A Lake and Shed Conversation about the Lost Mother Golden Thread in J. K. Rowling’s Work

This is the third of three posts about the Lost Mother Golden Thread in the work of J. K. Rowling. The first, Anne Rowling and the Lost Mother Golden Thread in the Works of J. K. Rowling (hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/p/anne-rowling-…), reviewed Rowling-Galbraith’s regrets at the death of her mother Anne in December 1990 with a listing with brief discussion of the many Lost Mothers in her twenty-three published books. In the second, The Lost Mother Golden Thread and a Key Reason We are Moved by J. K. Rowling’s Stories (hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/p/the-lost-moth…), John joined the Lost Mother meme to the Ghosts and Mother’s Love Golden Threads to get at the metaphysical ground and beating heart of Rowling’s work.
In the video podcast above, Nick and John discuss reader feedback to the Hidden Hold of Horrors Golden Thread conversation (hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/p/the-lake-shed…), John’s two Lost Mother posts, the implications of his findings for the Strike series’ last two novels, and the work being done on interactive Hogwarts Professor talks and online classes. Please share all the Lost Mother characters, mother and child, in Rowling stories that they missed in the comment boxes below, as well as your thoughts about John’s idea that the “Defining Idea and Power of Rowling’s Work is in the Intersection of the Lost Mother, Ghosts, and Mother’s Love Golden Threads Running Through Everything She Writes.”
Before we forget, here are the three things Nick and John promised would be posted ‘Down Below’ in the conversation above:
* A Key to Maternal Love in (hogwartsprofessor.com/a-key-to-maternal-love-i…)Harry Potter? (hogwartsprofessor.com/a-key-to-maternal-love-i…)Mum Crouch’s Sacrifice in (hogwartsprofessor.com/a-key-to-maternal-love-i…)Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (hogwartsprofessor.com/a-key-to-maternal-love-i…): The meaning in the middle of the Harry Potter series, the murder of Barty Crouch by Junior, a son saved by his mother’s love, incorporates the key symbolism of Rowling’s work with respect to sin and death as well as virtue, love, and the victory over death in one family. Conversation with Wayne Stauffer, Beatrice Groves, and Louise Freeman with implications for the understanding of the Hogwarts Saga, Cormoran Strike, and The Christmas Pig.
* Death of Eric Wardle’s Mum is first mentioned in Hallmarked Man, Chapter 70:
Wardle drank more lager before answering.
‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘My mum’s just died.’
‘S**t,’ said Strike, who’d had no idea of this. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yeah. Last month. She was never right, after my brother,’ said Wardle. ‘Broke her heart.’
His words were coming as though each adhered to his throat, and needed to be pulled up, with effort.
‘She chose not to go for a second round of chemo… raised us both as a single mum. We were her life. Terry dying half-killed her, and then April left me, and she didn’t see nearly as much of Liam any more.’
‘Liam?’
‘My son,’ said Wardle, with a faint smile. ‘The kid you just saw me put to bed.’
‘Oh, yeah, of course.’
‘Anyway… Mum left a lot more money than I expected. She came into an inheritance herself, right before she died… never got to enjoy it. Before she went, I kept telling myself I’d be mad not to hang on at work for the pension, but with what she left, I could still see Liam right.’
* Percival Proudfoot "Plug" Plugsley, Cartoon Character (beano.fandom.com/wiki/Plug):
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Here are all the links to points and articles Nick and John discuss in today’s video podcast; enjoy!
The Ten Questions with Links (John in Red, Nick in Blue)
* So, Nick, what did we miss in our review of the Hidden Hold of Horrors Golden Thread (HHH) running through all of Rowling’s work?
Tamspells: The bat cave in Tassel’s version of Bombyx Mori
* The smuggler’s cave Strike and Pollworth never got to?
* IBH - Mother Shipton’s Cave
* The silver mines on Sark and the Maid of the Silver Sea Connection
Ed Shardlow:
* One point of pedantry, the incident on the tracks in IBH takes place at Custom House station, which is on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) rather than the underground, and very much above ground, although there’s still a drop from the platform to the tracks and the onrushing mortality.
* There are also lots of cemetery references with Highgate Cemetery itself as a key location, and then the depictions of the cemetery in both the cartoon and the game. Gus’s darkened room perhaps also qualifies?
* A few other candidates occur to me in other books, although perhaps these are more concealed treasure than concealed danger - the cupboard under the stairs, Harry’s Gringotts vault, the Old Forge...
* Connected to all the mining and masonry in THM, and the silver vault, there’s the archetypal setting of King Solomon’s Temple in the legend of Hiram Abiff, and the recreation of that setting in the vault-like temples of Freemason’s Hall.
* Also, the place under the bridge on the canal, where Strike meets Rena, that turns out to be Ben Liddell’s final resting place.
* Seems like the subterranean chamber in Church Cottage might be the inspiration from real life not just for the golden thread of caverns, dungeons and cisterns, but also for the Lake in her creative process. Whereas perhaps those raised and well-lit counterexamples are the Shed.
* So I wonder if there’s a real world shed to identify too.
Maggie S: Strike swims in a pool in Cuckoo Calling.
MS Liner Notes-Sideways Bird: In Deathly Hallows, the Malfoys keep their prisoners in a dungeon/cellar
* They escape to Bill and Fleur’s home — Shell Cottage, which is on a cliff overlooking the sea. The processing of grief and burial rituals alongside the sea imagery, where Harry tries to make sense of it all and figure out what to do next, are beautiful. I use them as stand-alone passages for grief counseling often.
* It has made me want to explore further the juxtaposition of the underground trauma moments with the above ground lake/sea/water processing moments. Like DP and Jack’s final encounter on the beach.
* I think there might be a reason Cormoran is drawn to the sea for healing…and maybe a bit hesitant to linger there too long…
Gina Sterling: In OoTP, Harry goes down into Snape’s cellar, goes into the Pensieve, and he sees his dad being a jerk to Snape...next to the lake.
* My mind is blown! I love that this podcast gives me paradigm shifts once in awhile--with the stories in which I’m most familiar. I’ve never connected the *literal* undergrounds and *literal* waters with the descent to the innermost cave/nigredo. The cave or underground area is always followed by water, the albedo, cleansing moment...where the hero is changed. I’ll never be able to not see this now!
John: The two Hidden Hold events I thought of this morning were the “deepest dungeon” in ‘The Warlock’s Hairy Heart’ and the trapdoor concealed by a carpet in Poem and Pretence’s home in Christmas Pig. Both of those are in credibly rich moments in their respective books, the latter the Meaning-In-The-Middle moment of perhaps Rowling’s best book.
* You’re the Lake man, Nick, so you probably aren’t surprised that we have two Golden Threads coming out of Church Cottage, Rowling’s childhood home in Tutshill. Are there any others?
* In addition to the Hidden Hold of Horrors out of the Church Cottage basement, there is Tutshill echo everywhere in ‘the family with Bad Dad and Lost Mother living in a modest home on the periphery of a Manor estate’ (think the Gaunts and the Riddles, the Knights and the …