There’s something called the Interdict of Merlin which stops anyone from getting knowledge of powerful spells out of books, even if you find and read a powerful wizard’s notes they won’t make sense to you, it has to go from one living mind to another
Ahh, was that what Harrizer called his plan to stop the misuse of magic or knowledge in general by limiting it to people who can discover it for themselves?
If so I was actually trying to do the reverse lookup a week or so ago.
OK, I think that is it. H.P. thinks its why witches are no longer as powerful as they used to be. The idea was to prevent dangerous fools from having powerful magic, but it also means a lot of ancient magic was lost as some spells were never orally transferred, and there was no written copy to be discovered later.
“There’s something called the Interdict of Merlin which stops anyone from getting knowledge of powerful spells out of books, even if you find and read a powerful wizard’s notes they won’t make sense to you, it has to go from one living mind to another.”
What was the Interdict of Merlin again? I googled but none of the links were defining, just referencing.
If Vold. is in his head, it isn’t visible, Quirrel no longer wears the turban he used to hide it in canon.
From Ch. 23
Ahh, was that what Harrizer called his plan to stop the misuse of magic or knowledge in general by limiting it to people who can discover it for themselves?
If so I was actually trying to do the reverse lookup a week or so ago.
OK, I think that is it. H.P. thinks its why witches are no longer as powerful as they used to be. The idea was to prevent dangerous fools from having powerful magic, but it also means a lot of ancient magic was lost as some spells were never orally transferred, and there was no written copy to be discovered later.
It was the ancient magical equivalent to an existential risk prevention mechanism.
And note the hat’s commentary on the matter.
“There’s something called the Interdict of Merlin which stops anyone from getting knowledge of powerful spells out of books, even if you find and read a powerful wizard’s notes they won’t make sense to you, it has to go from one living mind to another.”
Chapter 23