MAGICAL FORTRESSES
2nd Year - Option Three
A tall, stone fortress looms in the distance, perched on the edge of a mountain: it's a dark, solitary prison built to contain the worst of wizardkind -- otherwise known as Nurmengard Castle, the home and eventual prison of Gellert Grindelwald. Nurmengard was located somewhere in the Austrian Alps and functioned as a base of operations for Grindelwald and his followers during the early- to mid-1900s.
Over the entrance was inscribed the words, For the Greater Good -- Grindelwald's slogan during his rise to power. The fortress itself contained a watch tower connected to a slim building, which marked the entrance. Beyond the building was a gated courtyard, which held prisons on either side. The prisons were topped with houses, presumably for Grindelwald's followers. Higher-security cells were kept in the castle's interior -- one such being the cell that Grindelwald himself was kept in, located in the highest tower of the prison.
Image of Nurmengard Castle
Nurmengard Castle was not the only fortress of the Wizarding World, but its discovery was unrelated to one of the most important events of the twenty-first century: the Calamity. In the words of Constance Pickering, a leader of the Statute of Secrecy Task Force, "This Calamity is, well, quite calamitous. Everything that anyone has ever feared, revered, or held dear in the wizarding world — people, things, even memories — have been stolen and displaced, tossed about across the world." But what does this have to do with fortresses?
When the Foundable Spell -- the spell that unleashed the Calamity -- was cast, vast numbers of fortresses appeared all across the wizarding world, unlocking many relics of magical history that were previously hidden to us. But, just as with other magical objects in the Calamity, these fortresses were also visible to the muggle world -- therefore acting as significant breaches to the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. With such large-scale exposures of the wizarding world, it is likely that new myths and legends popped up in the muggle world to explain these strange occurrences.
HOMEWORK:
1) In what ways did having access to Nurmengard contribute to Grindelwald's rise to power?
2) Research another fortress, muggle or magic, and write a paragraph in which you tell me the following:
-- Where is it located?
-- When was it created?
-- Why was it created?
-- Who or what did it hold?
-- Why is it notable in the study of history?
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