Friday, 18 August 2023

SYBILL TRELAWNEY, PROPHECIES SINCE ANCIENT TIMES

Today, The Weasleys and The Grandma have assisted to one of the most interesting classes in Hogwarts: Divination. Professor Sybill Trelawney has offered them a masterclass about how to guess the future using glass balls and tea leaves.

The Grandma has been very interested in this class because she is a great fan of Greek and Roman Sybils and for first time in her live she has met a modern Sybil.

Before assisting to Professor Sybill Trelawney's masterclass, The Grandma has offered a new Cambridge Key English Test A2 Example, their first Listening, to The Weasleys to prepare their future exam.

She has also asked Professor Trelawney about the future results of these exams and after an intense tea leaves reading, Professor Trelawney has given her an answer... but it is a secret that The Grandma is not going to reveal.


Professor Sybill Patricia Trelawney is a half-blood witch and professor of Divination at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

She is the great-great-granddaughter of the celebrated Cassandra Trelawney, who was also a Seer.

It was Trelawney herself who made the prophecy concerning Lord Voldemort and the one with the power to vanquish him, Voldemort took this to mean Harry Potter, during her job interview with Albus Dumbledore.

She accurately predicted the escape of Peter Pettigrew and return of Lord Voldemort. Trelawney was greatly distressed by Dolores Umbridge, who dismissed her and attempted to banish her from Hogwarts Castle, though Dumbledore allowed her to remain at the school, with Umbridge being greatly offended when she later had to teach alongside the centaur Firenze.

She participated in the Battle of Hogwarts, dropping crystal balls on Death Eaters' heads and tending to the wounded and dead along with Padma Patil.


Professor Trelawney continued to teach well into the 2010s, continuing her tradition of predicting the deaths of her students. Since Firenze was welcomed back to his herd, it is possible that she taught Divination on her own again.

Sybill was born to a Muggle mother and wizard father, into the half-blood Trelawney family. There were three generations between her and Cassandra Trelawney, who was a renowned Seer. No one in the family since Cassandra had possessed the Second Sight. Presumably purchasing or inheriting her wand at the age of eleven, Sybill attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which she referred to as her home. Being Sorted into Ravenclaw, she may have been a member of the Slug Club because of her ancestry.

In her third year, Sybill would have taken Divination as one of her elective subjects in her third year, and achieved high grades in her O.W.L and N.E.W.T.

She married early, but it ended in unforeseen rupture due to Sybill's refusal to adopt the surname Higglebottom. They had no children.

After graduating, Sybill drifted through the wizarding world, trying to gain employment based on her ancestry but scorning those who did not offer what she felt was the rightful treatment of a true Seer.

More information: Wizarding World

Sybill, who by this point had begun making false predictions, arranged a meeting with Albus Dumbledore in the Hog's Head where she was staying in the hopes of acquiring the position of professor of Divination at Hogwarts School. Dumbledore, who was not planning on continuing divination at Hogwarts, agreed to give her a chance because of her ancestry.

Sybill displayed none of Cassandra's divinatory skills, which disappointed Dumbledore even though he was planning on discontinuing the subject anyway. After courteously telling her she was not fit for the position, Sybill entered a real trance and made the prophecy about Voldemort's defeat. It so happened that the Death Eater Severus Snape was eavesdropping at the door, which placed Trelawney in great danger from Voldemort. Hoping to protect Sybill, Dumbledore hired her.


As a professor, Trelawney taught in the Divination Classroom on the seventh floor of the North Tower. She presumably also ran the Divination Workshop. Sybill made many predictions over her time at Hogwarts.

Minerva McGonagall once claimed that she predicted the death of one of her students every year, none of whom had yet died. Knowing her talents pale in comparison to her colleagues, Professor Trelawney very rarely attended meals in the Great Hall with the rest of the school, preferring to remain in her tower. She appeared to be acquainted with a certain colleague of hers, but frequently clashed with Professor McGonagall.

Professor Trelawney survived the Second Wizarding War and continued to teach well into the 2010s, continuing her tradition of predicting the deaths of her students. Since Firenze was welcomed back to his herd, it is possible that she taught Divination on her own again. Trelawney wrote a book entitled My Eyes and How to See Past Them.

More information: Wizarding World

Professor Trelawney was described as being a thin woman, usually draped in gauzy shawls, and cloaks and bangles all covered with shining sequins and glittering strings of beads.

She had thick glasses, which hugely magnified her eyes and caused them to appear about ten times their normal size. She spoke in a soft, misty, ethereal voice, though she would become brisk and snappy when she was angry or upset.

Trelawney was extremely eccentric; she had a theatrical presence and frequently spoke in misty, ethereal tones. She saw herself as being a great Seer, although her predictions rarely came true. Much like Gilderoy Lockhart, Trelawney was sometimes unable to understand who liked and who disliked her. She was, however, conscious of her low status amongst the staff, which led to her spending most of her time apart from her colleagues in her office.

According to Professor McGonagall, seeing death omens was a favourite way for Trelawney to greet her class, something that greatly annoyed Harry Potter as he was her frequent target. One of her hobbies was practising doom-laden prophecies in front of the mirror. She became angered when she believed that students were not impressed by nor interested in her subject, such as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.


Her first prediction was made in the presence of Albus Dumbledore at the Hog's Head inn. Trelawney was in the middle of an interview for a teaching job at Hogwarts when it was made. Dumbledore reported that he had decided not to give Trelawney the job, but changed his mind when he heard the prophecy. Trelawney herself is not aware that she made the prophecy, merely remembering that she came over faint, which she attributed to not having eaten that day.

This prediction is believed to refer to Voldemort, The Dark Lord, and Harry Potter. At the time of its prophesying, the identity of the child was not known as he had not been born yet. The time of year the prophecy was made is unknown.

It later became apparent that the prophecy could have applied to either Harry or Neville Longbottom, who was also born at the end of the seventh month on 30 July. Part of the prediction came to pass on the night of October, when Voldemort's body was destroyed after Harry survived an attack from him, reputedly using the killing curse, Avada Kedavra.

The attack left Harry with an ability to speak Parseltongue, a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, and a mental connection to Voldemort. It was Dumbledore's view that it was Voldemort's choice of Harry as his target from the two possible boys, that caused Harry to have the power to vanquish the Dark Lord. In other words, the only reason Harry had the power to defeat Voldemort is that Voldemort believed he did. By attacking Harry, Voldemort caused the prophecy to become true.

More information: Wizarding World

Both her name and her surname are related to her future telling ability. Sibyl was a priestess in ancient Roman mythology. A sibyl, one l, is a woman who could look into the future. A sibyl also can be any female prophet. The name is from the Latin sibylla, seer. Rowling chose to spell it Sybill, because she did not feel Trelawney really qualified as a Sibyl.

Sybil could also originate from the Sybilline Books, a Roman collection of oracular occurrences.

Her middle name, Patricia, comes from Latin and means noble woman.

Trelawney is derived from a famous cry of defiance from the south-west of England, where J. K. Rowling grew up, often shouted at football matches:

And shall Trelawney live? And shall Trelawney die? Here's ten thousand Cornishmen who ask the reason why!

The cry is a line from The Song of the Western Men, written in 1833 by the poet and parson Robert Stephens Hawker and the unofficial Cornish national anthem. It concerns the march to London in 1688 in protest at the incarceration in the Tower of Jonathan Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol. This could be a reference to Trelawney predicting the death of one of her students every year. It is also interesting to note that Bishop Trelawney also was released and went on to live for another thirty-three years, just as Professor Trelawney's famous death predictions rarely came true.

The name Trelawney comes from the Cornish phrase tre-lonow, homestead of groves, or tre-launow, farm in clearing. J. K. Rowling claimed that she picked the name because of her love of Cornish surnames, which she had not used in her books before. The age of the name also made it suitable, because of Trelawney's over-reliance on her ancestry when seeking to impress.

More information: Screen Rant
 

 Welcome.
How nice to see you in the physical world at last.
Welcome to Divination.
My name is Professor Trelawney.
You may not have seen me before.
I find that descending too often 
into the hustle and bustle
of the main school clouds my Inner Eye.

Sybill Trelawney

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