Dumbledore's Cave Journey for the Horcrux and Slavic Beliefs About the Death of Sorcerers

Particular attention is drawn to Dumbledore's final expedition with Harry Potter to a cave on a rocky seashore, which turned out in the end to be a quest for a false Horcrux. The most interesting details emerge when one recalls that at that moment Dumbledore already knew of his approaching and inevitable death, so the journey to the cave can be read as a kind of deathbed ritual.

To begin with, the cave itself is, of course, an allusion to the underworld, that is, to the world beyond. The rites performed by Dumbledore in this cave echo folkloric notions about the death of sorcerers. The first thing he does is cut his hand in order to unseal the entrance to the rock. According to certain Volhynian beliefs, sorcerous power was passed on together with a drop of blood. The chief means of transmitting sorcery, however, according to most Polesian notions, was a handshake or a touch from the dying sorcerer to someone, more often a member of the household, but at times a neighbour or friend. In the Rechytsa region the rule was refined by the condition that the person receiving the sorcerer's knowledge and power must be not only close to him but also younger, otherwise the spells would simply be powerless. These very convictions often left dying sorcerers alone: nobody wanted a chance touch to doom him to a bargain with the devil and the eternal company of demons.

The demons, in fact, are portrayed in the form of the Inferi, which swarm in the lake inside the cave. It is held that the last days of sorcerers are filled with visitations by the unclean force with which they were acquainted in life. These include the demons themselves, or the devil appearing in the shape of a black hen at the moment the body is washed. Sorcerous powers also manifested themselves as toads and snakes at the sorcerer's deathbed or in his house after the coffin had been carried out.

The torments with which Dumbledore drinks the enchanted water in the cave echo the notions of the suffering that their powers inflict on wizards before death, if they have failed to pass them on to one of their kin.

As for the moment of Dumbledore's death, the black sky also fits quite well into Slavic demonological folklore: when a healer died, the sky was dark, and there might even be a storm, thunder, rain or a whirlwind.