Ever on the quilting goes,
Spinning out the lives between,
Winding up the souls of those
Students up to one-thirteen
There's a book about a young boy whose mundane life is one day interrupted by a call to go to wizard boarding school, where he gets into youthful hijinks overshadowed by feats about a dark wizard. There's a prophecy, friends made along the way, and finally a climactic battle against the dark wizard returned. I read it when I was young, and it left a lasting impact on me.
That book is Jane Yolan's Wizard's Hall, published six years before Harry Potter, and in contrast to Harry Potter it emphasizes a particular virtue that's not often lauded in main characters. To use a term from the more famous later book, Wizard's Hall is a book that centres Hufflepuffs.
A Book Full Of Lessons
Wizard's Hall is stuffed to the gills with aphorisms. Our main character, Thornmallow, will repeat many of them to himself at the appropriate moment. Some come from teachers, some from other students, and many from Thornmallow's mother. The first chapter alone gives us "better take care than need care," "hunger is a great seasoner," and "it only matters that you try."
Thornmallow has decided to become a wizard, and so set off to Wizard's Hall, a place well known enough that schoolchildren have rope skipping rhymes about how to get there. Thornmallow has no native talent for wizardry. In his first class he messes up by singing a spell so off key that he gets singled out from the crowd by the teacher (relatable) and then, even with the teacher walking him through the magic, he manages to screw up in a way that overdoes a simple spell and causes an avalanche of snow in the classroom. There's a pattern to when his magic works and when it doesn't, though it's not stated until near the end.
This pattern persists. Most of the time the creative spark of magic completely ignores him and it feels awkward while nothing happens. Sometimes he can feel it, and it's wonderful and warm, but the mystical energies are too strong and he winds up with overkill.
Wizard's Hall is about half the wordcount of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. He still manages to hit many of the same highlights. He overhears teachers talking in ominous tones about the terrible past, he listens to lectures, he makes some friends. He also picks up yet more aphorisms, "to begin is not to finish" and "talent is not enough" and "good folk think bad thoughts, bad folk act on 'em." He's never the person coining the phrase, always repeating wisdom he's been told and trying to live up to it.
He and his friends hit the library to research things the teachers won't tell them. And the bad guy, the wizard Nettle and his Quilting Beast, shows up. Spoilers, the heroes win, because Thornmallow gets his magic working when he really needs it — with a wrinkle that is the heart of why I love this book as much as I do.
Enchantment and Enhancement
After the evil wizard is defeated, the head magister of the school is giving a speech in praise of our protagonist. It's a good bit, I can see why they kept it in Harry Potter. This bit comes with something I don't see as often though.
"I don't understand," Thornmallow mumbled. "Do I have a talent for magic — or don't I?"
[His teacher] smiled at him but then looked past him and spoke to the entire room. "[Thornmallow] asks if he has a talent for magic." She smiled slowly and shook her head. "He does not. At least, he does not have a talent for enchantment. His talent is far greater. He has a talent for enhancement. He can make any spell someone else works even greater simply by trying."
Did you catch that? The special, rare magic surrounding our protagonist (who is of course more rare and remarkable than an ordinary wizard) isn't an individual talent, or even a natural aptitude for telling others what to do like Ender Wiggin of Ender's Game or Darrow of Red Rising. Thornmallow is explicitly notable for supporting other people. When he joins hands and wills with first year students, they can do things that should take a graduate. When he's assisting a magister, together they can perform magic that surprises and astonishes everyone.
Slowly Dr. Morning Glory lowered the staff and handed it to Magister Hickory. "Alone he is only an ordinary boy, the kind who makes our farms run and our roads smooth, who builds our houses and fights our wars. But when he touches wizards he trusts and admires — or their staffs — he makes their good magicks better."
We all know people like this, though we may not spend much time talking with them. Odes and accolades to the working stiff or the common clay aren't entirely uncommon, though since authors and songwriters these days have a tendency to be more unique individuals it feels like they're growing less common.
It's still nice to see. And here remember, it's a trait of the main character. There's not a secret strength buried deeper in the simple laborer; or rather, by this point the secret has already been shown, and it's this knack for working with someone else to enhance their efforts.
"My fellow wizards," she began again. "My dear students, my colleagues, my friends: every community needs its enhancers. Even more than it needs its enchanters. They are the ones who appreciate us and understand us and even save us from ourselves."
I cannot claim my attitude as an adult is unbiased here. I have spent my working life assisting and making refinements to the work of people objectively more singularly talented than myself. But I didn't know that was where I'd wind up when I was eight years old and reading Wizard's Hall to myself under the covers by flashlight.
Ode To The Seldom Sung
I think there are Enhancers all around us. They aren't literally without songs and stories about them, but we can do with some more. Who are Thornmallow's kin in the real world?
There's a certain kind of history reading that talks about how so many famous scientists and writers had wives working full time as notetakers, research assistants, or even just to keep the household running. I always thought that should have been an argument in favour of house-husbands and devoted research assistants. I'd rather men and women had the options to choose whether to work directly on a problem or to enhance the work of others, but I can also see choosing the enhancement role knowing that it won't lead to acclaim.
I know the names of Lin Manuel Miranda, of Idina Menzel, of Julie Andrews, all Broadway singing stars. I had no idea who their stage managers were until I looked it up for this post (Scott Rowan, Erica Schwartz, and Samuel Liff.[1]) The entertainment world is full of enhancers, people making sure the recording equipment is running or the costumes are in the right places.
One of my favourite companies is Stripe. For years their name has been associated with the goal "increase the GDP of the internet." I've used their tools myself, and they're super convenient to do lots of things. Generally it isn't things I couldn't do at all myself; I did know how to set up a merchant account back in the old days, but it wasn't something I did in an afternoon. They're largely an enhancer, and one making millions.
I used to work in manufacturing software.[2] That meant spending most of my days and efforts making the work of engineers and factory workers easier by giving them quality software to help track when they needed to order more raw materials and where the latest copy of their blueprints was stored.
And, if I can add one more topic in here at the end, I think good enhancers sometimes enable the bright and brilliant thing to exist at all. With the best of appreciation and respect for certain gifted geniuses of my acquaintance much smarter than myself, sometimes they miss doing the obvious things to keep themselves organized.
As they say in Wizard's Hall,
"We magisters — in our pride — thought we understood the dark magic that was at work. We were given the rhyme by Nettle:
Ever on the quilting goes,
Spinning out the lives between,
Winding up the souls of those
Students up to one-thirteen.And we read it thinking we needed one hundred and thirteen students here at the Hall. But we didn't need all one hundred and thirteen. We needed just the one. The final one. The enhancer. The one who would really really try.
Thornmallow ends the book with the option to go back to his regular life. Instead, he chooses to stay with the enchanters of the titular Wizard's Hall. I can appreciate the choice; it's lovely to be close to the flow of magic, getting a backstage seat to the show. Wizard's Hall is grateful to have him. He could do other things. He wants to help those who cast magic, though he cannot cast a spell alone.
Thormallow and his story stayed with me as I grew, year after year, and I'm glad that it did.