British author J K Rowling's latest offering will appeal to readers on two different levels – for fairytale lovers, it comes as a simple collection of moral fables but for the 'Pottermaniacs' it brings back the memories of the world of the boy wizard.'The Tales of Beedle The Bard', which hit the stands last week is a spin-off from the popular Harry Potter series, with illustrations by the writer herself and "notes" from Professor Albus Dumbledore, the venerable headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.The compilation, which finds elaborate mention in the final book on the boy wizard, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows', comprises five fairytales, which, Rowling informs us, are to wizard children as 'Cinderella' to 'muggles'.At the outset, the stories look like simple fairytales written on the Brothers Grimm tradition, with moral views on good and bad, virtue and vice, life and death thrown in.But what is more evident, mainly in the 'Dumbledore notes' is an attempt to recreate the magic. For Rowling, it is life after Harry Potter, but not necessarily life after Hogwarts, with the notes giving anecdotes about the magical school and characters associated it.She also seemed to have used the voice of Dumbledore to take a dig at her critics who say that her stories, with violent and scary themes, are not fit for children.The first story – The Wizard and the Hopping Pot – tells us about an old wizard who used his magic pot to cure ills of his neighbours. When his son refuses to carry on with the tradition after his death, the pot sprouts symptoms of horrible diseases and hops around him till he mends his ways and comes out to help the people.Dumbledore writes that a strong opposition came from one particular writer 'Beatrix Bloxam', who felt the tales of Beedle are "damaging" to children because of their "unhealthy preoccupation with the most horrid subjects, such as death, disease, bloodshed, wicked magic."Sounds familiar?The Potter stories have been flayed on the same lines, and Rowling seems to slam the critics through Dumbledore, who mocks at Bloxam for trying to rewrite 'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot' in a happy and sweet way. The reworking, he informs, was detested by wizard kids.Rowling's stories begin with the simplicity of any fairytale but as the readers progress they find more maturity in them. For example, the story of "The Warlock's Hairy Heart" has no pretensions of a happy ending despite starting like any fairytale.The author clearly believes that children should not be treated as delicate objects and stopped from learning the realities that life throws up before them."'The Warlock's Hairy Heart" is by far the most gruesome of Beedle's offerings," claimes Dumbledore in his notes."It has survived intact through the centuries because it speaks to the dark depths in all of us. It addresses one of the greatest, and least acknowledged, temptations of magic: the quest for invulnerability," says the professor.Rowling's stories are not only magical in their simplicity but they also try to despel some of the misconceptions that has been associated with her 'Harry Potter' series. She has been often accused of leading children into a belief in magic.But in the sane voice of Prof Dumbledore, Rowling tries to clear such misconceptions."No man or woman alive, magical or not, has ever escaped some form of injury, whether physical, mental or emotional. To hurt is as human as to breathe. Nevertheless, we wizards seem particularly prone to the idea that we can bend the nature of existence to our will," the professor cautions at the end of one story.In another story, the professor has also tried to explain that magic has no power to bring dead back to life.
