Lesson 4

In our fourth lesson we learned about Words and their Power. What we covered in this subject included; Alphabets, Incantations, the Fire-Making Charm and the Locomotion Charm. Language involves the system of words or signs that people use to express thoughts and ideas to one another. Even though spoken language was a faster way to communicate, it is actually the written language survives and it can tell us what civilization was like thousands of years ago. Written systems of symbols commonly known as scripts usually take two forms. One being symbols that are singularly complex such as cuneiform and hieroglyphs which require the sophisticated methods of learning to create them and thousands of different symbols that can exist in the language. The other form is called the Alphabet. This is something like a small set of symbols into groupings called 'words', with each word having a different meaning. This is the script that we predominantly see today. The Phoenician Alphabet was the earliest known alphabet. This alphabet dates back to the 1050 B.C. This contains ancient symbols what we see today. 

Incantations are usually always one or two words long. Incantations are usually from Latin but they can come from different parts of the world too. It is often said that "words have power," and in our case we can use these words to change the world around us. Not all words have to be magical to have an impact upon others, but it can certainly help. Incantations always need precise pronunciation for the spell to work. If you were to say something that you regret than the person you would be speaking to would probably become confused about what your meaning. Sometimes mispronunciations and result in nothing happening but with other spells you might get a big bang or a backfire. Sometimes these mishaps might lead to sudden explosions. It is essential to learn about incantations their pronunciations when you are learning spells or you are unsure with the pronunciation of a spell. 

We learned about the Fire-Making charm. The incantation for this charm is Incendio. In Latin this word means 'fire'. The wand movement for this spell is a curved flick up and down. The movement will sorta look like you are making a flame sort of shape. You need to be very careful when using this sort of spell because it can cause major damage even if the spell is successful. The spell requires a bit of willpower. You also need experience to get the correct movement with the wand and say the pronunciation correctly. The more power you have on the spell the more fire will come out of the wand. This distance this spell can travel is usually dependent upon just how much focus you have used. 

The last thing we learned about in lesson four was the Locomotion charm. The incantation of this spell is Locomotor. The pronunciation is ‘LOH-koh-moh-tor’ and the wand movement is a full circle with an upward flick toward the target at the end. In Latin the word 'loco' means place or location and the word 'motor' means to move'. The purpose of the Locomotion charm is to move an object one place to another. This charm can be slightly confusing because it isn't a flight charm. Although the object it affects appears to be flying it is only hovering a few inches above the ground.  Unlike all other types of "flight" charms, the Locomotion Charm allows a minimal amount of vertical movement, just enough for its target to clear the ground. 

Lesson 5

In our fifth lesson we learned about Focusing Your Magic. The subjects included in this topic were; Focus, the Severing Charm and the Softening Charm. Focus is an essential part of casting spells. If you don't have focus you won't be able to do you required spell correctly. If you are doing a levitating charm and you are not completly focus on what you want to move then something else in the room might levitate. The hardest part about doing a spell that needs focus is that your mind has to be completely clear and you can only be thinking of the object you have to focus on. 

We learned about the Severing Charm. The incantation for this spell is Diffindo. The pronunciation is 'deef-IN-doe’ and the wand movement is a V-Shaped down and up, ending with a swish in the direction to cut. This charm relies heavily on your idea to focus. If you can't focus it will be quite difficult to do this charm. The Severing Charm is not very effective when is comes to animated, living things making it an impratical dueling spell. The worst you could do using this spell on a living thing is give them a scratch or a cut but before you can actually do any harm there are easy counterspells or the Sheild Charm that would stop you from hurting your opponent. 

The last topic we learned about was the Softening Charm. The incantation is Spongify. The pronunciation is ‘SPUHN-jee-fye’ and the wand movement is a S-Shaped with a small swish half-way through. This spell is used for making the object a bit squishy and slightly bouncy like some plush toy but it is not soft like the way a soft stuffed animal is. This spell is useless against living matter.If you do use this spell on a living thing, the only thing that would happen would be that you make their hair, nails and fur softer. 

I have really enjoyed learning about these subjects over the past 2 weeks.