Photo: Nadina Dobrowolska
My 12-year-old daughter has just taken part in such a LARP, and of course, her dragonfly-mom jumped at the chance to create a real magic wand for her. Luckily (for me), she was thrilled with the idea, and so the next question was: what should it look like? It turns out she was quite fascinated by the magic wand that the American Minister for Magic, Seraphina Picquery, has in the latest Potterverse film.”Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”.
This wand is of course inspired by the film's period, the symmetrically curved Art Deco, and has a purple theme.
But my daughter didn't just want a copy (good girl), but rather her own version, which was to have a softer and more playful look. Therefore, I gladly threw myself into designing an Art Nouveau inspired magic wand that still nodded inspirationally to the original. It was to be constructed from a wooden staff, topped by a purple gemstone, which was to be attached to the staff with a silver ornament.
The first challenge was to create the magic wand itself. I had a block of amaranth – a very beautiful dark and reddish wood with a purplish hue, also known as ”purpleheart” because it has a more purple colour when freshly cut. When working with it, the wood releases the most delicious scent of vanilla, which is also why many carpenters affectionately call the wood ”cake wood”.
It wasn't easy to find a person who both owned and was able to operate a lathe, but eventually I ended up in a compact workshop with someone who was as big a tool enthusiast as I am. Together, we had a nice chat about the pleasure of working with special tools and how it can sometimes be necessary to create them yourself if the task requires it. He agreed to transform my block of vanilla-scented amaranth into a magic wand – WITH a hole in the middle, so there would be room to fill it with a core from a magical creature. More on that later.
Now for the decoration: In my large Franz Jäger-style safe, I've had a very big and beautiful amethyst drop lying around for a few years, and this faceted beauty was perfect for the purpose. I carved a cone-shaped recess out of the end of the wand, so the two fit together perfectly, and smoothed the edges of the wood with very fine emery paper. Then I glued a cone made of paper together, which joined the wand and the gemstone, and drew the design that was to be created in silver directly onto the paper.
Cut open and flattened, the paper cone was used as a template to cut out the design from a sheet of silver using a jeweller's saw.
I then shaped the lace-like silver into a cone, soldered it together and filed and shaped until all the lines were as taut, flowing and beautiful as I wanted them. A final trip to the polishing machine and the silver was ready for the last stage.
Now it was finally time to assemble the wand. As any true Harry Potter fan will know, a wand always has a kernel of a bit of a magical creature. Mr. Potter's wand, for example, has a core of a phoenix feather. Unfortunately, my hunt for phoenixes, unicorns or other magical beings proved to be fruitless, so I had to come up with something else, namely a whisker from Johannes' white cat Amanda.
In fact, it's not entirely wrong to have a cat's whisker, as Mr Ollivander's father often used whiskers from a“Kneazle”– a very large feline. Crookshanks, Hermione's cat, was half-Kneazle, for instance, so I calmly used Amanda-the-not-so-big-cat's whiskers.
The hole was plugged with amethyst, and then I pressed the silver ornament's grabbers over its dome. A little oil made the wood glow even deeper, and gave this 10 ¼” wand its final ”smooth finish”.
Read more about it finished wand here
My daughter was thrilled when she unwrapped her brand-new magic wand and even slept with it the night before she went to her own Hogwarts – The Magic Castle Brogg, which took place at Rosenholm Castle north of Aarhus. In this LARP for children, she was to play the slightly nerdy animal lover Lonnie Gunhild from Fanø (hence the wellington boots).
Are you an adult and have the same dream of being allowed to study at a real magic school, you should consider going to Poland, where for a weekend you can enrol at “College of Wizardry”takes place in a huge castle. I know the experience is absolutely fantastic (in up to several different ways), but sign up well in advance, because despite it not being just around the corner and not being exactly cheap, the tickets sell out very quickly after sales open.
Foto: Christina Molbech
If you would like your very own custom-designed luxury magic wand made from high-quality materials, do not hesitate to contact me for a design meeting. Prices start at DKK 1,500.
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