The evil Voldermort’s name used to be Tom Riddle.  The real Thomas Riddle died in 1806 and only shares a name in common with Voldermort.

Tom Riddle

Grave of Thomas Riddle

Minerva McGonagal is the head of Griffindor House and teaches transformation to the young witches and wizards of Hogworts. Her name comes from William McGonagal, a poet who holds the title of The Worst Poet in The English Language. I think that near his gave is a grave with the name Minerva on it. One of William McGonagal ditties goes:

The Great Cow Disaster

Upon yonder hill there stands a coo

I’ve just had a look

It’s no there noo!

I wonder if it is also relevant that William transforms as Menerva transforms objects, like herself into a cat.

I wonder where some of the other character names come from?

Minerva McGonagal 

Grave of William Mcgonagall

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Not far from the infamous Bloody MacKenzie tomb stands an equally majestic tomb with four statues in it’s roof. The statues look out from each corner, well they would look out – if they had faces. The rest of the statues are beautifully made, but why no faces? These were not the only statues with no faces around the graveyard the more you looked the more you saw. I first thought that they had been lost to the Scottish weather.

It was explained to us that the faces had been removed, in an attempt to cheat death. The belief was you couldn’t die if death didn’t see you. So the statues of people were thought to have been the eyes of death, and for this reason they had their faces removed. I’m planning a trip back to the graveyard to document these missing faces.

I would be very interested to hear if anyone else knows this story.

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