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‘Mythic Symbols in Harry Potter’
David Rafer
Although Rowling’s books contain a host of influences, the core of the Potter series is
inescapably mythic. Considered as a mythic hero, Harry encounters archetypal figures such as the
Wise Old Man, embodied by Dumbledore, and the Shadow, encountered in the form of Voldemort.
However, whilst ancient mythological materials are refashioned within Rowling’s modern fantasies,
the creation of a ‘higher’ or Tolkienesque Secondary World in which we encounter mystic realities
is undercut in Rowling’s wizard world by the intrusion of Muggle reality and the satirical mirror that
she holds up to the world of the reader. However, Tolkien isn’t necessarily a major influence, for
Rowling pointed out that Tolkien ‘created a whole new mythology’ (Rowling, ‘Transcript’),
something she doesn’t recognise in her own crafting of Potter’s magic world.
Rowling has commented on her childhood enjoyment of fantasies by Edith Nesbit and C.S.
Lewis. Although critical of Lewis’ treatment of awakening sexuality (Rowling, Interview with Lev
Grossman), she has previously praised his fantasy cycle, saying ‘Even now, if I was in a room with
one of the Narnia books, I would pick it up and re-read it like a shot’ (Shapiro 28–29). Narnia’s
mythic material is drawn from a range of different mythologies and was criticised by Tolkien for
producing a rather disjointed effect (Sayer 312–313). This criticism could also be levelled at
Rowling. For example, in Goblet of Fire Wagnerian references and northern myth emerge alongside
a sphinx and mermen from Southern mythologies and classical literature as well as the Bulgarian
veela (Colbert 245), Yorkshire grindylow and Irish leprechauns. Her collection of mythic elements
reflect the disjointed, fractured modern cultural experience. The Potter books trawl popular English
myth for hags, witchcraft, castle spectres and Arthurian influences as easily as they do Cerberus and
centaurs from Greek myth. Hagrid has to remove kelpies from a well in The Chamber of Secrets in
which Harry encounters an elf and a basilisk. Other mythical allusions include the manticore, hailing
from Asia, the kappas, originating in Japanese myth (Colbert 139), doxies, northern giants and
various varieties of dragons. The list grows with each work, extended by Rowling’s own creations
like Blast-Ended Skrewts, a cross between a manticore and a firecrab.
Such a host of mythical creatures begs the question as to their function within her tales,
though clearly her treatment of myth is eclectic. Rowling often exploits mythical creatures for their
humorous potential. We encounter a comic trickster house elf in Dobby whilst Gilderoy Lockhart’s
books sport titles that subvert and mock many sinister myths, such as Break with a Banshee and
Gadding with Ghouls, etc. Gnomes are common-or-garden pests and Cornish pixies run amok due to
Lockhart’s incompetence. Rowling creates a metaphor for the mythical. Seeing inevitably brings
with it believing generating both familiarity and explanation, but the mythical is forever out of reach
and in a sense without foundation and untrue. Things that Muggles believe to be mythical or unreal
have simply been removed from memory by the wizard ministry. This highlights an inner tension
within myth since myth can be perceived simply as lies and yet it is also viewed as having the power
to impart ‘higher’ truths. Whilst myth seems to have emerged from human irrationality and
primitive modes of thought, it also seems to have its own peculiar logic.
Another inner tension of myth occurs between myth and the real since theorists have argued
that myth arises from images emerging from real phenomena. John Pennington argues that

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Rowling’s ‘novels, for all their “magical” trappings, are prefigured in mundane reality, relying too
wholly on the real from which she simultaneously wants to escape’ (79). The wizard world is
Harry’s wish-fulfilment for escape from Muggledom and hence from a depressing ‘reality’, where
he is nothing special, to a magic world where he is a mythic hero whose adventures recall myth
theorist Joseph Campbell’s phases of the hero monomyth (Mills 5). However, Rowling’s wizards
have office jobs, bureaucratic laws and tabloid journalism. The plight of elves is politicised and
social concerns of background, race and class emerge, all of which seem curiously mundane
elements to intrude into an otherwise wondrous magic world. Rowling explained in a recent
interview that she wanted to ‘subvert the genre … Harry goes off into this magical world, and is it
any better than the world he’s left?’ (Interview with Lev Grossman). This may explain why it often
seems that Rowling’s mythic symbols are not quite mythic enough to satisfy readers who enjoy
Tolkien or Lewis. These writers offer clearly delineated spiritual fantasy worlds that rise above the
mundane instead of suggesting, as Rowling’s premise does, that the mythical and magical is simply
hidden amongst our own contemporary reality, like Sirius Black’s house squeezed between Muggle
houses, or an entire magic train platform existing in the gap between real platforms.
Each mythology has its own character, fashioned by people, place, purpose and worldview,
although a great deal of the inner content of myth remains obscured as myths have travelled and
permeated different cultures. These kinds of factors can create ambiguity in the interpretation of
mythic symbols. Kronzek and Kronzek note the way, for example, that ‘griffins came to symbolise
both good and evil’ (107) during the Middle Ages. The myth of the phoenix, although widely
viewed as a Christian symbol, originates in pagan Egyptian myth and is viewed as ‘a symbol of
immortality’ (Colbert 93). Whilst the phoenix is a fundamental symbolist structure in the Potter
books, there exists this curious sense of inner ambiguity inherent within the symbol (Kern 217–218).
Debate continues concerning Rowling’s religious intentions for the Potter works. For example,
Granger and Abanes view Potter as Christian and occult respectively but Rowling’s use of
symbolism seldom seems as overtly Christian as Lewis’ Narnian symbolism although there is the
mediation of love from Harry’s mother (PS 216). The phoenix rising from its ashes recalls
alchemical change (Kronzek and Kronzek 209) and the cycle of life renewal, but there’s also higher
spiritual meaning when Fawkes conjures hope, loyalty and healing and symbolises Dumbledore’s
covert Order of the Phoenix, the wizards on the side of good who fight the devilish evil of
Voldemort and his followers. The word ‘order’ has connotations of both a knightly order, to which
admission is an honour, and may well suggest religious fraternity. The phoenix myth provides an
image for rebirth, and the cycle of life and death, where Harry is the champion of life whilst
Voldemort is in flight from death. Both Harry and Voldemort have wands with a core feather drawn
from the same phoenix, though Voldemort’s wand is made of yew, an emblem of grief associated
with graveyards (recalling the yew tree in the Riddles’ graveyard in Goblet) whilst Harry’s wand-
wood is holly, associated with Christmas, the birth of Christ and salvation.
There are many kinds of symbol deployed throughout the Potter series, including those
relating to alchemy, the sacred, the numerological, the psychological, gender, power, time and
history (Gallardo-C and Smith, passim). On arriving at Hogwarts, Harry encounters the formal
symbols for the Hogwarts Houses. These symbols structure Harry’s life at the school since the
categorisation of the Sorting distributes students according to their inner qualities and natural
disposition and aptitudes into the four houses. The lion of Gryffindor symbolises courage, ‘daring,
nerve and chivalry’ (PS 88); the snake of Slytherin symbolises ambition; the badger symbolises

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Hufflepuff’s qualities of being loyal, hardworking and true; whilst the eagle symbolises the virtues
prized by Ravenclaw of wisdom, ‘wit and learning’ (PS 88). Even Harry’s teachers are ‘largely
symbolic’ (Eccleshare 24). Thus we have Professor Vector teaching Arithmancy and Professor
Pomona Sprout, teaching magical horticulture. Her first name is particularly apt considering that
Ovid wrote of Pomona that ‘No other Latin wood nymph could tend a garden more skilfully’ (328).
Myths often signify qualities in Rowling’s characters, thus Minerva McGonagall’s first name ‘refers
to Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom and the arts’ (Colbert 172) and Sirius Black’s given name
reminds us of ‘the Dog Star … in the constellation known as the Great Dog’ (41) that had
significance in Egyptian mythology for the migration of the soul after death.
Some of Rowling’s symbols can be read as simply standing for inner human qualities. We
might consider that lust is symbolised by her use of the veela, for example. The boggart in Prisoner
of Azkaban is ‘a symbol for fear itself, and something the hero must overcome’ (Kern 201). Rowling
allegorises Peter Pettigrew’s rat-like nature through his physical transformation into a rat. She also
leaves a suggestion of the rat about him, following his transformation back into human form after
which she writes that ‘His skin looked grubby, almost like Scabbers’s fur, and something of the rat
lingered around his pointed nose, his very small, watery eyes’ (PoA 269). Inner qualities are given
visual allegorical expression when Hagrid fires his umbrella/wand at Dudley in Philosopher’s Stone,
intending to turn Dudley into a pig but all that happens is that a pig’s tail appears on Dudley
because, ‘he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn’t much left ter do’ (48). Dudley’s inner
selfishness has already become outwardly expressed through his appearance as Rita Skeeter’s
animagus form of a bug can also be read in this way as an expression of her inner personality.
Rowling’s use of the Hippogriff serves as an interesting example of a more complex
symbolism. A Hippogriff previously appeared in Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1516) and
also in a throw-away comment about crossing a horse with a griffin made by Virgil (Colbert 131).
For Edmund Kern, Buckbeak
might be read as a symbol of human potential or the pursuit of dreams. Churlishly
taunting human beings, the hippogriff becomes tame and loyal once mounted, capable
of soaring quickly and to the highest altitudes … (eventually) Buckbeak literally
becomes the vehicle upon which Harry and Hermione successfully pursue a hopeless
cause. Eschewing faintheartedness, they need only dare to try (201).
This reading evokes a higher mythic facet to Buckbeak’s symbolic power. However, Rowling’s
treatment of the Hippogriff expands upon its literary myth. Hagrid’s ‘Blue Peter’ approach to the
care of Hippogriffs, turns Ariosto’s aspirational mythical creature into a ‘real’ animal that needs to
be tended more like a highly-strung thoroughbred race-horse than the mythical creature that Ariosto
used to transport Astolfo to the moon. When trying to save Buckbeak, Ron Weasley is found
reading ‘The Handbook of Hippogriff Psychology and Fowl or Foul? A Study of Hippogriff
Brutality’ (PoA 221). Rowling thus transforms an initially elusive mythical beast into a character
with form, shape and identity. Similarly, Professor Lupin is revealed to be a werewolf but, by that
time, he has become established as a friend and ally to Harry. Thus a curious sense of ‘otherness’
associated with confronting the mythic is reduced and lost from the reading experience.
A great deal of the fun of reading Rowling’s books lies in the interpretation of her
symbolism. However, the question arises as to the extent that her symbols move beyond allegorical
explanation and open themselves to notions of ‘higher’ mythical radiance. In his introduction to the
allegory The Pilgrim’s Regress, C.S. Lewis proposed that ‘when allegory is at its best, it approaches

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myth, which must be grasped with the imagination, not with the intellect’ (19). He explained that if
his allegorical symbols in Pilgrim’s Regress such as North and South and Mr Sensible
have some touch of mythical life, then no amount of ‘explanation’ will quite catch up
with their meaning. It is the sort of thing you cannot learn from definition : you must
rather get to know it as you get to know a smell or a taste, the ‘atmosphere’ of a
family or a country town, or the personality of an individual (19).
For Lewis myth ‘is a higher thing than an allegory’ (Letters 458) because reason and rationalisation
have limits that can be surpassed through imagination. Lewis maintained that myth gives us ‘a story
out of which ever varying meanings will grow for different readers and in different ages’ whilst into
an allegory ‘a man can put only what he already knows’ (458).
A highly symbolic passage emerges in Philosopher’s Stone when Harry encounters
Voldemort feeding upon a unicorn; this act symbolising the ultimate evil of the wizards feeding
upon innocence and purity. For David Colbert ‘Even in Harry’s wizard world, with so many
wondrous beasts, the unicorn is a symbol of the sacred’ (239) and the killer of the unicorn is cursed
from the moment the unicorn’s blood touched his lips. The centaurs inform Hagrid that Mars, the
symbol of war or wrath, is ‘Unusually bright’ (PS 185). The centaur Firenze hopes the planets have
been read wrongly on this occasion, implying that Harry’s fate is predetermined. Cirlot observes that
Mars’ symbolism indicates a ‘necessity for the shedding of blood’ (204), significant for Harry who
will be forced to shed blood for Voldemort in Goblet. However, the higher mythical power of the
‘pure and defenceless’ unicorn is undercut when Harry acknowledges that he’s ‘only used the horn
and tail-hair in Potions’ (PS 188). A sense of the commoditisation of this sacred mythical creature
thus emerges, prefigured by unicorn horns for sale in Diagon Alley at 21 Galleons each (62) and that
recurs with the greed that Slughorn displays when he realises the commercial potential of unicorn
tail-hair in Half-Blood Prince (455). The wizards have in fact made a commodity of such things as
unicorns, dragons and other mythical creatures, buying and selling them within magic products.
It is hard to draw much in the way of awe and mystery, the ‘otherness’ that should be evoked
by the scene in the Forest which Julia Eccleshare criticises because ‘the symbolism of the dead
unicorn stand(s) out as an unusual example of Rowling failing to inject magic into a scene which,
closely resembling much of C.S. Lewis, falls surprisingly flat’ (24). Rowling projects these
happenings as though we are watching shapes moving at a distance rather than emphasizing the
immediacy and intimacy of Voldemort’s spiritual transgression. Earlier in Philosopher’s Stone
Hagrid’s explanation that Harry’s scar is ‘what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh’
(45) is muted by Snape’s put-down that Harry is simply ‘Our new – celebrity’ (101), ‘celebrity’
being both part of Harry’s hero myth and the blight inflicted upon him by Voldemort in perpetuity.
Rowling follows traditional uses for dragons, having them guard golden eggs in the
Triwizard tournament and hinting that they guard Gringotts’s vaults in book 1, but by book 5 they
are the butt of her joke about dragon pox and in Half-Blood Prince the Weasley twins wear
dragonskin jackets at Dumbledore’s funeral. In a similar vein Cerberus in Philosopher’s Stone
serves as a guard dog but his mythic power is lessened by Hagrid’s naming of ‘Fluffy’, suggesting a
pet poodle rather than the ravening guard of Hades encountered by the heroes of Greek myth. Again,
as with the scene in the Forbidden Forest, this mythic encounter struggles to rise to that curiously
Lewisian notion of receiving ‘the Event’ of a myth that evokes awe and has a power that is ‘extra-
literary’ (Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism 48). Lewis viewed this special kind of myth as ‘awe-

5. Rafer 5
inspiring … (and) numinous’ (44), drawing upon Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy for his rather
idiosyncratic analysis of myth in Experiment in Criticism (1961). Myth, in this sense, ‘is not
applicable to The Lord of the Rings or to The Odyssey or to some other forms of original myth’
(Purtill 13). Instead Lewis ‘defined an interesting category, something related to myth, that might be
called the “numinous idea”’ (13). Many works that are mythic fall short of some of Lewis’
characteristics for this kind of numinous quality. For Lewis numinous myth is always grave,
something that Rowling’s treatment seldom provides, and deals ‘with impossibles and
preternaturals’ (An Experiment in Criticism 44). These criteria seem more in keeping with such
creations as the thestrals who are uncannily visible to those who have witnessed death. They are
described as bat-winged, horse-like, reptilians
completely fleshless, their black coats clinging to their skeletons, of which every bone
was visible. Their heads were dragonish, and their pupil-less eyes white and staring.
Wings sprouted from each wither — vast, black leathery wings that looked as though
they ought to belong to giant bats. Standing still and quiet in the gathering gloom, the
creatures looked eerie and sinister (OotP 178).
Thestrals belong to that category of Rowling creations that includes Dementors and Voldemort,
since they retain a garish nightmare quality that feeds their mythic power and works to convey
otherness even though they exist more fully as psychological archetypes.
As mythic symbols these creations are pulled in different directions, being mainly
psychologised but also striving through their solemnity and archetypal significance to rise beyond
this kind of reduction. They are symbols from Rowling’s own Potter mythology and drawn from her
psyche but these kinds of symbols also live in our deeper inherited Jungian ‘collective unconscious’
(Jung 67). We thus find the sacramental symbolism of the phoenix and unicorn alongside deeply
psychological symbols such as Dementors which for Rowling ‘symbolise the debilitating effects of
depression’ (Kern 201). However, Dementors are not confined solely to the realms of psychology.
Lupin explains that ultimately ‘they clamp their jaws upon the mouth of the victim and — and suck
out his soul’ (PoA 183), a fate worse than death because
You can exist without your soul … as long as your brain and heart are still working.
But you’ll have no sense of self any more, no memory, no … anything. There’s no
chance at all of recovery. You’ll just - exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone
for ever … lost’ (183).
However, Lupin doesn’t refer to this attack upon human spirituality as consigning victims to
damnation. Unlike the Baptismal death of the old self before the birth of the new, dementors give a
permanent loss of self although Lupin’s explanation never encroaches upon the ‘Platonic concept of
the soul as a metaphysical entity created by God’ (Badham qtd. in Richardson and Bowden 548).
Although Dementors allegorise a mental illness, they are countered by a curiously psychoanalytic
yet also more numinous mythic symbol. In the scene where Dementors attack Harry by the lake in
Prisoner of Azkaban, Rowling counters their reductivism with ‘a silvery light’ that gains in intensity
until it is as ‘bright as a unicorn’ (282). This patronus, or guardian, is conjured from a wizard’s inner
depths. Harry’s patronus takes the form of a stag, the same animal-shape adopted by his animagus
father. Harry’s patronus is recognised by Dumbledore as Harry’s father when Dumbledore witnesses
it at a quidditch match, Dumbledore later explaining to Harry, that ‘you did see your father last
night, Harry … you found him inside yourself’ (312). Sirius’s soul is thus saved by what Freud

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termed the ‘return of the repressed’ which in this case is Harry’s murdered father James Potter. The
theme of the murdered father also motivates events in Goblet with Barty Crouch junior viewing the
slaying of his father as an echo of Voldemort’s murder of his hated Muggle father. Sirius had
intended to commit the murder he’d been falsely imprisoned for but, thanks to Harry ‘saving’ his
soul, Sirius is not diminished by this act and later crosses the veil, symbolising the division between
life and death, in The Order of the Phoenix with his soul undiminished.
Considering the creation of Lord Voldemort, the fact that fearful wizards prefer to call
Harry’s nemesis ‘You Know Who’ emphasizes the demonisation of Voldemort. In a world where
mythical conceptions are real, Voldemort is evil incarnate. The power of fear is one of Voldemort’s
key strengths, tying in to the power of irrationality in myth and the way that ‘Myth is an offspring of
emotion and its emotional background imbues all its productions with its own specific color’
(Cassirer, An Essay on Man 82). However, this aspect of the wizards’ irrationality contrasts with
Voldemort’s own manipulative reasoning since he argues Quirrell, for example, out of believing in
the concept of good and evil whilst promoting the more Hegelian view that there is only power. The
symbols of the boggart and the grim change and lose their power over Harry after he faces up to the
fear they present and thus he breaks the emotional hold that they have over him. In contrast, other
symbols grow through the books as greater emotion is vested in them. Thus Voldemort gains
appreciable mythic power and reality with each new book. Hagrid, for example, explains that people
feared thestrals as ‘bad omens’ because they ‘didn’ understand them’ (OoP 396) whereas Neville
Longbottom sees but doesn’t fear them.
Voldemort’s mythical symbolic properties grow through both his evil acts and the inclusion
of other symbols. Symbols associated with Voldemort include darkness, the division of light and
dark into good and evil respectively being an entirely mythical conception with no basis in
rationalism, and the snake that is the emblem of Slytherin house. The venom of the snake Nagini
keeps Voldemort alive in book 4, Nagini recalls Indian myths of the naga snakes (Colbert 163–4)
whilst Voldemort’s very appearance becomes snakelike as his soul is corrupted. His specific symbol
is the Dark Mark with which he identifies his disciples, a ‘version of the Devil’s Mark, a notion
from the Middle Ages … The stamp that makes these marks is nothing less than the Devil’s talon’
(Colbert 59–60). This symbol is invested with specifically mythical modes of thought since the Dark
Mark taints all who submit to its impression, like a brand of evil. Voldemort also leaves the mark of
a scar upon Harry’s head which symbolises more than the psychological damage he’s caused by the
murder of Harry’s parents. Critics Gallardo-C and Smith identify the scar as Harry’s ‘magical third
eye’ suggesting that it
functions not only as an outward symbol of the protagonist’s supposed power against
evil, but also operates as a reminder, like the mark of Cain, of the very evil it protects
against. The symbolism runs even deeper when considering the Hindu god Shiva —
the destroyer of all material forms — whose vertical third eye, centered in his
forehead, “blazes with the fire of ten million suns, and can consume any creature with
flame” (197).
However, Voldemort continues to be most easily read as the Jungian archetypal Shadow
figure (Nikolajeva; Merrill). Jung wrote that ‘The devil is a variant of the “shadow” archetype, i.e.,
of the dangerous aspect of the unrecognised dark half of the personality’ (Jung 78–79). Harry and
Voldemort have similar powers, half-blood lineage, similar backgrounds, upbringing and

7. Rafer 7
appearance. Even Tom Riddle notes the ‘strange likenesses between us’ (CS 233) during their
encounter in the chamber of Salazar Slytherin. As if to confirm his identity as a Jungian
mythologem, Voldemort identifies himself in Philosopher’s Stone as ‘Mere shadow and vapour … I
have form only when I can share another’s body … but there have always been those willing to let
me into their hearts and minds’ (PS 213). We might read Voldemort as Harry’s Freudian desire to
kill his own father and replace him in his mother’s affections. However, in Goblet the Shadow
‘emerges from the cauldron’s womb’ and becomes ‘magically blood-related to Harry, a son to Harry
as father’, as Harry himself is forced into giving Voldemort physical form once more (Mills 4).
Even as a largely psychological symbol, Voldemort’s significance continues to feel greater.
His mythical life lives beyond the limitation of simply being part of Harry’s repressed sexual desire
because Voldemort has a mythic life beyond Freudian, or Jungian, interpretation as the Cave scene
in Half-Blood Prince suggests. Here Dumbledore becomes Harry’s Underworld guide and ferryman
when they cross over a black Acheron-like expanse to seek one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes. His
victims rising from their submergence evoke a Dantean vision after Harry forces Dumbledore to
drink a mysterious draught that could be the Draught of Living Death that Snape teaches Harry
about in their first ever potions class. This draught induces profound sleep indistinguishable from
death and thus gives the cave scene a suggestion of the myth of the Cave of Somnus where also
dwelt Thanatos. The Draught’s ingredients including asphodel, and in Greek myth ‘the first region
of Tartarus contains the cheerless Asphodel Fields’ (Graves 120–1). Entry to Voldemort’s Cave is
gained by blood, recalling that the underworld gods’ ‘one delight is in libations of blood poured to
them by the living’ (120-1). These myths form facets of Voldemort’s greater resonance and magic
dimension, through his participation in their patterns.
Thus we have considered some of the curious tensions within the symbols of Rowling’s art.
Voldemort is both the embodiment of evil, a devil incarnate for wizards, and also, as Hagrid and
Dumbledore explain to Harry, simply a wizard that went bad. Even though Harry appears to be
locked into a mythic struggle that is celestially predetermined, Rowling suggests that Harry has the
freedom to make choices. When all is said by the Sorting Hat, he chooses to go into Gryffindor and
not to succumb to his Slytherin/dark side, and this is important because, for Rowling, evil in Potter
comes squarely down to the choices of individuals. They thus must bear responsibility for their own
actions.
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