Shape-Shifting Part 1: Transfiguration and Creatures in the Harry Potter Books and European Lore
Animagi, werewolves, Transfiguration… all those shape-shifting forms appear in the Harry Potter series. They can be voluntary or not, linked to a spell, a curse/disease or to the sheer will of the shape-shifter, but they are always quite spectacular. Werewolves are part of the folklore in the northern hemisphere. But what about Animagi? Are shape-shifters a mere figment of Rowling’s imagination or are there shape-shifter stories in different cultures around the world? The answer is definitely the second option, and here are some examples (I can’t promise this paper to be short, I’m afraid :( … However, I can safely promise I won’t take examples from Cursed Child. )
I’ll start with a review of what shape-shifting means in Rowling’s novels, before going for a little tour of some cultures I want to explore regarding shape-shifting.
In the Harry Potter books and Fantastic Beasts-the film
To start with, let’s consider the types of shape-shifting appearing in Rowling’s books: Werewolves, Animagi, Metamorphmagi, Transfigured people, Boggarts, Kelpies, Veela. For the creatures, I’ll try and give a short -snorts- account of the image Muggles have of them, in their folklore.
Werewolves were already discussed a bit in other papers on this blog, so let’s leave them out of this one. For the rest, here goes:
1. Use of a Spell or a Potion
Transfiguration allows the wizard to change the shape of a fellow human into that of another animal, like Moody did with Draco when he turned the latter into a ferret, or into that of another human being. This is a means of shape-shifting using a spell, obviously. The first ever dated record of human Transfiguration was the one happening during a Quidditch match in 1473, when a Chaser was turned into a polecat. Of course, that kind of transformation had happened before. Take Circe, for instance, who was famous for turning sailors into pigs. She lived thousands of years ago. Some examples are more recent, like the one of Gellert Grindelwald, who was superskilled at Transfiguration, and lived as MACUSA Auror Percival Graves in 1926 New York. Transfiguring someone into an animal would cause that person to become an animal fully, not retaining one ounce of humanity, meaning that they could perform no magic of their own, and would need the mediation of another wizard to get back to their human form (I wonder what happens to their clothes and especially to their wand during that time, and also if the one who transfigured the wizard would then become master of the wand, since it sort of defeated its owner…).
Transfiguration in the case of Animagi is going to be dealt with later, because it’s a different form of Transfiguration than just casting a spell. Transfiguration spells are numerous, according to various sources. However, the books don’t mention the spells per se, so I won’t list them here.
There are also examples of humans transforming themselves into humans, by means of Polyjuice Potion. Harry, Ron and Hermione used it in Chamber of Secrets to sneak into the Slytherin Common Room, and they also did use it in Deathly Hallows to enter the Ministry of Magic while trying to retrieve Slytherin’s locket from Umbridge, while trying to get food when they were on the run and finally when breaking into Gringotts to get Hufflepuff’s cup from Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault. In Goblet of Fire, Barty Crouch Jr. drank it all year round to impersonate Alastor Moody, whom he kept secured in a trunk all the time to get hair for his potion. We also know that Draco Malfoy made Crabbe and Goyle drink it and turned them into girls while they were keeping watch outside the Room of Requirement in Half-Blood Prince. Finally, at the beginning of Deathly Hallows, six people turn into Harries so as to keep danger -relatively- at bay while moving Harry from Privet Drive to the Burrow. Rowling made quite a use of Polyjuice. And as far as I know, I might have forgotten occurrences.
I have no recollection of any other potion in the books that would allow the drinker to change form. Since it’s considered Dark Magic, it’s only consistent it would be so. After all, the recipe for the Polyjuice Potion is found in a book called Moste Potente Potions, that is kept in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library, because of all the gruesome stuff it contains, according to Hermione. Shape-shifting is not legal in the wizarding world, unless you’re a registered Animagus (see next paper). I can understand why there’s no more potions about that.
The use of a spell or a potion to change someone’s appearance is not common in cultures around the world - at least not to my knowledge; if you know something, tell me. It’s a pretty artificial way of achieving shape-shifting, and it is restricted to myths and legends.
2.Creatures
Form-changing creatures are more common, even outside the wizarding world. According to Newt Scamander (and I’m sticking to book canon here), there aren’t many shape-shifters among the Magical Creatures. In Fantastic Beasts And Where to Find Them, Scamander mentions only the Kelpie. In the Harry Potter series we come across a couple of other creatures, namely the Boggart and the Veela. It’s strange that they aren’t mentioned in Fantastic Beasts, at least for the Boggart, since it’s definitely a beast (maybe it’s because nobody knows its true shape). As for the Veela, it’s a Being, which accounts for its being left out of the book.
Reminder: the Ministry of Magic has a classification for Creatures. It goes from X (boring) to XXXXX (known wizard-killer and impossible to domesticate).
a. Kelpies
According to Newt Scamander, the Kelpie is a British and Irish water-demon, classified as XXXX by the Ministry of Magic. That means a skilled and trained wizard could deal with a Kelpie. It can change its shape to lure its preys into water, and the shape it takes the most often is that of a horse. It doesn’t take much to differentiate that horse from a regular Equus sp. because the mane of the horse-Kelpie is made of bulrushes. According to Muggle folklore, the hooves of the horse-kelpie are inverted compared to those of a regular Equus sp, and in Aberdeenshire, the mane is made of snakes. It is also said that if a Kelpie takes the shape of a human, then it’s betrayed by his hair being mixed with seaweed.
In his book, Scamander describes the festine that takes place at the bottom of the waters as quite gruesome because the entrails of the victim end up floating on the surface, or, according to legend, are thrown on the shore. Very nice. Sounds like the Kelpie’s Burp.
Still according to Scamander, you can render the horse-Kelpie tame by using and bridle jointly with a Placement Charm. However, it requires skill.
The world’s most famous Kelpie is the so-called-by-Muggles Loch Ness Monster. It was discovered to be a Kelpie when it was witnessed to turn into an otter to escape a crowd of Muggles. Every Scottish bit of water has a kelpie story attached to it. :)
Kelpies aren’t an invention of Rowling’s. They are part of the British lore. In Scotland, where the word originates from (first written records of the name back in the second half of the 17th century), Kelpies are apparently small, roundish, shape-shifting water fairies. They are said to usually appear as grey horses who lure their preys onto their backs, dive deep into the waters and devour their preys. Those creatures - or similar ones - appear all over the British Isles, with various names according to the region they are in: Each-Uisge in Ireland, Cabbyl-Ushtey on the Isle of Man, Shoney in Cornwall, Ceffyl Dwr in Wales, Nuggies in the Shetlands and Tangies on the Orkneys. Moreover, similar creatures are observed in Scandinavia, for instance (the Swedish Backhäst), or even as far as Southern America and Australia.
The Scottish Kelpie was said to lure people by crying for help, which led people to deny rescue to people drowning or trapped on islands if they thought they were kelpies crying. That, of course, led to the actual people dying. Near Fife, Scotland, the Kelpie is said to make a dreadful roaring before a boat was lost at sea.
In Scotland, apparently, the most usual transformations of the Kelpie are into a horse or a handsome young lad (rarely a lass). Yet Nessie is a Sea-Serpent :P
Lord I just found out something in a book called ‘The Fabled Coast’ (references below, naturally): Newt Scamander wasn’t an old loony when telling about bits of guts floating after the Kelpie’s repast. Actually, a paragraph about Lochboisdale, Western Islands, Scotland, tells the reader that exact gory bit of the legend. Kelpie-researchers go so far as to make a difference between sea-water demons, which they call Water-Horses, and fresh-water demons, which they call Kelpies. This apparently was a huge debate involving famous writers like Sir Walter Scott in the 19th century. The dispute is still not closed today… In that paragraph about Lochboisdale, the author also says that most people don’t give a bit of toast about that and call all those creatures Kelpies. I’ll also summarize the tale told in that chapter about the Kelpie. The narrative frame is the usual one, but still…
In Lochboisdale lived a widowed man and his daughter. The man married again and the stepmother and stepdaughter moved in. As usual, the stepmother was a mean old hag who gave all the dirty work to her husband’s daughter and let hers flirt all day. One day that the girl was fishing at sea and catching nothing to save her life, the Kelpie appeared in front of her as a good-looking young man. He offered her help and they filled the boat with fish, because, he said, he knew about her misfortunes and had fallen in love with her. However, when the lass found out that her rescuer was a Water-Horse, she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore and he had to go back to his underwater realm. Some time later, an assembly was held in the village and the Water-horse told his fellow kelpies he was going to bring a mortal amongst them. So he went to the dance, richly attired, looking handsomer than ever. Seeing him, the stepdaughter was so besotted that she clung to him all night, to the great pleasure of the Water-horse. He then lured her to the beach, and before she was aware the stepdaughter was invited to yet another ball, of which she was the main guest. Nobody heard anything about her on the land anymore. Romantics believe it was a way for the Water-horse to help his beloved have a better life. Realists think he wanted food.
Other tales include children, who try and mount the Kelpie, but as soon as their hand touches the creature, it gets stuck. If the kid cuts off his fingers or hand he might escape. Otherwise, it’s death and guts on the water edge. In some tales the Kelpie actually chooses a mortal life and marries the belle he loved, after trials and all that such a tale requires, naturally. Yet in other accounts, the Kelpies are reckoned to have great strength and when tamed they are used to carry milestones and plough fields. When released, though, they sometime issue a curse and some families are believed to have died out following such a malediction.
In Wales there’s part of the tale Newt Scamander relates in his book, namely the bit about the taming of the Horse-kelpie. There are several tales about Ceffyl-Dwr (see picture above; source: https://imgur.com/gallery/r5NYu ) being caught and used as farm-horses, and inevitably at some point the bridle falls and the Ceffyl-Dwr returns to the sea, sometimes dragging plough and farmer behind him. The Ceffyl-Dwr was sometimes seen plunging up and down into the sea like a dolphin, which makes it more an elemental beast than a water-demon. That’s a difference between the Scottish Kelpie and the Welsh Ceffyl-Dwr, and goes against Scamander’s putting all those shape-shifting water-horse creatures under the same name.
Naturally, Christian religion has taken the Kelpie as a satanic creature, and according to them, carrying a Bible or using a cross to tame the Kelpie works, as well as shooting it with a silver bullet. (strange how the Christian ways to get rid of ‘demons’ is always the same :P )
b. Boggarts: be good or the bogeyman will get you!
In the Harry Potter series, Boggarts first appear in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Professor Lupin introduces them in the first decent Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson Harry and his classmates have had in the two years they’ve been at Hogwarts. Lupin has stored a Boggart in the staffroom wardrobe and intends the students to practice on it to get the grip of the Boggart-Banishing-Spell Riddikulus.
If the spell is Riddikulus, which is a mere spelling twist on the English ridiculous, then it might mean ridicule has something to do with banishing a Boggart. Sure enough, the only way to get rid of a Boggart is making it turn into something so ludicrous you’ll laugh your head off and it’ll blast off. You could ask why you need to do such a thing, though. Well, the answer is easy: the Boggart is a shape-shifting non being that will turn into whatever frightens people the most when they face them. Of course, that means nobody but one that wouldn’t fear anything would know what a Boggart looks like when they hide in dark corners and other confined spaces. Naturally, the more people are tackling the Boggart at the same time, the easier it is to finish it off. If two or more people are in front of it, the Boggart will get confused because it won’t know what to turn into. Lupin says, in Prisoner of Azkaban, that he ‘once saw a Boggart make that very mistake - tried to frighten two people at once and turned himself into half a slug. Not remotely frightening.’ (Chapter Seven)
According to Rowling in her writings for Pottermore, Boggarts’ presence can be felt by Muggles, yet they wouldn’t dare believe that there’s actually something there, and would merely believe it’s their imagination playing a trick on them.
Boggarts are non beings, like Poltergeists or Dementors. Not truly alive, yet not dead. They seem, like Dementors, to feed on human emotions. We don’t know how they breed, but apparently the fuel they use is fear (while remember, Dementors feed not only on fear, but also despair, sadness and all ‘negative’ emotions).
The particularity of Boggarts among shape-shifting creatures is that what they are going to turn into is unknown until it does so, and the variety of shapes it can assume is as wide as the pictures of fear in humankind.
I don’t think I’ve come across anything like a Harry-Potter-style-Boggart in any culture I’ve been reading about. However, since that could be the case, if you know anything of the sort, please comment below the article or on our fb page! I’d love to know more! Here’s what I found, though. Some traits are similar to Rowling’s boggarts, but not many.
Apparently, in Muggle Scotland, a Boggart is a male fairy who will create havoc in your house with great pleasure. Sounds like Peeves to me, but Peeves is a Poltergeist. It also loves frightening travellers (that’s one of the closest trait to a HP-Boggart). Across the British Isles, the Boggart goes by many names: Padfoot or Hobgoblin in Northern England (Hobgoblin is also a nice ale :P ), or even Boogey Man, and all the nicknames such a name can induce people to think of, naturally.
There are two kinds of boggarts, the household ones, and the outdoors ones, the latter living on bogs and marshes. While the household boggarts are more like Peeves, causing mischief and not living you in peace, the outdoor ones are accused of crimes of a more serious nature, like abducting children.
About household boggarts, if they are anyway like Peeves, I can very well imagine that people would want to get rid of them as soon as possible. However, that proves tricky, as this story shows: A man and his family were living in a house where a boggart had decided to establish his residence. It caused so much havoc that at some point the family decided to pack their things and move out. At the gate, the neighbour coming towards the family asked if they were leaving. From the suitcase came that happy cry: ‘Yes, we are!’. The man and his family turned back and went home. There’s no escaping a household boggart.
There are no specific kind of habitat for Boggarts. Of course bogs and marshes, but those are wetlands in general, that, since they are treacherous to wander on, are believed to be home to treacherous and maligne creatures. There are also reports of them living on dangerous slopes over roads, which could suggest that these are made up locations by muggles, because it’s just avoiding to say nature has her own ways and sometimes the stones and trees move on slopes and come down, causing accidents. Caves are also among the favourites, apparently, and that is closer to what Rowling says about Boggarts living in closed dark spaces. There’s a cave in Yorkshire, near Giggleswick, called Cave Ha, that is said to be haunted by a Boggart. Cave Ha, with its unusual name, is a huge shelter cave, and there has been human and animal bones found there, buried, but some also smashed to remove the marrow apparently, which might link the site to a ritual sacrificial place. There’s evidence of Cave Ha being used since the Neolithic period. The local legends around Giggleswick say that around that particular shelter cries and weird noises are often heard, and that a bogard roams around it.
The pictures of boggarts we can find in literature or on the internet often resemble a sort of oldish dwarfish creature with crooked nose and fingers, not unlike the Goblins in the HP-films (see pic above; source:
https://lancashirefolk.com/2017/04/19/a-boggart-did-it-proved-in-court/ )
It looks like in folklore, Boggarts aren’t shape-shifters. The closest to shape-shifting I found is the fact that benevolent household creatures like brownies can turn into boggarts if ill-treated or offended. HA! No way. In Harland and Wilkinson, 1867, there’s a few paragraphs about Boggarts in Lancashire, which, as everyone knows, is a land of witchcraft. Here’s a summary of what they say:
Boggart is a name that might mean two things: bar-gheist, which is literally gate-ghost (bar means gate in the North, and ghast is Anglo-Saxon for spirit, anima), or buhr-gast, wich means town-sprite (buhr being the Anglo-Saxon for town, and gast for ghost). The spirits standing on gates or walls were known to frighten people - that’s consistent with the general fear-thing associated with boggarts. They also say that those boggarts can TAKE VARIOUS FORMS, or, as they put it, strange appearances. So those particular boggarts would be shape-shifters. There’s even a list of creatures the boggart could turn into: ‘a rabbit, dog, bear, or still more fearful form’. Those were recorded east of Manchester. Of course, those boggarts were cleaned off by churchmen at first, and industrialisation next, and in the end, rationality took over and people said that ‘fact'ry folk havin' summat else t'mind nur wanderin' ghosts un' rollickin' sperrits’ and ‘There's no Boggarts neaw, un' iv ther' were, folk han grown so wacken, they'd soon catch 'em.’ That last bit of course makes me think that rationality hadn’t completely won over old ideas, and so much the better, in my opinion. Rationalism alone is not the solution :P
The more I read the book, the more similarities I find with Rowling’s Boggarts. So as seen just before, some boggarts can change shape. It is also widely believed that some enjoy frightening people. However, it was never mentioned to what extent they did that. Rowling of course makes her Boggarts impersonate the worst fear of the person who encounters the Boggart. Tradition makes it a tad different, as Harland and Wilkinson tell (this quote is straight from their book):
‘Having fallen into conversation with a working man on our road to Holme Chapel, we asked him if people in those parts were now ever annoyed by beings of another world. Affecting the esprit fort, he boldly answered, "Noa! the country's too full o' folk;" while his whole manner, and especially his countenance, as plainly said "Yes!" A boy who stood near was more honest. "O, yes!" he exclaimed, turning pale; "the Boggart has driven William Clarke out of his house; he flitted last Friday." "Why," I asked; "what did the Boggart do?" "O, he wouldn't let 'em sleep; he stripp'd off the clothes." "Was that all?" "I canna' say," answered the lad, in a tone which showed he was afraid to repeat all he had heard; "but they're gone, and the house is empty. You can go and see for yoursel', if you loike. Will's a plasterer, and the house is in Burnley Wood, on Brown Hills."’
However, even if there are some tales about shape-shifting boggarts and boggarts that would frighten people so much they’d leave the premises, the usual accounts are those of pesky pests, mostly household creatures who’d play pranks on the inhabitants. Sometimes being helpful, mostly being just nasty things.
Still, whatever the role of industrialisation and almighty priests in getting rid of boggarts, there are places that retain the history of their being in the names they bear. Those I found were mostly in Lancashire and Yorkshire, UK. For instance, Harland and Wilkinson mention a place north of Manchester, called Blackley, where there is a clough in which boggarts are said to live. Today it’s a park complete with stadium and pond, but records of people disappearing have given credit to the existence of a mean spirit in there, and for centuries the bottom of the clough has been called Boggarts Hole… so…
And just to end up on a funny note: I just read a paper while foraging for pictures and found this. In 1869 a boggart was accused by law of breaking windows in a building. The man who was the first suspect claimed his innocence and gave proof of it, ending his tirade with ‘it must have been a boggart’. The court, then had not choice but to convict the boggart and release the man.
c. Veela
Veela appear for the first time in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, during the Quidditch World Cup, as the mascots of the Bulgarian Team. The description in the book when we first encounter those beings is as follows: ‘Veela were women… the most beautiful women Harry had ever seen … except that they weren’t - they couldn’t be - human. [...] he tried to guess what exactly they could be; what could make their skin shine moon-bright like that, or their white-gold hair fan out behind them without wind… [...] The Veela started to dance, and Harry’s mind had gone completely blissful and blank. All that mattered in the world was that he kept watching the Veela, because if they stopped dancing, terrible things would happen… As the Veela danced faster and faster, wild, half-formed thoughts started chasing through Harry’s dazed mind. He wanted to do something very impressive, right now. Jumping from the box into the stadium seemed a good idea … but would it be good enough?’ (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter Eight).
Harry is of course not the only one to be bewitched by Veela, and Ron is even more sensitive to their presence than Harry. He is so sensitive that he, like some other fellow Hogwartsians, is completely besotted when Fleur Delacour arrives for the Triwizard, and she’s only part-Veela, actually only 25%, since it’s from her grandma’s genes.
Veela in Harry Potter can change shape when infuriated, as they did at the Quidditch World Cup after the Irish Leprechauns had been rude to them: ‘They launched themselves across the pitch, and began throwing what seemed to be handfuls of fire at the leprechauns. Watching through his Omnioculars, Harry saw that they didn’t look remotely beautiful now. On the contrary, their faces were elongating into sharp, cruel-beaked bird heads, and long scaly wings were bursting from their shoulders.’ (Chapter Eight)
Veela hair is also considered to have magic enough to be used in wandlore. However, Ollivander wouldn’t use it, sticking to his three favourite, dragon heartstring, phoenix feather and unicorn tail hair. He thinks Veela hair makes temperamental wands (Chapter Eighteen), and honestly who would contradict him, given what happened at the World Cup :P
Only female Veela are mentioned in the Harry Potter books. Apparently they also can breed with ordinary humans, since Fleur’s grandma was a Veela. There’s not much information in the HP books about details, nor is there any writing by Rowling about them. One thing can be said, though, and it’s the strange fact that Veela would submit to serve ordinary humans, in quality of pom pom girls. Honestly, after reading about them, I can’t imagine them doing that at all.
All right. I must admit I thought Veela were a creation of Rowling’s. Well, they aren’t. I always check my books and google everything just in case, and here I was surprised, and not for the worst. The only consequence is that if you’ve been reading that far you’ll be reading another couple of pages :p
Vila (or Wiła) are, according to what I read, the most important creatures of Slavic folklore and are present from the Baltic States to the Balkans as well as in Russia. Online there’s quite a lot about Serbian folklore, but not much else. That actually has an explanation, and thank you Kikimora for providing it :)
There's an important difference between the three groups of Slavic folklore, namely Balcanic on one side, Czech, Polish and Slovak on another, and Russian.
Balcanic Folklore
The Balcanic folklore was directly influenced by Ancient Greek traditions, and they base their documentation on Vila on a book by the famous Greek historian Procopius, who lived in the 6th century AD (I confess I didn’t read the book, so I trust the bloke who wrote the article).
In Serbian, the etymology of the world ‘vila’ would come from the word vel, which means ‘perish’. If you read what Vilas are, it’s a bit strange that the roots of the name would link the creature to death, while they actually are creatures that have the possibility of deciding the time of their own death and rebirth, and aren’t usually death omens. Rather the contrary. Maybe their fierce warrior reputation? However, it seems that many Slavic peoples have similar spirits of the death, or of unbaptized girls (that of course would be after Christianity had overtaken the world and decided that being unbaptized is some sort of death…) or girls condemned to float between life and death because of living a frivolous life or having been cursed by God because of their bad life (always the girls, right….).
According to Serbian folklore, Vila have been thought to be linked to storms and bad weather at first, and only later got linked with forest, water and mountain habitats. They are the equivalent of the Ancient Greek nymphs, can live in various environments and are shape-shifters, yet their usual form is that of a beautiful maiden. Those women can be either naked or dressed in white, but usually have long silvery hair. While unprovoked, Vila are benevolent and helpful, but turn into murderous creatures if molested or offended. It is also said that if seen bathing, or dancing, Vila would hunt the offending men down and shoot them with bow and arrow, sometimes to death, sometimes not. When not, the offender would lose a limb, for instance. That reminds me a bit of other parts of Greek mythology where offenders lost their sight for watching a goddess bathing. However, unlike Athena, Vila would sometimes lure men into dancing or watching them. That could turn into something good or bad for the men. This bit is sort of consistent with the bewitching power of Rowling’s Veela. Vila get their power from their hair, like many other heroes, and from another thing I can’t write the name of (only heard it and don’t want to misspell it), but it’s an element of dressing going down the back from the hair to the wings (when they have wings). If a man stole that bit of clothing while a Vila was bathing, he stole her powers and thus became her master. In other tales this happens if the man plucks a feather of the Vila’s wings. If a Vila’s hair was plucked, though, the Vila would die. So I must imagine that the hair from Fleur’s grandma, that ended up in Fleur’s wand, was collected on a brush or comb :P
Vilas are mostly female. Some claim there’s no male Vila, some that there’s a few, who became such because they came into contact with Vilas. In Serbian folklore, they would be called Vilenyak. Vila could also ‘adopt’ children and it is said a child breast-fed by a Vila would gain unusual strength from it. That happened for instance to the Serbian folklore hero Prince Marko.
Vila have a big responsibility in communities: formerly they would teach people how to sew, plough, irrigate their fields all kind of skills. Vilas are also believed to be learnt in healing with plants and divination or rather prophetisation, and are often mentioned as healers of the hero’s wounds in folk tales. In some tales, Vila go as far as to marry mortal men, putting the usual set of conditions (like not mentioning their decent) lest they would disappear forever. Apparently Fleur’s grandma didn’t come to that extremity with her husband.
North-Eastern European Wiłas
(spelling adopted here: Polish, because I discussed the subject with Polish friends. The spelling differs a bit from one language to the next, but not the names).
We know much less of Vilas in the northern part of Eastern Europe. That's due to many things, amongst which the non-writing of legends is one part, and the fact that most of European Slavic peoples' history has been written by others than the actual peoples. Usually dominating countries or foreign explorers. Archaeologists and anthropology field scientists agree that they can't be sure about anything when it comes to Slavic traditions before Christianisation, and what happened after is of course strongly tainted by ideology.
Slavic peoples from the North-East part of Europe think of Vilas not as nymphs, but more as demons. The word Vila, Wiła in Polish, is not that much used in northern countries, apparently, where those beings are also called Rusałki.
In North-Eastern folklore, it is said that wiłas can shape-shift, namely turn into animals and winds. They are also fierce warriors, like their southern cousins, having that bare and raw natural force (we Finns would call it sisu I'd say) that can help you fulfil your dreams and carry on whatever the circumstances but that can turn against you should you be careless. As Kikimora puts it, it's something along the lines of 'watch out what you wish for, respect what you don't understand, you can't rule everywhere' (Kikimora, pers. comm.).
Unlike the southern folklore, northern Slavic tradition doesn't have male rusałki or wiła. In Slavic folklore, there are some traits or strengths (and weaknesses) that are more male or more female; Wiła and rusałki are female. The male counterpart to rusałki would be wodniki.
Like their southern counterparts, Wiła were demonised (in the clerical sense) once their countries were taken over by Christians, in whose beliefs anything female is dangerous and satanic and bad (remember Satan is a bloke - tries to find coherence - there's none). Before that, there were male and female demons, ghosts, energies... and there was a sort of balance.
So even if we consider both sides of Slavic folklore, we can see similarities between the traditional Vilas and Rusálki/Wiła. There's that shape-shifting, the luring people (both men and women, even if the latter very rarely, according to the internet), the demonish side, and the being careful with what you wish. Remember the things the boys at Hogwarts or at the World Cup did to try and get the Veela's attention...
Arts
Vila have been used by composers in operas, like Hungarian Ferenc Lehár in his Lustige Witwe (1905) and Antonin Dvořák in his Rusálka (1901), and Westerners as well, notably by poet Heinrich Heine and composers Giaccomo Puccini in Le Villi (1884) and Adolphe Adam (Ballet Giselle orLes Wilis, 1841).
4. Summary Comparison
Time to draw a small comparison. Rowling’s shape-shifting creatures are all loosely based on folklore. Whether she knew it or not, nobody can tell but her. However, the coincidences are too strong to leave much doubt.
Shape-shifting is a fairly common thing in the wizarding world, as in folklore.
Kelpies are designed straight from the Scottish folklore version, no doubt about that, even if Scamander doesn’t develop the subject much in his works. They aren’t mentioned often in the Harry Potter books either.
Boggarts are loosely based on Lancashire and Yorkshire versions of the creatures, retaining only the fact that they like frightening people and can shape-shift for that purpose. Rowling takes that further, though, making the creatures Dark and rather close to Dementors in the way they use fear. However, as Boggarts in folklore play tricks on humans, humans in Harry Potter play tricks on Boggarts to get rid of them. The way Mrs Weasley sees the Boggart at 12 Grimmauld Place turn into many different dead people in turn is rather exceptional. I didn’t find anything similar in literature, but again, I didn’t read everything available, I suppose.
To write about Veela Rowling must have known about the Serbian Vila. There are too many similarities (the luring, the dancing, the beauty, the magical hair, the turning into harpie-like creatures) to leave much doubt, but there’s a lot of discrepancies as well, and since there’s no writing by Rowling about Veela anywhere, it’s hard to know to which extent she wanted her Veela to resemble Vila. It’s sure she knew they were from Slavic folklore though, since she attributed them to the Bulgarian Quidditch team as mascots. Now I don’t think Vila would have agreed to be used that way, particularly given the fact they punish people for watching them dance.
Fleur’s grandmother was one of the Veela who married a mortal man, but we know nothing more about that. One thing we can infer from the fact that one of her hair is used as a wand core, is that the magical power of the hair was known by Rowling, and that unless Veela gather their fallen hair it must be horribly difficult for wandmakers to come across that particular core.
Now you could ask me why I don’t mention Obscuri here. As you know, they are creatures generated by a form of transfiguration that is intrinsic to a wizard whose magic has been hindered through his own will or others’. The people who create Obscuri are usually children (they hardly ever live over the age of ten, and in 1926 there was no documented fact that any had lived over that age), according to Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the screenplay. In the film, Credence Barebone is an Obscurial, whose magical energy has been repressed for over twenty years and who unleashes a devastating monster when his emotions are triggered. It looks, in the film, that he has gained some mastery over the phenomenon over time, but there’s not much documentation about that. I didn’t include Obscurials in this paper because as far as I know, there’s no counterpart in the Muggle world and I like comparisons.
Next bit: Animagi :) Thank you for reading and commenting if you do!
Sources
Rowling, Joanne K., Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Bloomsbury, London, 1998
Rowling, Joanne K., Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Bloomsbury, London, 1999
Rowling, Joanne K., Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London, 2000
Rowling, Joanne K., The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Bloomsbury, London, 2007
Rowling, Joanne K., Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay. Bloomsbury, London, 2016.
Scamander Newt, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Obscurus Books, Diagon Alley, London, 2001
Wisp, Kennilworthy. Quidditch Through the Ages, Bloomsbury, London, and WhizzHard Books, Diagon Alley, London. 2001.
Kelpies
Kelpies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelpie
Necks (water-spirits): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neck_(water_spirit)
Boggarts
http://caveburial.ubss.org.uk/northyorks/caveha.htm
http://oldfieldslimestone.blogspot.ch/2013/03/prehistoric-three-peaks-part-two-cave.html
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/87393/7/bcra_cks124042.pdf (scientific paper about how the caves formed and what is left now)
http://www.haunted-yorkshire.co.uk/giggleswicksightings.htm (pretty bs paper, most of the text not written by one person and mostly copy-pasted from wikipedia, but has some local stories)
https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/boggart
http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/squares/boggart.html
https://lancashirefolk.com/2017/04/19/a-boggart-did-it-proved-in-court/
Vila and Wiła
Serbian video about Vila in Slavic culture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qrtiiOH4yc
http://folklorethursday.com/regional-folklore/serbian-folklore-his-majesty-the-zmaj-and-her-majesty-the-vila/#sthash.kgkk4MzK.dpbs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural_beings_in_Slavic_religion#Vila
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Villi (opera by Puccini)
Knowledge base called Kikimora.
General Literature
Johnson, Paul. The Little People of The British Isles, Wooden Books, Glastonbury, 2008. 58 pp.
Kingshill, Sophia; Westwood, Jennifer. The Fabled Coast - Legends and Traditions from around the shores of Britain and Ireland. Arrow Books, 2014. 510 pp.
Kronzek, Allan Zola and Elizabeth, The Sorcerer’s Companion - A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter, Broadway Books, New York, 2001, 286 pp.
Harland, John., Wilkinson, Thomas T., Lancashire Folklore, Frederick Warne & Co., London, 1867 pp 50-62: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41148/41148-h/41148-h.htm (this book is a real treasure).