The Warlock's Hairy Heart is a story in The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
History[]
Unlike other stories in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the story of The Warlock's Hairy Heart hasn't really been changed throughout history. The story does not have themes of love, genorosity or positivity towards Muggles and so hasn't attracted the criticism of stories like The Wizard and the Hopping Pot. Even hundreds of years after it was written, the version that children hear is nearly the same as the one written in the original runes.[1]
Albus Dumbledore proposes that the story appeals to everyone because the warlock discovers what everyone wants; the key to invulnerability. Dumbledore goes on to say this is unachieveable because a human cannot truly escape feelings of hurt throughout their life and while everyone would like to control nature, they cannot avoid the unpredictability of love. The Warlock in Beedle's tale is failing to follow one of the Fundamental Laws of Magic in that tampering with the essence of life itself will bring dangerous consequences. To avoid love, he renders himself inhuman.[1]
Other writers have noted the similiarites between what the Warlock does to his heart and the creation of a Horcrux. This tale also led to the wizarding expression "to have a hairy heart" which means to describe a cold or unfeeling witch or wizard. For this, there is a book called The Hairy Heart: A Guide to Wizards Who Won't Commit for those who need self-help.[1]
Plot[]
The Hairy Heart
A handsome young warlock watches his friends change when they fall in love and finds their love-struck behaviour pitiful. After resolving to never fall in love, he uses the Dark Arts to rip his own heart out. His family hope that he will change when he finally meets a maiden, but while his youth wanes and his friends marry and have children, the warlock stays indifferent to love.[2]
Time goes by and he is left alone in his parents' castle when they die. He does not grieve their loss and considers his care-free life with servants and wealth to be splendid and that he was the envy of everyone. Until one day, he overhears two servants talking about him. One pities him for his loneliness and that despite his wealth and power, he is unloved. The other laughs at the warlock's failure to attract a wife.[2]
With his wounded pride, the warlock's decides to find a wife superior to everyone else's. He searches for a beautiful woman of magical lineage who will invoke the envy and desire of everyone who beholds her. Her wealth has to be equal to his own and their children should be magically gifted. Within one day, he finds a maiden who is visiting her family in the neighbourhood. Although he feels nothing for her, he begins to pay her court.[2]
The Warlock and the Maiden
The young woman finds the Warlock fascinating but is repelled by the coldness she feels lies behind his flattery. However, she is told that she has succeeded in changing the Warlock where everyone else has failed and her family consider him a great match for her. They accept an invitation to a great feast with the finest silver, wines and foods. The Warlock and the maiden sit beside each other on thrones and he flirts with her by stealing the words of poets. But then the maiden tells the warlock she would be delighted with his words if only he had a heart.[2]
The warlock tells her to follow him and takes her to the dungeon where he keeps his greatest treasure; his beating heart in an enchanted crystal casket. The heart has been disconnected from his body for too long and has shrunk and grown hair. The maiden cries that he should put it back where it belongs and eager to please her, he puts it back in his chest. Once he does, the maiden tells him he will now know true love, but her affections pierce his newly awakened heart. It is now savage and blind and has developed perverse appetites.[2]
The Warlock kills the Maiden
The guests at the feast have noticed their absence and after several hours, they try to find them. To their horror, they find them in the dungeon. The maiden is dead and her chest has been cut open, and the Warlock is beside her holding her shiny heart. He licks and strokes it and vows to replace his own heart with hers. But his wand will not bring his hairy heart from his chest which has grown stronger than its owner and refuses to return to its casket. The Warlock puts his wand to the side, picks up a silver dagger and tries to cut his heart out. For a moment, the Warlock holds both hearts in his hands, then collapses across the maiden's body and dies.[2]