#wizarding myths
The Highwayman’s Tale
Blood-red were his spurs i’ the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
The Highwayman’s tale is a story each pureblood child hears in their cradle and is repeated to them, year after year, night after night until the words are forever locked into their hearts and they can tell the tale without stumbling, so that one day they too may pass this story to their children to teach them what it means to be a witch or a wizard.
Muggleborns who ask why, in these modern times, the magical folk still hide themselves away are told this tale in answer.
For the tale is one of violent beginnings and ends, of love passionate and enduring, of betrayal and jealousy, of pain and loss and death. And most importantly, it reveals the true nature of these lesser beings who once persecuted them and would persecute them once again, if they revealed themselves.
It tells the story of young Frederick Rosier, a wizard aristocrat turned highwayman and his love, a young witch who served as a tavern wench in her father’s inn. Every night he comes to her, before he rides on his way to make his raids in the moonlight. Jealous of Rosier; jealous that she should favour a handsome, reckless stranger over a steady lad like him; the muggle ostler Tim betrays them and tells King James’ men-at-arms of a highwayman who will ride the London-Bath road that very night and will return at dawn with his spoils to greet his lady love.
The king’s men come to the inn and bind the young witch to the foot of a bed, by a casement looking on to the road below, a musket underneath her breast. She shoots herself when she hears him approaching, warning him of the danger awaiting him at the inn and Rosier flees at the sound of the shot, not knowing that it is his love who has shot herself to save him. When he does hear of it, he turns his horse and rides to avenge her death and is shot for his efforts. King James’ men are rewarded by William of Orange, Tim the ostler rejoices and business continues as usual in the village as Freddie Rosier bleeds to death.
The tragedy of the tale, as it was told, lay not in the death of an innocent, but the butchery of a pureblood scion, beloved of the wizarding world and saviour of the poor. This was the way of muggles, the story taught, they killed those who helped the poor and betrayed their helpers.
Good wizards stuck by each other. Good wizards stood by their own. And when the muggles struck them, they would strike back with such force as to show them that these were not a people to be trifled with. They might have allowed themselves to bleed once but never again and certainly not for these non-magical liars and cheats.
They stood by each other as they did by the Rosiers when Freddie died.
[Image sources: The HighwaymanbyCharles Keeping,The Highwayman by Charles Mikolaycak]
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