Quidditch Through the Ages

In her opening passages, Rowling infuses Quidditch Through the Ages with humor and historical realism, just as she does throughout the Harry Potter series. By attributing the foreword to Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, the author bridges this work to the Harry Potter series, helping young readers feel more familiar with this new style of storytelling. Dumbledore’s foreword sets the tone for this work, too, by being both informative and funny. For instance, Dumbledore warns the reader to treat the book well, or they might fall victim to one of the librarian’s jinxes: “Madam Pince has been known to add unusual jinxes to the books in her care. I myself doodled absent-mindedly on a copy of Theories of Transubstantial Transfiguration last year and next moment found the book beating me fiercely around the head” (2). Dumbledore’s fondness for Quidditch and belief in its positive effects establishes the book’s theme of Unity and Celebration Through Quidditch. The headmaster writes, “As we have developed the game of Quidditch, so it has developed us; Quidditch unites witches and wizards from all walks of life, bringing us together to share moments of exhilaration, triumph, and (for those who support the Chudley Cannons) despair” (2). By portraying Quidditch as a unifying force in the wizarding world Dumbledore suggests that the game isn’t just important to athletes and fans, but to wizarding society as a whole.

Rowling deepens the realism of the work and the world it portrays by creating a character, Kennilworthy Whisp, to narrate the rest of the book and interpret the historical records. This leaves the reader with the impression that Whisp is actually a knowledgeable wizard investigating real events. Whisp writes like a real historian; he refers to different kinds of sources and then explains the valuable information they reveal. For instance, he discusses an old manuscript and what it tells us about medieval broom riding:

Records show that witches and wizards in Europe were using flying broomsticks as early as AD 962. A German illuminated manuscript of this period shows three warlocks dismounting from their brooms with looks of exquisite discomfort on their faces. Guthrie Lochrin, a Scottish wizard writing in 1107, spoke of the ‘splinter-filled buttocks and bulging piles,’ he suffered after a short broom ride from Montrose to Arbroath (4).

By filling her historical sources and anecdotes with realistic detail, Rowling establishes her theme of The History and Evolution of Wizarding Society. By referring to primary sources, legal codes, and legends, Rowling helps the reader envision how the wizarding world has changed over the centuries. For example, she refers to a wide variety of primary sources, including manuscripts, letters, personal diaries, artifacts, and paintings. These help the reader imagine witches’ and wizards’ evolving lifestyles, abilities, and beliefs over the centuries, adding to the historicity of the whole wizarding world. By citing sources, the author also adds energy and variety to the text, as each written source reflects the perspective of a new character. For example, the reader can easily imagine the 11th-century witch Gertie Keddle as a homebody who hated the disturbance caused by early Quidditch players. Keddle writes in her diary about the “pointless rubbish” of the game, saying, “That lot from across the marsh have been at it again. Playing a stupid game on their broomsticks. A big leather ball landed in my cabbages. I hexed the man who came for it” (17).

While the wizarding world’s past is different from human society, there are broad parallels that also add to the realism of this fictional history. Much like human history, Rowling depicts medieval wizarding culture as more violent, less regulated, and less rational than in the present day. For instance, one of the early broom sports, Creaothceann, had a high fatality rate because of the dangerous gameplay in which players raced around with cauldrons strapped to their heads, catching falling rocks as they went. This risky game was “the supreme test of manliness and courage” (10). However, over the centuries, people’s attitudes toward this kind of risk-taking changed, and the Ministry of Magic made playing it illegal in 1762. By including such anecdotes, Rowling depicts witches and wizards’ historical ages as connected to human society and portrays wizarding culture as similarly dynamic and ever-changing. 

Just as the Quidditch and wizard behavior evolves, so too do objects in the wizarding world. The narrative explains how brooms are improved to become comfortable and aerodynamic, which gives way to flying for pleasure. Readers of the Harry Potter series will recall the competition among Quidditch players to have the latest, greatest, and fastest broom for use in the game, an indication that the evolution is ongoing. 

While there have always been similarities between wizards and humans, these chapters show that the wizarding world has always struggled to remain undetected by humans and has perceived humans as a threat to their society and magic. These discussions add to Rowling’s theme of Protecting the Wizarding World. For instance, wizards first developed brooms for flying to make their magic as discreet as possible. The author explains that medieval witches and wizards were “shrewd enough to see that their Muggle neighbors would seek to exploit their powers if they knew their full extent” (3-4). By describing Muggles in these negative terms, the author shows that the wizarding world felt very wary of humans, which explains why anti-Muggle rules became such an important part of the wizarding world.