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J.K. Rowling draws on real Mass. history for new wizardry tale

"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling. Associated Press/File

The school on the summit of Mount Greylock may be magic. But the most recent story from “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling includes several figures taken directly from Colonial Massachusetts history.

Whether Rowling based characters in the “Harry Potter” series on historical figures has been a matter of hot debate; the author has acknowledged that her own real-life acquaintances inspired some of her characters.

But the new story — released Tuesday on Pottermore.com as the historical backdrop for a new movie about magic in 1920s America, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” — relies on real names and facts taken from 17th-century records.

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The new writing describes the founding of the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the 17th century, hidden from Muggles, or non-magical humans, by spells. Her main character is an young, orphaned Irish witch, Isolt Sayre, of whom Rowling writes: “Masquerading as a Muggle boy called Elias Story, she set sail for the New World on the Mayflower in 1620.”

It doesn’t take Isolt long to figure out that her shipmates — in Rowling’s story, they are the Puritans, not the Pilgrims — wouldn’t tolerate a witch in their midst: “On arrival she vanished into the surrounding mountains, leaving her erstwhile shipmates to suppose that ‘Elias Story’ had died of the harsh winter, like so many others.”

Elias Story was indeed a passenger on the Mayflower, a servant to the family of Edward Winslow who died during the first winter in Plymouth.

In Rowling’s story, Isolt wanders into the wilds, where she eventually encounters a non-magical young man by the name of James Steward, who is in the woods searching for a family that has disappeared.

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The real-life James Steward arrived in Plymouth in 1621, and received an acre of land in 1623. However, all record of him subsequently disappears.

Isolt and James move to Mount Greylock and learn to live together, setting the stage for tolerance between wizards and non-wizards (perhaps another echo of recent Massachusetts history) that will ultimately make the Ilvermorny school “one of the most democratic, least elitist of all the great wizarding schools.”

But before all that can happen, Isolt and James must defeat Isolt’s evil aunt — the murderer of Isolt’s parents — Gormlaith Gaunt, who is furious that Isolt has set up shop with a No-Maj (American for Muggle). In Rowling’s account, the aunt disguises herself as a man, takes the name of Isolt’s murdered father, William Sayre, and sails to Virginia on the ship Bonaventure, before heading north to hunt down her niece.

Lo and behold, a William Sayer did sail to Virginia on a ship by that name in 1634.

Pivotal to Rowling’s history, not surprisingly, are the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-93, also not surprisingly described, in an account the author released in March, as “a tragedy for the wizarding community.”

The difference is that in Rowling’s version of history, among the Puritan judges were at least two known rogue wizards, “who were paying off feuds that had developed while in America.”

“A number of the dead were indeed witches, though utterly innocent of the crimes for which they had been arrested,” Rowling writes. “Others were merely No-Majs who had the misfortune to be caught up in the general hysteria and bloodlust.”

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Friends and foes of Massachusetts will appreciate that, in Rowling’s story, the tragedy results in the creation of a bureaucracy, MACUSA (the Magical Congress of the United States of America), which becomes the first lawmaking authority of North American wizards. (The body being a magical one, it takes the name of a country that won’t exist for another 83 years.)

By bringing real history into her fantasy, Rowling was bound to raise objections among historians. And so it was that Salem State University history professor Emerson W. Baker, an expert on the witch trials and, along with his daughters, a fan of the “Harry Potter” books, nonetheless objected to her portrayal.

“I appreciate the fact that she places the blame largely on the judges — as I do in my book,” Baker wrote in an e-mail. “However, I am disturbed to see her take a serious injustice that resulted in 25 innocent people losing their lives and to place it in a magical, make-believe world that children love.”

“I would invite her to come to Salem in 2017 when we plan to dedicate the execution site of the victims of the witch trials, so she can see for herself Salem’s on-going efforts to heal from the events of 1692.”


David Filipov can be reached at David.Filipov@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @davidfilipov.

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