Chapter 1 - Prior Incantato
Welcome to the A Novel Holiday travel guidebook, Harry Potter Places Book Five- Scotland: Hogwarts' Home, the last of five guidebooks designed to help Harry Potter Fans (Potterites) visit places found in the United Kingdom of Great Britain (the UK) associated with the Harry Potter Universe (the Potterverse). In the Potterverse, you'll find:
? Real-life places mentioned within J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels.
? Real-life locations where Harry Potter movie filming took place.
? Real-life sites that significantly influenced Harry Potter movie studio set design.
The Prior Incantato section is the Harry Potter Places Travel Guidebook Introduction. As such, it contains important explanations of the symbols and terminology found within each of the five Harry Potter Places (HPP) travel guidebooks.
Harry Potter Places Portkeys
To assist Potterites using eBook-reading devices that don't have a web browser-devices from which you cannot apparate-or Potterites using a printed HPP travel guidebook, we've created HPP Portkeys: Internet-posted PDFs containing all the Internet resource links provided in each section of every HPP book.
Go to HarryPotterPlaces.com. Click on the link for Book Five, then click on the
Supplementums link. There you can access the Portkeys.
Harry Potter Places Ratings Icon Guide
It took more than three years of research, but we managed to find seventy (70) Potter Places. However, not all of these sites are places every Potterite will enjoy. Thus, we assessed each for their reasonable importance to an average Potterite's UK holiday, and created icons that provide an at-a-glance recognition of their rating.
The Great Site icon indicates a Potter Place you don't want to miss. These are important sites mentioned in the books, or film locations readily recognized in real-life.
The Might Be Fun icon identifies places some Potterites might find disinteresting, or unworthy of the inconvenience required to reach them. Each Might-Be-Fun Site's entry explains why it received that rating.
The Skip It icon is assigned to places we strongly suggest you avoid visiting, and the Site's entry explains why. Although we provide SatNav/GPS coordinates and/ or addresses for Skip-It-rated sites, we do not provide directions for finding them, nor are Skip-It sites included in any of the suggested Harry Potter Places itineraries.
Potterites divinely inspired to visit any Skip-It site should investigate the location
using the information provided in its Site entry, then create their own itineraries.
The Potterite Prime Directive
To POLITELY Go Where Potterites Need to Go
- without PERTURBING anybody - So That Other Potterites Can Continue to ENJOY GOING THERE!
It is vitally important that all Potterites be as polite as possible when visiting any Potter Place. This rule is even more important when visiting a Site situated within a private Muggle neighborhood. It only takes one noisy or disrespectful fan to ruin the reception experienced by all Potterites who visit thereafter. Please be the very best Potterite Ambassador you can possibly be, everywhere you go.
Terminology Used within the Harry Potter Places Travel Guidebooks
Like any other author of fiction, J.K. Rowling (JKR) exercised artistic license when selecting or creating names, phrases, and terms for her Potterverse. Most often, she borrowed from Latin and Greek languages or mythologies. Occasionally, JKR's Potterverse terminology was influenced by other languages, such as French, Irish, Italian-even Arabic. Below are links to two resources that comprehensively discus the origin of Potterverse names, phrases, and terms.
http://www.languagerealm.com/hplang/harrypotterlanguage.php
Another origin of Potterverse names, phrases, and terms reference link is offered on the Harry Potter Fan Zone website:
http://www.harrypotterfanzone.com/word-origins/
During production of Book Four, the HP Fan Zone disapparated from the Internet! So, we created a PDF file of it from our records and posted it on the HPP website: http://www.HarryPotterPlaces.com/DefunctWordOriginsHPFZpage.pdf
As of Book Five, the HP Fan Zone is back! But, we're leaving our PDF online incase it
disapparates again.
JKR also often used words that predate her creation of the Potterverse, such as Witch, Wizard, broomstick, and the like. Sometimes, JKR altered the previously-popular meaning of the words she used. For instance, Time Magazine reported in 1931 that "Muggle" was one of several slang names for a marijuana cigarette.
Please Note: As of 2012, the 1931 Time Magazine "Muggle" article link offered in the Prior Incantato sections of Harry Potter Places Books One through Three has been blocked from public access, unless you subscribe to Time Magazine. Thanks to the Way- Back Machine website, we found a pre-blocked copy of that article and created a PDF file of it:
http://www.HarryPotterPlaces.com/1931TimeMugglesArticle.pdf
The authors of Harry Potter Places have similarly exercised artistic license when using Potterverse terminology within our travel guidebooks. Some names, phrases, and terms used within HPP have the same meaning as they do in the Potterverse. Others have been redefined.
For example: Prior Incantato is a Potterverse incantation spoken to reveal the last spell performed by a wand. JKR created this phrase from the Latin word, prior, mean- ing former or previous, in combination with incanto, meaning "to enchant," or incantate, meaning "to speak a spell." However, in the Harry Potter Places travel guidebooks, Prior Incantato is the title of each books' Introduction.
Potterverse names, phrases, and terms found within Harry Potter Places that may have been independently-created by J.K. Rowling are used only for the purpose of enhancing Potterites' enjoyment of the travel guidebook. The authors of Harry Potter Places do not claim, nor intend to imply, ownership of, or proprietary rights to, any terminology found exclusively within Harry Potter books.
Some Potterverse-and Potterlike-Terms Used within HPP
Ambulatus
Although Ambulatus sounds Potterlike, it isn't found anywhere within JKR's Potterverse. Ambulate is an English word derived from Latin origins, and means, "to walk from place to place" or "move about." The Latin word for navigated, traveled, or traversed, is ambulatus. Ambulatus is used in the title of Harry Potter Places sections that...
