever basilisk, that lived to be almost 900 years
old. I’m not sure how Salazar created his Basilisk, but Herpo’s method was actually
included in Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them, written by Newt Scamander:
"The first recorded Basilisk was bred by Herpo the Foul, a Greek Dark wizard and Parselmouth,
who discovered after much experimentation that a chicken egg hatched beneath a toad
would produce a gigantic serpent possessed of extraordinarily dangerous powers."
But, Basilisk creation is not where Herpo stopped, for years he continually pushed the
boundaries of magic- and ultimately became the first wizard ever to produce one of the
darkest forms of magic achievable - a horcrux. A horcrux is an object in which a dark witch
or wizard has imbued part of their soul. The ultimate purpose of creating a horcrux is
to achieve immortality. However, the truly sinister component of creating a horcrux is
that in order to produce one, you must MURDER someone.
We know too well the story of Voldemort, whose main objective in life was to achieve immortality,
ultimately creating 7 horcruxes in his pursuit of this dark path. Voldemort’s first Horcrux
was Marvolo Gaunt’s ring, which was produced after Voldemort murdered his own father , Tom
Riddle Sr in 1943. His second Horcrux was the diary of Tom riddle which was created
after Voldemort murdered Moaning Myrtle in 1943. His third horcrux was Helga Hufflepuff’s
cup which was created after the death of Hepzibah Smith sometime after 1946.
His fourth horcrux was Salazar Slytherin’s locket, which was created after Voldemort
murdered a ‘muggle tramp’. His fifth horcrux was Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem, which was
produced after Voldemort killed an Albanian peasant sometime after 1946. His sixth horcrux
was Harry POtter who became a horcrux after Voldemort’s failed murder attempt. And his
seventh and final horcrux was Nagini, who became a horcrux after the death of Bertha
Jorkins.
Voldemort is commonly associated with Horcruxes, as he was successfully able to produce so
many. But what a lot of people don’t realize is that Herpo the Foul did it first, and although
he only created 1, I can’t imagine what it must have taken to be the first in history
to figure out how to do it. Over the course of history, JK Rowling has said herself that
many witches and wizards had tried to create one-but none succeeded OR survived:
"...wizards would have been looking for ways to do exactly what Voldemort did for years.
And some of the ways they would have tried would’ve killed them. So, I imagine it-
well, they’re huge parallels- splitting the atom would be a very good parallel in
our world. . . . I do imagine that other people are going to have tried. I think it would
be naive not to think that people have been trying for a long time, and thought they succeeded
and hadn’t, or else maimed themselves or killed themselves in the attempt. It’s such
a dangerous thing to do."
Creating a Horcrux was such a sinister process, that even a book known as Magick Moste Evile,
a book providing detailed and advanced insights in to the dark arts, would not provide the
reader with any information on it:
"Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction —"
In fact, only one book did, and that book is known as ‘Secrets of the Darkest Art’,
as revealed by Hermione in the Deathly Hallows:
"This is the one that gives explicit instructions on how to make a Horcrux. Secrets of the Darkest
Art — it's a horrible book, really awful, full of evil magic..."
Herpo the Foul is perhaps one of the darkest wizards to have ever lived- and who knows,
maybe he’s even responsible for the Dementors. He was a truly twisted practitioner of dark
magic, and I certainly can understand how he got his name. He single-handedly pioneered
two of the darkest magical techniques known to wizardkind, and for that reason, it’s
easy to recognize how he would have secured his placing on a chocolate frog card. Herpo
the Foul was a monster.
And that’s it for this video! If you enjoy the content please like the video and subscribe
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YER A WIZARD ARRY