Thereal FantasticBeasts
Show traces the inspiration behind weird creations from the unicorn and Nessie to the niffler of Harry Potter fame
WHEN JK Rowling dreamt up the lethifold she thought she’d invented a terrifying creature that tapped into her own deepest fears.
Then she realised that her nocturnal gliding cloak already existed in real life – as a manta ray.
The Harry Potter writer tells Stephen Fry in a new BBC show: “I created that creature in the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It’s called a lethifold and it’s my worst nightmare.
“I had gone for something that would scare the bejesus out of me, taking the idea from a cloak. Then when I stood back, I realised that it’s just a manta ray.
“I’d invented a manta ray that doesn’t need water.”
The fascinating hourlong documentary, called Fantastic Beasts: A Natural History, looks at the real-life roots of fictional and mythical animals.
Stephen Fry, who narrated the Harry Potter audio books, discusses the way the author blends nature with myth and magic.
Rowling said: “We are storytelling creatures. Myths and folklore were our ancestors’ attempts to explain the things people didn’t understand. Cultures that never met created such similar archetypes. We see the firebird – the phoenix as I called it – throughout different cultures. Similar beasts – dragons, mermaids – were imagined by peoples who are living among different real animals. British sailors were imagining fish tailed women while people in Africa were imagining the same thing – with no basis in nature.”
Another of her own inventions, the niffler, makes its first appearance in the book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
She explained: “It’s a treasure seeker, it can locate treasure for you.
“It’s a cross between a magpie in nature and a duck billed platypus and a mole in appearance.” The niffler made
I wanted something to scare the bejesus out of me ROWLING ON CREATING THE LETHIFOLD
its screen debut in the first Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film. Rowling was shown the designers’ early versions of the creature – and loved them straight away.
“They used a platypus to get a snoutlike appearance. It gave it such an endearing presence.”
She’s keen to acknowledge her debt to the natural world. Rowling said: “It’s exceptionally difficult to invent something. Often nature got there first and did it far better. I think of some of nature’s extraordinary creations and think, ‘CGI will never match this’.”
Fry’s investigations also take him to Stirling Castle to look at Scotland’s national animal, the unicorn. The walls are covered with 15th century tapestries of a unicorn hunt and Professor Donna Heddie of the University of the Highlands and Islands explains that, when James V adopted it as his personal symbol, it was not a mythical animal at all.
She told him: “At the time it was chosen, people did think it was real. In the 15th century, kings were adopting animals as their personal symbols. The unicorn is untamable and undefeatable – a symbol of Scotland’s sense of itself.
“It’s brave, it’s courageous, how cool is that as a national symbol?”
Heddie shows him a “unicorn horn” – actually a narwhal tusk. These were widely accepted as proof of unicorns’ existence in the 15th century. Fry is almost convinced. He said: “I can see why somebody enterprising, who caught one of the whales and sawed off its tusk, would think. ‘I can sell this as a unicorn horn’. It’s just what it looks like.”
The narwhal tusk is actually an overgrown spiralised tooth.
They were highly sought after. Queen Elizabeth paid £10,000 for one, which is kept in the Tower of London.
Fry also speculates that the Arabian oryx, known as Arabian unicorn, fed into the myth of the unicorn. This beautiful antelope has two long slender horns but, viewed in profile, they appear as one. The rhinoceros also has a part to play. Fry explained: “It is distantly related to a real unicorn. Millions of years ago Siberian unicorns roamed between Asia and Europe. “These prehistoric rhinos were enormous, twice the size of the ones we have today. “They were 3m tall, with thick shaggy hair, and one horn.” On Loch Ness, he meets famous Nessie hunter Adrian Shine. He has been researching the monster for years. St Columba was the first person to report a sighting of a mysterious creature in Loch Ness back in 564. Since then, thousands of others claim to have encountered some kind of unexplained beast in the water. There are two options, a multihumped sea serpent and a version of an extinct marine dinosaur. Or as Shine says, it could possibly be large conga eel. He told Fry: “Arguably it’s the most famous lake in the world, it’s deep, it’s hostile. It qualifies as a lost world and we need lost worlds to make our mythical creatures more credible.” Fantastic Beasts: A Natural History is out on February 27, and will be showing on BBC1 at 7pm.