Book 1 Chapter 4, The Keeper of the Keys

104 – The Keeper of the Keys

I’m a bit tired today, so I’m listening to the Steven Universe score while I read (which is one piece of children’s media I can recommend unequivocally), and I’ve got some cocoa to warm me up. Harry is also able to get warmed up by the stranger who appeared at their island hut and turned out to be the only person capable of starting a fire. Of course, this is Hagrid, everyone’s favorite hairy giant, who solemnly delivers exposition on the wizarding world in between cooking food for Harry, fat shaming Dudley, and screaming (justifiably) at the Dursleys.

Something that has always bothered me a little bit is the phonetic spelling of Hagrid’s accent. As a writer, you have two basic ways of indicating someone’s accent: word choice and phonetic writing. For example, when Hagrid says, “It’s them as should be sorry,” an American reader would never think this is someone with an American accent, because we wouldn’t choose the words “as should be.” The phonetic option changes the spelling of words to demonstrate how they’re being pronounced. In this case, “you” (or “ye”?) becomes “yeh,” “to” becomes “ter,” “getting” becomes “gettin’,” etc. Neither method is inherently superior, but it should be noted that if only one character’s speech gets the phonetic treatment, then that person is marked as Other. It subtly implies that this person is not like us. Plus, since most people are taught that there is one correct way to spell words, the incorrect spelling of one character’s words can imply that the way they speak is somehow inferior.

I know very little about the different British accents, so I tried to do a little research. In one interview, J.K. Rowling says that Hagrid’s accent comes from the West Country. I had to look up where that is, but an archived page on the British Library website says, “A very traditional feature of West Country dialect is the use of the second person pronoun, ye… In the earliest recorded versions of English ye was used exclusively as a plural form. It later served as a respectful form (like modern French ‘vous’), contrasting with the familiar form thou (modern French ‘tu’), although in West Country dialect it took the role of object pronoun.” It strikes me as odd that Rowling chose to write Hagrid as saying “yeh,” which reads to me as a misspelling, rather than the traditional “ye.”

Another Rowling interview specifies the Forest of Dean, which is on the border between England and Wales. A 1999 article from the newspaper Scotland on Sunday describes that Hagrid’s “dropped word-endings are a Chepstow speciality. In shape he's modelled on the Welsh chapter of Hells Angels who'd swoop down on the town and hog the bar, ‘huge mountains of leather and hair’.” (Note that this article came out before any of the movies were released, so it’s only referring to the books.) Clearly, to that journalist at least, Hagrid read as Welsh (Chepstow being the name of a Welsh town).

Now I’m really getting into territory that I don’t know much about, so I’ll refer to someone more knowledgeable. On his YouTube channel, Dr. Gwilym Morus-Baird (Ph.D from Bangor University’s School of Welsh, according to his website) says this:

“Generally speaking, the oppression of the Welsh up until the 20^th century is carried out by the English establishment, which is an amalgamation of the aristocracy of England incorporating the aristocracy of Wales and Scotland. And to this day, you know, the English establishment doesn’t look favorably upon the Welsh language. The English establishment has very successfully killed off pretty much all of the other Celtic speaking areas. There’s a little bit of Gaelic speaking in Ireland, a little bit more Gaelic speaking in Scotland, Manx disappeared and has been revived, Cornish disappeared and has been revived. Somehow, miraculously, the Welsh language and culture survives, but we have lost half a million Welsh speakers in the last century, so things are by no means easy for Welsh culture at the minute.”

“Celtic Spirituality and Cultural Appropriation”

I recommend watching the full video for more cultural and historical context.

When I was looking through this channel, another video caught my eye called “The Giant's Beard in Welsh Folklore.” I couldn’t help thinking of Hagrid. I won’t go too far off on a tangent here, but briefly, Dr. Gwilym Morus-Baird talks about the beard as a sign of honor and power. He also mentions the association of giants with ancient stone monuments, saying that giants in folklore can be seen “essentially embodying this very ancient personality. The ancients were seen as great giants. They were seen as all-powerful noblemen and women who were responsible for moving these great stones across the Welsh landscape.”

Obviously, these two videos have nothing to do with Harry Potter, but I do think they can help fill in some of the cultural context that I’m missing as an American. The description in the second video of giants as “all-powerful noblemen and women” seems especially at odds with Hagrid (and even more at odds with giants we’ll encounter later, although again I’m trying not to get ahead of myself). Hagrid is frequently described in animalistic or dehumanizing language. This chapter describes his “shaggy mane of hair” and “eyes…like black beetles,” while back in the first chapter, he was “so wild,” and he “let out a howl like a wounded dog” when he said goodbye to Harry.

Hagrid also tends to be a bit dimwitted. For example, in this chapter, he tries to turn Dudley into a pig and fails, and then immediately tells Harry to keep it a secret. What was he planning on doing if he’d succeeded? I can’t imagine any way it would have gone unnoticed; he almost certainly would have done time in Azkaban, unless Dumbledore managed to cover it up. Again, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but later on there will be a sense that the children are the ones who have to babysit Hagrid.

It all adds up to a pretty questionable portrayal. To be fair, there’s never any discussion of Hagrid’s nationality in the books, and it seems as though Rowling herself doesn’t think of Hagrid as Welsh. But a reader could quite reasonably make that conclusion, and be left with a dehumanizing depiction of a persecuted minority.

I feel like I can’t say too much here because I’m not very knowledgeable on the subject, but I also couldn’t let it pass by without comment. On a personal, emotional level, I have complicated feelings about Hagrid. He’s warm and caring, which Harry desperately needs, and he gives the answers the reader has been waiting for, so it’s easy to love him. On the other hand, I’ve always been uncomfortable with his emotional outburst, which ends with him attacking a child because he’s angry at the father.  That attack is tied up with fat-shaming, which seems to be inescapable in the wizarding world.

I’m left with this feeling of ambivalence that I’m really struggling to come up with the right words for. I feel like there’s too much going on here for me to make any real conclusions, so I don’t think I can do anything except leave these issues open for later discussion. This chapter feels uncomfortable, and not in the fun campy way.

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References:

Three articles archived by Accio Quote:

Interview transcript (partial), Blue Peter (cBBC), 12 March, 2001
http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2001/0301-bluepeter.htm

Fry, Stephen, interviewer: J.K. Rowling at the Royal Albert Hall, 26 June 2003.
http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2003/0626-alberthall-fry.htm

Goring, Rosemary. "Harry's Fame," Scotland on Sunday, 17 January 1999
http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/1999/0199-scotlandsunday-goring.html

One article made available by Archive.org:
”Accents and dialects of the UK: Sounds Familiar?” The British Library Board
https://web.archive.org/web/20130924040139/https://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/text-only/england/melksham/
Since this is an archived page, the audio doesn’t play, so I could only refer to the text description.

Two Youtube videos:
Celtic Source: Celtic Spirituality and Cultural Appropriation with Dr Gwilym Morus-Baird

Celtic Source: The Giant's Beard in Welsh Folklore with Dr Gwilym Morus-Baird