Hey everyone,
Welcome to another installment of Harry Potter Theory. In this video, we’re going to be
discussing a character that we never actually see on screen, but is an integral part of
Harry potter Canon and the Harry Potter universe. I am of course talking about Isolt Sayre.
In the Harry Potter universe Isolt Sayre was an Irish witch born sometime around the year
1603 who spent most of her early childhood in the valley of Coomloughra, County Kerry.
However, what I feel shouldn’t be overlooked is that Isolt, like many of the other characters
I’ve made videos on recently, also existed in our own folklore. Like Merlin and Morgana,
Isolt existed in Arthurian legend.
The Iseult from our own folklore is famously known from the story of Tristan and Iseult,
a tragedy following the romantic engagements of an irish princess and a cornish Knight.
The story follows Tristan, who, after defeating the Irish knight Morholt, travels to Ireland
to bring back Iseult for his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, to marry. Along the way, however,
they ingest a love potion which causes the pair to fall madly in love. In some versions,
they ingest the potion accidentally; in others, the potion's maker instructs Iseult to share
it with Mark, but she deliberately gives it to Tristan instead. Although Iseult marries
Mark, she and Tristan are forced by the spell to seek one another, as lovers. The king's
advisors repeatedly endeavour to have the pair tried for adultery, but the couple continually
use trickery to preserve their façade of innocence.
It has been expressed that the narrative of this story predates and most likely influenced
the Arthurian romance of Lancelot and Guinevere, and had a substantial impact on Western art
and literature as a whole. In fact, though it has not been explicitly stated anywhere,
I would imagine that this story may have been an inspiration for Rowling when she came up
with the story of Voldemort’s conception, as his mother, Merope Gaunt, used a love potion
on his father.
Iseult, aka The Irish princess aka Iseult of Ireland was the daughter of King Anguish
of Ireland and Queen Iseult the Elder. Though Iseult may be painted as magical in some adaptations
of folklore, she is generally considered to be non-magical. However, she was a very skilled
physician, in fact, she was the best in the world. Could her skill as a physician possibly
have been the result of magic? That’s entirely up to us to decide.
The Isolt in Harry Potter is QUITE different than the Iseult from our own folklore, but
there are definitely SOME similarities and it’s clear that the ISOLT we know was based
off of this enigmatic figure in Arthurian Legend. I started to think about Isolt’s
character just recently while I was working on the Morgana Le fay video. In the middle
of making it, it occurred to me that Morgana, arguably the most powerful witch to have ever
lived, may have been an ancestor of Isolt.
Morgana aka Morgan aka Morgana Le Fay is a tough pseudo-historical figure to summarize
because, across many pieces of literature, she has been re-introduced with so many different
names, titles, and abilities. But, just to provide you with a rough summary - Morgana
was a powerful witch from Arthurian legend known for her moral ambivalence.
And in Harry Potter folklore, JK Rowling confirmed that Isolt was the direct descendant of an
irish witch named Morrigan:
“Her father, William Sayre, was a direct descendant of the famous Irish witch Morrigan,
an Animagus whose creature form was a crow. William nicknamed his daughter ‘Morrigan’
for her affinity for all natural things when she was young.”
Morrigan is a figure from Irish mythology that is commonly regarded as a goddess of
battle and war. Though the connection has never been solidified, there has been much
speculation by various researchers and authors of fiction that ‘Morrigan’ is in fact
linked with Morgana. This could mean that Isolt was the direct descendant of MORGANA
LE FAY, the most powerful witch to have ever lived, and Merlin’s nemesis. Whether this
connection works in accordance with real folklore is unclear, but it does seem to work rather
well in Harry Potter folklore, particularly as Morgana was an animagus, AND a known skilled
practitioner of healing magic.
Anyway, let’s get back to the story of ISOLT from Harry Potter folklore. Isolt came from
two pure-blood wizarding families, the Sayres and the Gaunts. Her father was William Sayre,
and her mother was Rionach Gaunt who came from the house of Gaunt, you may recognize
the name Gaunt, because that’s the same family that Voldemort came from, and the same
family that were descendants of Salazar Slytherin.
Isolt had an idyllic childhood. Her family lived in the beautiful countryside, everyone
was happy and healthy, and her parents had a good relationship with their muggle neighbours.
It has been expressed that Rionach and William would help their Muggle neighbours with magical
cures for humans and livestock whenever possible. However, this idyllic life didn’t last forever,
as when she was five years old both of her parents died during an attack on the family
home.
Isolt was ‘rescued’ from the fire by her mother’s estranged sister, Gormlaith Gaunt,
and Isolt was taken to the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or ‘Hag’s Glen’, where
she was raised from then on. However, as Isolt grew older she came to the realization that
her aunt wasn’t her saviour, she was in fact the murderer of her parents.
"Unstable and cruel, Gormlaith was a fanatical pure-blood who believed that her sister’s
helpfulness to her Muggle neighbours, was setting Isolt upon a dangerous path to intermarriage
with a non-magical man."
Gormlaith disapproved of the way that Isolt was being raised by her parents, and, in an
effort to set Isolt on the ‘right path’, she knew that she would need to take drastic
action. She believed that by murdering Isolt’s parents and raising her as her own, she could
get her back on track. As Gormlaith hailed from the Gaunt family,
she came from a long line of pure-blood radical supremacists. Because of this, extreme prejudice
was ingrained in her mentality. This meant that she could not sit idly by while Isolt
was raised in such a pure, accepting manner.
“Gormlaith refused to allow Isolt to take up her place at Hogwarts when the letter arrived,
on the basis that Isolt would learn more at home than at a dangerously egalitarian establishment
full of Mudbloods. However, Gormlaith herself had attended Hogwarts, and told Isolt a great
deal about the school. In the main, she did this to denigrate the place, lamenting that
Salazar Slytherin’s plans for the purity of wizardkind had not been fulfilled. To her
niece, isolated and mistreated by an aunt she believed to be at least half insane, Hogwarts
sounded like a kind of paradise and she spent much of her teens fantasising about it.”
And, for 12 long years, Isolt was trapped under Gormlaith’s roof, isolated from the
world and suppressed in every way by her evil aunt. However, on one fateful day, Isolt was
eventually able to escape by stealing her aunt’s wand. She knew that she would need
to travel FAR FAR away, as Gormlaith would inevitably come looking for her. Because of
this, Isolt eventually found herself masquerading as a muggle boy named Elias Story on a ship
called the Mayflower. Isolt eventually found herself in America amongst some of the earliest
settlers. Alone in a new country, Isolt was unsure of what her next move would be, but
she eventually decided to head to the mountains. After spending some time in the mountains,
Isolt eventually came across a creature native to America known as a Pukwudgie.
“Pukwudgies are short, grey-faced, large-eared creatures distantly related to the European
goblin. Fiercely independent, tricky and not over-fond of humankind (whether magical or
mundane), it possesses its own powerful magic. Pukwudgies hunt with deadly, poisonous arrows
and enjoy playing tricks on humans.”
Isolt came across the Pukwudgie when it was being attacked by another creature known as
a hidebehind: "A vicious, nocturnal beast adept at both disguise and disembowelling.
The result of accidental breeding between a Demiguise and a ghoul."
She ended up saving the Pukwudgie’s life, and, in return, the Pukwudgie vowed to serve
her until he had an opportunity to properly repay his debt to her. The Pukwudgie refused
to give Isolt his real name, which led to her dubbing him ‘William’, after her father.
This was the beginning of their adventures together. While wandering in the woods one
day, Isolt and William came across a family who were being attacked by the same Hidebehind
that had attacked William. It was a family of four, two parents with their two boys,
and by the time Isolt and William showed up, the parents were already as good as dead.
After the Hidebehind had been defeated, Isolt determined that the boys, though they were
injured, still stood a chance at surviving. In an effort to help save their lives, Isolt
and William took them home and Isolt began nursing them back to health. At this point
in time, Isolt was so furious with William and his reluctance to help save the boys,
that she told him that she no longer had any need of him, and he left.
Though she had lost her Pukwudgie companion, Isolt had gained 2 new ones- two boys named
Chadwick and Webster. While the boys were injured for quite some time, they did slowly
begin to regain their strength, and Isolt was delighted when she found out that the
two boys were in fact, magical. When Isolt felt that the boys were in good enough health
to be left on their own for a few hours, she went out in search of a proper burial site
for their parents. And it was while searching for this burial sight that Isolt came across
a man by the name of James Steward.
Steward, who knew the Boot family, had gone into the forest to search for them. While
digging the graves for Mr and Mrs Boot, Steward noticed a wand on Mr. Boots person, and, out
of curiosity, gave it a wave. Because Steward was not magical, the wand rebelled, and it
sent him flying backwards through the air.
“He woke in a small shelter of branches and animal skins to find himself being nursed
by Isolt. She could not hide her magic from him in such a confined space, particularly
when she was brewing potions to aid the Boot boys’ recovery and using her wand to hunt.
Isolt intended to Obliviate James once he was over his concussion and to send him back
to the colony at Plymouth.”
After James had recovered, Isolt was overjoyed to have another adult around. They formed
a connection with one another very quickly, and, shortly after meeting, they began to
build a house together on top of Mount Greylock. After the cottage had been completed, Isolt
named it ‘Ilvermorny’ after the cottage that she was born in. With every day that
passed, Isolt told herself that she would obliviate James, but, eventually, she came
to the realization that they were in love, and instead they just married.
Isolt and James raised the Boot boys like their own children, and while they were growing
up Isolt would tell them stories of a magical school named Hogwarts. The boys longed to
attend a magical school, but, Isolt, who knew that returning to Ireland could result in
an altercation with Gormlaith, told the boys that she would start a school of magic for
them right there in their cottage- the same cottage that she dubbed Ilvermorny.
As they wanted to base the school off of Hogwarts, the boys were insistent that the school have
four different houses- and on that same night the small and unusual family of misfits began
brainstorming ideas for what these houses would be called. They eventually decided that
they would name the houses after their favourite magical beasts, and so, Thunderbird, Wampus,
Horned Serpent and Pukwudgie were born.
When Webster turned 11, it was time for his magical studies to begin. By this time, word
had spread of the family’s little cottage, and the ‘school’ that was being formed-
and just by word of mouth their first school year had a couple of students from outside
of the family. Year by year, however, the school grew, and by the year 1634, the school
had grown beyond any of their expectations.
What started as a small-scale operation inside of a little cottage eventually became a massive
educational staple in North America, and the cottage expanded in to a huge castle which
could accommodate student boarding. Witches and wizards were sent there from all over
North America, and by the nineteenth century, Ilvermony had built the reputation that it
enjoys today.
“Isolt and James both lived to be over 100. They had seen the cottage of Ilvermorny become
a granite castle, and they died in the knowledge that their school was now so famous that magical
families all over North America were clamouring to educate their children there. They had
hired staff, they had built dormitories, they had concealed their school from No-Maj eyes
by clever enchantments: in short, the girl who had dreamed of attending Hogwarts had
helped found the North American equivalent.”
And that’s the story of Isolt and Ilvermorny. I hope you guys enjoyed the video, if you
have video suggestions let me down in the comment section below.
Until next time
YER A WIZARD ARRY