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==Settling in the New World== |
==Settling in the New World== |
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| − | Isolt arrived in America with the earliest Muggle settlers. She did not stay with them and disappeared into the surrounding mountains, believing her aunt |
+ | Isolt arrived in America with the earliest Muggle settlers. She did not stay with them and disappeared into the surrounding mountains, believing her aunt might find her and that the [[Puritans]] would not be friends with a witch. Her shipmates believed "Elias Story" had died in the winter. |
Isolt stayed alone in the mountains for several weeks with very little knowledge about [[Native American]] wizards. However, she then met two native creatures she did not know existed. She stumbled across a [[Hidebehind]] who was about to eat a [[Pukwudgie]]. She saved the Pukwudgie by casting a curse which made the Hidebehind flee Unaware that the Pukwudgie was dangerous to humans, Isolt picked him up, carried him to her makeshift shelter and nursed him back to health. |
Isolt stayed alone in the mountains for several weeks with very little knowledge about [[Native American]] wizards. However, she then met two native creatures she did not know existed. She stumbled across a [[Hidebehind]] who was about to eat a [[Pukwudgie]]. She saved the Pukwudgie by casting a curse which made the Hidebehind flee Unaware that the Pukwudgie was dangerous to humans, Isolt picked him up, carried him to her makeshift shelter and nursed him back to health. |
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Revision as of 16:30, 28 June 2016
Isolt Sayre was an Irish pure-blood witch. She was the daughter of William Sayre and Rionach Sayre (neé Gaunt). She was one of the founders of Ilvermorny School of Witchraft and Wizardry.
Early Life
Isolt Sayre was born around 1603 to William Sayre and Rionach Sayre (neé Gaunt). She spent her earliest childhood in the valley of Coomloughra, County Kerry, in Ireland.
Her father was a direct descendant of the famous Irish witch Morrigan, an Animagus whose creature form was a crow. Her mother was a Gaunt and therefore a descendent of Salazar Slytherin. William nicknamed his daughter ‘Morrigan’ for her affinity for all natural things when she was young. Her early childhood was idyllic, with parents who loved her and were quietly helpful to their Muggle neighbours, producing magical cures for humans and livestock alike.
However, at five years old, an attack upon the family home resulted in the death of both of her parents. Isolt was ‘rescued’ from the fire by her mother’s estranged sister, Gormlaith Gaunt, who took her to the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or ‘Hag’s Glen,’ and raised her there.[1]
Fleeing Gormlaith
However, Isolt’s life with Gormlaith was unstable and cruel. Gormlaith was a fanatical pure-blood who believed that her sister’s helpfulness to her Muggle neighbours was setting Isolt upon a dangerous path to intermarriage with a non-magical man. Gormlaith believed that by stealing Isolt, she could put her on the right path with the understanding that she should only associate with pure-bloods.
Isolt was forced to watch as Gormlaith cursed and jinxed any Muggle or animal that strayed too near their cottage. Isolt became isolated as the community learned to avoid her home. Isolt lost her friends and the local children begun to throw stones at her when she played in the garden. When she was eleven, Gormlaith refused to allow Isolt to attend Hogwarts, which she called “a dangerously egalitarian establishment full of Mudbloods”. She wanted to keep her at home so she could teach her instead. However, Gormlaith herself had attended Hogwarts, and told Isolt a great deal about the school. She did this to denigrate Hogwarts and only lamented how Salazar Slytherin’s plans for the purity of wizardkind had not been fulfilled. Isolt was not allowed her own wand.
Isolt believed her aunt to half insane and considered Hogwarts a paradise. She fantasised about going there for many years. After twelve years with Gormlaith, Isolt was being forced to study powerful Dark magic. However, this gave Isolt enough skill and courage to escape by stealing Gormlaith’s wand and a gold brooch in the shape of a Gordian Knot that had once belonged to her mother.
Isolt fled to England scared of Gormlaith’s retribution, but before long Gormlaith found her. Determined to hide in such a way that her adoptive mother would never find her, Isolt cut off her hair and masqueraded as a Muggle boy called Elias Story, She then set sail for the New World on the Mayflower in 1620.[1]
Settling in the New World
Isolt arrived in America with the earliest Muggle settlers. She did not stay with them and disappeared into the surrounding mountains, believing her aunt might find her and that the Puritans would not be friends with a witch. Her shipmates believed "Elias Story" had died in the winter.
Isolt stayed alone in the mountains for several weeks with very little knowledge about Native American wizards. However, she then met two native creatures she did not know existed. She stumbled across a Hidebehind who was about to eat a Pukwudgie. She saved the Pukwudgie by casting a curse which made the Hidebehind flee Unaware that the Pukwudgie was dangerous to humans, Isolt picked him up, carried him to her makeshift shelter and nursed him back to health.
The Pukwudgie now declared himself bound to serve her until he had an opportunity to repay his debt. He considered it a great humiliation to be indebted to a young witch foolish enough to wander around in a strange country, where Pukwudgies or Hidebehinds might have attacked her at any moment, and her days were now filled with the Pukwudgie’s grumbling as he trudged along at her heels.
In spite of the Pukwudgie’s ingratitude, Isolt found him amusing and was glad of his company. Over time, a friendship developed between them that was almost unique in the history of their respective species. Faithful to the taboos of his people, the Pukwudgie refused to tell her his individual name, so she dubbed him ‘William’ after her father.[1]
The Horned Serpent
William began to introduce Isolt to the magical creatures with which he was familiar. They took trips together to observe the frog-headed Hodags hunting, they fought a dragonish Snallygaster and watched newborn Wampus kittens playing in the dawn.
Most fascinating of all to Isolt, was the great horned river serpent with a jewel set into its forehead, which lived in a nearby creek. Even her Pukwudgie guide was terrified of this beast, but to his astonishment, the Horned Serpent seemed to like Isolt. Even more alarming to William was the fact that she claimed to understand what the Horned Serpent was saying to her.
Isolt learned not to talk to William about her strange sense of kinship with the serpent, nor of the fact that it seemed to tell her things. She took to visiting the creek alone and never told the Pukwudgie where she had been. The serpent’s message never varied: ‘Until I am part of your family, your family is doomed.’ However, Isolt could not understand the Horned Serpent’s cryptic words, or even decide whether she was imagining the voice in which he seemed to speak to her.
Webster and Chadwick Boot
Isolt was eventually reunited with people of her own kind. As she and William foraged in the woods one day, a grisly noise not far away caused William to shout at Isolt to remain where she was, as he charged away through the trees, poisoned arrow at the ready.
Naturally, Isolt did not follow his instructions, and when she arrived shortly afterwards at a small clearing she found the same Hidebehind that had previously tried to kill William had killed a pair of naïve humans. She then noticed two small boys seriously injured nearby. Isolt and William stopped the Hidebehind and Isolt ordered William to help her carry the two small boys home. William refused as he believed they were already as good as dead. It was against the beliefs of his kind to assist humankind, Isolt being the unfortunate exception because she had saved his life.
Outraged by the Pukwudgie’s callousness, Isolt told him that she would accept the saving of one of the boy’s lives as repayment. The two boys were so ill she was afraid to Apparate with them, but insisted on carrying them home. Grudgingly, the Pukwudgie consented to carry the older boy, whose name was Chadwick Boot, while Isolt carried young Webster Boot back to her shelter.
Once there, the furious Isolt told William that she had no further need of him and she and William parted ways.[1]
Meeting James Steward
Isolt saved the two small boys who she then discovered were magical. They had brought to America by their parents in search of adventure. Isolt then made graves for their parents and returned to the forest where she found a young Muggle named James Steward who was already digging graves for them. He had travelled over with the Plymouth settlement and had been searching for the family. When James went to pick up the wands left beside the Boot parents and waved them, James was sent flying backwards across the clearing, hit a tree and was knocked out cold. Isolt took him to a small shelter and nursed him back to health. She could not hide her magic from him in such a confined space and intended to Obliviate James once he was over his concussion and send him back to Plymouth.
However, Isolt enjoyed his company and James even helped Isolt construct a stone house on the top of Greylock. They christened the house Ilvermorny after the cottage in which she had been born. Isolt eventually decided not to Obliviate James who, having been initially scared of magic, had grown to love Isolt. Isolt and James then married.[1]
Idea of Ilvermorny
Isolt and James considered the Boot boys their adopted sons. Isolt told them the second-hand stories of Hogwarts she had learned from Gormlaith. Both boys yearned to attend the school, frequently asking why they could not all return to Ireland where they could wait for their letters. Isolt promised them that when they reached eleven years old, she would somehow find them wands and they would start a school of magic right there in the cottage.
This idea caught Chadwick’s and Webster’s imaginations. They decided Ilvermorny would have four houses, similar to Hogwarts but decided to give them unique names. They believed their own names didn’t sound good enough and named them after their favourite magical beasts. Isolt chose the Horned Serpent which she still visited and shared a strange sense of kinship. Chadwick chose the Thunderbird, Webster chose the Wampus and James eventually chose the Pukwudgie. [1]
The Dream
As Isolt had promised the boys she would provide them with a wand on their eleventh birthday, she decided to make Chadwick his own wand. She studied his parents wand but was at a lost as to how to make her own
On the eve of his birthday, she had a dream that she went down to the creek to find the Horned Serpent, which rose up out of the water and bowed its head to her while she shaved a long shard from its horn. Waking in the darkness, she proceeded down to the creek.
The Horned Serpent was waiting there for her. It raised its head exactly as it had done in her dream, she took part of its horn, thanked it, then returned to the house and woke James, whose skill with stone and wood had already beautified the family cottage.
When Chadwick woke next day, it was to find a finely carved wand of prickly ash enclosing the horn of the serpent. Isolt and James had succeeded in creating a wand of exceptional power.[1]
The Founding of Ilvermorny School
By the time Webster turned eleven, the reputation of the family’s little home school had spread. Two more magical boys from the Wampanoag tribe had been joined by a mother and two daughters from the Narragansett, all interested in learning the techniques of wandwork in exchange for sharing their own magical learning. Isolt and James also provided them with a wand. However, she chose to use other cores such asWampus hair, Snallygaster heartstring and Jackalope antlers.
By 1634, the home school had grown beyond Isolt’s family’s wildest dreams. The house expanded with every passing year. More students had arrived and while the school was still small, there were enough children to fulfil Webster’s dream of inter-house competitions. However, as the school’s reputation had not yet expanded beyond the local Native American tribes and European settlers, there were no boarders. The only people to stay at Ilvermorny overnight were Isolt, James, Chadwick, Webster and the twin girls to whom Isolt had now given birth: Martha, named for James’s late mother, and Rionach, named for Isolt’s. Martha was a Squib but Isolt and her family still loved her very much. [1]
Gormlaith’s Revenge
However, news had reached the old country that a new magical school had been set up in Massachusetts. The rumour was that the headmistress had been nicknamed ‘Morrigan’ after the famous Irish witch. However, it was only when she heard that the name of the school was ‘Ilvermorny’, that Gormlaith could believe that Isolt had managed to travel all the way to America undetected, to marry, not just a Muggle-born, but an actual Muggle, and to open a school that educated anybody with a shred of magic.
Gormlaith purchased a new wand and disguised herself as a man to make the crossing to America on the ship Bonaventure. Wickedly, she travelled under the name of William Sayre, which was that of Isolt’s murdered father. Gormlaith landed in Virginia and made her way stealthily towards Massachusetts and Mount Greylock, reaching the mountain on a winter’s night. She intended to lay waste to the second Ilvermorny, slaughter the parents who had thwarted her ambition of a great pure-blood family, steal her great nieces who were the last to carry the sacred bloodline, and return with them to Hag’s Glen.
At her first sight of the large granite building rising in the darkness from the peak of Mount Greylock, Gormlaith sent a powerful curse containing Isolt and James’s names towards the house, which forced them into an enchanted slumber.
Next, she uttered a single sibilant word in Parseltongue, the language of snakes. The wand that had served Isolt so faithfully for many years quivered once on the bedstand beside her as she slept, and became inactive. In all the years that she had lived with it, Isolt had never known that she held in her hand the wand of Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders of Hogwarts, and that it contained a fragment of a magical snake’s horn: in this case, a Basilisk. The wand had been taught by its creator to ‘sleep’ when so instructed, and this secret had been handed down through the centuries to each member of Slytherin’s family who possessed it.
What Gormlaith did not know, was that there were two other occupants of the house whom she had not put to sleep, for she had never heard of sixteen-year-old Chadwick and fourteen-year-old Webster. The other thing she did not know, was what lay at the hearts of their wands: the horn of the river serpent. Chadwick went to stop Gormlaith while Webster when to warn Isolt and James. However, Webster could not wake them and went to help Chadwick instead. The brothers were eventually driven back inside Ilvermorny: walls cracked and windows shattered, but still Isolt and James slept, until the baby girls lying upstairs woke and screamed in fear. It was this that pierced the enchantment lying over Isolt and James. Isolt screamed at James to go to the girls while she ran to assist her adoptive sons, Slytherin’s wand in her hand.
Gormlaith drove Isolt back upstairs with Chadwick and Webster as her wand would not work for her, Chadwick and Webster towards the place where she could hear her great-nieces crying. Finally she managed to blast open the doors to their bedroom, where James stood ready to die in front of the cribs of his daughters. Sure that all was lost, Isolt cried out, hardly knowing what she said, for her murdered father.
A great clatter sounded and the moonlight was blocked from the room as William the Pukwudgie appeared on the windowsill. Before Gormlaith knew what had happened, a poisoned arrow tip had pierced her through the heart.
William had saved the family’s lives. In exchange for their gratitude he merely barked that he noticed Isolt had not bothered to say his name for a decade, and that he was offended that she only called him when in fear of her imminent death. Isolt was too tactful to point out that she had been calling on a different William. William the moved with his family to Ilvermorny and helped them to repair the damage that Gormlaith had wreaked.
Slytherin’s wand remained inactive following Gormlaith’s command in Parseltongue. Isolt could not speak the language, but, in any case, she no longer wanted to touch the wand that was the last relic of her unhappy childhood. She and James buried it outside the grounds.[1]
Later Life and Death
Ilvermorny’s reputation grew steadily throughout the following years. For many years, Isolt and James remained joint Headmaster and Headmistress, as beloved to many generations of students as members of their own families.[1]
Isolt and James both lived to be over 100 before they died.
Biography
Family lineage
Isolt Sayre's mother was a direct descendant of the English or Irish wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Therefore, her mother came from the House of Gaunt, a pure-blood family who prided themselves knowing their direct ancestry to Slytherin himself. Her mother, however, separated herself from her family and rejected their beliefs, choosing not believing in pure-blood superiority and instead to be helpful to Muggles in any way she could.
Sayre's father, William Sayre, was also a descendant of a notable magical individual, and was directly related to Morrigan, a famous Irish who was an Animagus and could take on the form of a crow at will.
Early Life
Isolt Sayre was born approx. 1603. Her father nicknamed her "Morrigan" after his ancestor because of her "affinity of all natural things". Sayre had an "idyllic" childhood as well-loved by her parents and the surrounding Muggle community, for whom her parents would secretly produce magical cures for.
Around 1608, when Sayre was five years old, her family house was attacked and set on fire. In the ensuing destruction, both of Sayre's parents were tragically killed, however Sayre herself was apparently rescued from the burning house by her mother's estranged sister, Gormlaith Gaunt. Gaunt took Sayre to the neighboring valley of Coomcallee, where she raised her and used dark magic to make sure she would not escape and cooperate.
Gaunt proved to be an unstable and cruel guardian. A pure-blood supremacist, she believed that her sister's willingness to help Muggles would lead to what she believed to be a "dangerous path" to marrying a Muggle man. As she grew older, Sayre realized that her aunt had kidnapped her and set her house ablaze, therefore her parents' murderer. Gaunt would make Sayre watch as she cursed or jinxed any Muggle or animal that got too close to her cottage. The village learned to keep their distance from the cottage, and the only outside contact Sayre would get with anyone but her aunt was when local village boys threw stones at her when she played in the garden.
In around 1614, Sayre turned eleven and her Hogwarts acceptance letter arrived. However, her aunt refused to allow her to go to Hogwarts, believing that teaching Sayre herself about magic would be better than risking sending her to a "dangerously egalitarian establishment full of Mudbloods." As Gaunt herself had attented Hogwarts, and told Sayre a lot about it, but greatly denigrated it, lamenting that Salazar Slytherin's plans for the purity of wizardkind had been unfulfilled. This, however, led Sayre, who had been isolated mistreated by her aunt for years, believed Hogwarts to be a sort of paradise and spent a lot of time as a teenager fantasizing about it.
Escape
Roughly a year later, Sayre finally worked up the courage, as well as learn enough about magic, to escape. She stole her aunt's wand, and left the cottage and fled the country. The only other object she took with her was a gold brooch in the shape of a Gordian Knot that had belonged to her mother. Fearing her aunt's prodigious tracking abilities and her subsequent punishment, Sayre fled to England, but soon her aunt was on her tail. Determined to hide from her cruel aunt, she cut off all her hair and, for five years, pretended to be a Muggle boy, taking on the name of Elias Story, all the while her aunt was attempting to track her. In 1620, she went aboard the Mayflower
Appearances
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on Pottermore Cite error: Invalid
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