Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry, Ron, and Hermione have no idea what the Deathly Hallows are, so Mr. Lovegood explains that the Hallows come from “The Tale of the Three Brothers,” and Hermione reads the story from The Tales of Beedle the Bard. The story tells of three brothers who outsmart Death one night on a road and how they each earn a prize for their cleverness. The first brother asks for “a wand more powerful than any in existence” (407), and Death creates a wand of elder wood for him. The second brother asks for “the power to recall others from Death” (407), so Death takes a stone from the river and gives it the power to bring people back from the dead. The third brother simply asks for “something that would enable him to go forth from that place without being followed by Death” (408), so Death gives him his Invisibility Cloak. The first brother boasts about his invincible wand and is murdered by a thief who steals the wand for himself. The second brother tries to use his stone to bring back the girl he loves, but she is miserable in the world of the living, and he kills himself to join her.