Episode Description
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Mrs Murray met the UK StrikeFans.com contingent and Badly WiredLamp (“and friends”) on Thursday to talk about the Cormoran Strike novels. Yesterday, Friday the 13th, Rowling tweeted about the secret she had told them — the title of Strike9:
Nick Jeffery found the most likely source of the title Sleep Tight, Evangeline, assuming it is not an anagram, in six minutes:
BadlyWiredLamp who was at the Rowling meeting congratulated Nick on twixter seven minutes later: “Well done for finding it Nick!” with a hand salute emoji. Which semi-confirmation from a witness suggests he is spot on.
Even more impressive, Nick wrote up a flash post about The Whiskey Shambles and other ‘Evangeline’ possibilities at the HogwartsProfessor weblog, ‘Sleep Tight, Evangeline – Title Release for Strike 9.’ Nick and John will be discussing this news as well as the Psalter and Head of Persephone charms with miniature book, Tolkien, and mythology expert Dimitra Fimi this weekend for a post here next week. See her ‘Miniature Books in Children’s Fantasy’ to prepare for that conversation. Stay tuned!
But it’s Valentine’s Day! John and Nick celebrate this Hallmark Holiday with a journey through the Cormoran Strike novels’ V-Day celebrations and a discussion of the various Valentines and Cupid’s in the story, with special emphasis on the Cupid and Psyche myth that Rowling has suggested is the series story template.
That suggestion came the week after Hallmarked Man’s publication in the first of her Public Service Announcements to “Robin and Strike fans:”
This image came as a surprise even to Hogwarts Professor subscribers because, though we have been writing and talking about the Cupid and Psyche myth as one of the mythological templates behind the Strike series since early 2021, it was the first time Rowling had acknowledged this publicly. Since the September revelation of this connection by the author and the appearance of the head of Persephone at the end of her Strike9 clues Christmas Charm bracelet, Strike fandom is now on board with the idea.
Which on-boarding Nick and John celebrate with this Hearts and Flowers conversation, in which:
* Nick reviews the Valentines Day events in the Strike series, the importance of which makes 14 February to Serious Strikers what Halloween is to Harry Potter fans;
* John discusses the post American Bar office scene in Troubled Blood that let the cat out of the bag about the Cupid and Psyche myth just beneath the Strellacott romance;
* Nick updates that with Rowling’s PSAs and charm pointers to the Trials of Psyche in Robin’s story;
* John lays out how and where Hallmarked Man features Valentine Longcaster, the character with the Cupid name, and a Valentine’s Day conflict with dogs to Guard the Gates of Hell (from charting Parts Five and Six);
* Nick journeys back to Cuckoo’s Calling and explains how Lula Landry’s death and Robin’s first meeting with Strike are twist on Cupid and Psyche with Venus, Psyche, and Cupid, Hephaestus, and Ares all with their equivalents in Charlotte, Robin, and Cormoran;
* John ups the ante of the conversation by bringing in Edmund Spenser and C. S. Lewis, two writers Rowling loves, both of whom wrote stories that turn on Cupid and Psyche, and suggesting that Galbraith, in using the Eros-Anteros distinction of those writers in the Strike series is answering allegorically the core question of human life: whether to focus the soul on the ephemeral body and its desires or on the noetic faculty of soul, the Heart, logos within us;
* Nick and John then discuss Robin and Strike’s individual relationships Cuckoo to Hallmarked in light of Cupid-False Cupid and taking turns going through the Strike novels with a look at the principal murder victim and murderer and their respective relationships;
* John shares the Jungian interpretation of Cupid and Psyche as the mythic representation of feminine actualization, the chrysalis of female identity;
* And more!
Below are the links to posts on this subject mentioned in their back and forth and to a translation of the original myth. Happy Valentines Day — and stand by for more discussion of Sleep Tight, Evangeline, the Psalter and Persephone Charms, and all things Strike and Mythology with Dimitra Fimi.
Links Mentioned in the Valentines Day Celebration Conversation:
Rowling Points to Myth of Cupid and Psyche in order to Console Strike Fans Disappointed with Hallmarked Man (8 September 2025, Nick Jeffery)
Nick shares the context of Rowling’s tweet (fan disappointment!) and the background information about the illustration she chose for it.
The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche (Apuleius)
A translation of the Silver Age Latin tale from Apuleius’ Golden Ass.
A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus (22 April 2021, John Granger)
The first post to discuss Rowling’s use of this specific myth within Cormoran Strike, it is essential reading and comes in four parts:
* a discussion of Rowling’s stated beliefs about the soul and how it is the focus of her story-telling,
* a review of her psychological artistry in Potter and the post Potter novels and screenplays,
* a synopsis of the Eros and Psyche myth, and
* a point to point look at the parallels in the story thus far with speculation about novels to come.
Robin’s Two Perfumes: The Meaning of Philosychos and Narciso (9 June 2021, John Granger)
The names of Robin’s baseline perfume, Philosychos, and the one she and Strike choose at story’s end, Narciso, both point less to the bedroom than to Robin’s allegorical, psychological, and mythological role as Psyche in the series.
Erich Neumann in his Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine describes this discipline as a “prohibition against pity” which “signifies Psyche’s struggle against the feminine nature.” …
Psyche’s last trial involves her having to confront death, a “marriage” to which she was condemned as a sacrifice at the story’s start, a meeting she can only survive by transcending her feminine qualities of nurturing and pity. She must become, if only temporarily, a narcissist to pass through Hades and return to the world of the Sun and to Cupid. The myth, in Jungian lights, is about her transcending the accidental self, here her feminine and sexual relation to Eros or Cupid, for “ego-stability” leading to “individuation,” ascent to the greater, immortal Self.
Robin as resident psychologist and loving soul is the Psyche-cipher of the Strike mysteries. She differs from the relatively passive Human Beauty of the myth in her active and determined “struggle against the feminine nature,” her “What. I. Do!” She not only wrestles with her desires for domesticity and maternity in her thinking but stands up to Strike-Cupid in their Valentine’s Day Street Fight and demands his respect or at least more considerate behavior. But she is still struggling with her difficulty to be the narcissist rather than the Great Mother when circumstances and her heroine’s journey of psychological individuation demand that.
Reading Rowling as Myth Maker and Myth Re-Writer: A Conversation with Dr Dimitra Fimi
Nick Jeffery and John Granger converse with Dr Dimitra Fimi about Harry Potter, Cormoran Strike, Tolkien, Jane Eyre, and the Mythological Artistry of J. K. Rowling, Hogwarts Saga to Hallmarked Man
The Hallmarked Man’s Mythological Template
‘Cupid and Psyche’s importance for grasping the depths of Strike 8, from the “necessity” of the Silver Vault and the three men in Robin’s life, to spaghetti carbonara and ‘Maid of the Silver Sea’
Ink Black Heart: The Mythic Backdrop (10 September 2022, John Granger)
What Rowling is depicting in Robin’s journey through the events and mystery of Ink Black Heart include a trap set by Venus, one that takes Robin to a personal and professional underworld or hell, her survival and endurance of every temptation by her determination to be steely rather than empathetic, especially with respect to a certain “lame fellow” (!), and her re-surfacing from hell a changed person, one worthy of begrudging Venereal approval (or Zeus’ intervention — Rokeby!).
Ink Black Heart: Strike as Zeus to Robin’s Leda and Cupid to Mads’ Psyche (10 November 2022, John Granger)
These traditional portrayals of the every person’s human and divine aspects, soul and spirit as man and woman in dynamic, cathartic relationship — think Romeo and Juliet, Redcrosse Knight and Una, Cupid and Psyche — are perhaps, with her alchemical symbolism, sequencing, and coloring, Rowling’s greatest literary ‘reach’ and achievement in the Strike series, albeit one largely lost on her her vast reading audience. The deliberate conjunction-melange of archetypal psychology, mythology, and spiritual allegory in these novels is, especially in combination with her hermetic artistry, intertextual playfulness (Aurora Leigh!), and chiastic structures, testimony to the author being one of the most accomplished and challenging writers of the age in addition to the most popular (and least well understood, even by her fans).
Hallmarked Man: Freemasonry and J. K. Rowling (7 February 2024, Nick Jeffery)
The Royal Arch degree is unique in England for including the ceremony of “Passing the Veils” symbolising the path to enlightenment that a mason undergoes as he progresses in the craft. Given Peter Rowling’s upward social mobility from working class apprentice to engineer and moving from the Bristol suburbs to middle class Tutshill, it isn’t beyond reason to wonder if Peter might have been tempted by the social and career advantages that freemasonry might have offered him and exposed a young Joanne to some of the symbolism.
Edinburgh, as well as being the home of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, is also home to if not the oldest lodge in the world, then at least the one with the oldest records. Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary’s Chapel) No. 1 has minutes of meetings from 31st July 1599. There have long been arguments between this Lodge and the one in Kilwinning on the other coast of Scotland as to which is the oldest. (see IVº of the Rite of Baldwyn above)
J. K. Rowling’s ‘G-Spot’ and ‘Triple Play:’ The Lake & Shed Secret of Her Success (21 September 2024, John Granger)
I want to try tonight to explain as succinctly — and as provocatively — as possible why I think Rowling’s ‘Lake and Shed’ metaphorical explanation of how she writes offers a compelling reason for both why she writes and why readers around the world love her novels the way they do. I call this her ‘G-Spot’ and ‘Triple Play’ because it is her point of singular genius, the defining quality that separates her from contemporary story-tellers, which involves ‘Shed’ artistry of three particular literary tools, all subliminal, which work together to achieve her aims.
The Hallmarked Man’s Flood of Names, Characters, and Plots (22 September 2025, John Granger)
Rowling’s seven Shed tools — psychomachia, literary alchemy, ring composition, misdirection towards defamiliarization, Christian symbolism, mythology, and inter-intratextuality (writing about reading and writing) — are all about the transformation of the human soul by cathartic experience in the imaginative heart, i.e., our spiritual reorientation. These traditional tools alone don’t do it, of course; her capacity for creating archetypal characters that we care about in profound fashion is what gives the tools their grip on the heart.
But, if a writer uses these tools in his or her Shed, the game being played and its stakes are not in question. Everything Rowling has written to date, with greater or lesser success (largely dependent on her control of the final product, cough*Warner Brothers*cough), shares this aim. Her global popularity testifies that much more often than not she hits her target to the delight of her readers.
I assume this was her aim in Hallmarked Man. It’s early days on the full exegesis of Strike8 in light of Rowling’s Shed tools, Lake springs, and Golden Threads, but there are encouraging signs. My third reading of the book included my first ‘Aha!’ moments with respect to the mythological template of the series, the Shed tool Rowling was openly urging her readers to think about in her recent Cupid and Psyche tweet.
Jungian Interpretations of ‘Cupid and Psyche:’
* Erich Neumann: Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine (A Commentary on the Tale by Apuleius)
* Paul Diel: Symbolism in Greek Mythology: Human Desire and Its Transformations (A “psychological study of the symbols condensed in the fate of the mythological hero”)
* Robert A. Johnson: SHE: Understanding Feminine Psychology (An interpretation based on the myth of Amor and Psyche and based on Jungian mythological principles)
* Marie-Louise von Franz: Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man (originally A Psychological Interpretation of The Golden Ass of Apuleius)
The list ‘Tamspells’ made will be Nick and John’s starting point in their upcoming conversation with her about how to see the myth beneath the surface of the story
Cupid and Psyche Myth Highlights to Look for in Your Review at Home of the Strike Series:
* Jealousy of Venus
* Psyche’s Wedding/Funeral March to Mountain Crag
* Psyche Rescued by Cupid, stuck with his own arrow
* Retreat to Hidden Castle, Love in Darkness
* The Two Sisters
* The Confrontation with Lamp and Knife
* Psyche’s Return Home; Death of Sisters (Pan cameo)
* Psyche’s Search for Cupid/Venus: Ceres Interview
* Brought to Venus (Worry and Sadness)
* First Trial: Seeds and Grains (Ant)
* Second Trial: Wool from Golden Sheep (Reed)
* Third Trial: Crystal glass for Black Stygian water (Zeus, Eagle)
* Persephone Odyssey: Box for Beauty (Tower instructions)
* Barley Cakes for Cerberus and Two Coins for Charon
* Must ignore: “a lame man driving a mule loaded with sticks, a dead man swimming in the river that separates the world of the living from the world of the dead, and old women weaving.”
* Meal in Underworld with Persephone
* Return Trip, Falling to Temptation
* Cupid intervention; intersession and deal with Zeus
* Olympian Court Date
* Marriage of Cupid and Psyche post Ambrosia, birth of Pleasure
Strike Novel Victim Eros Anteros Murderer Eros Anteros Cuckoo’s Calling Lula Landry Evan Duffield Marlene Higson,Yvette Bristow, Guy Some, Jonah Agyuman John Bristow Alison Creswell Yvette Bristow The Silkworm Owen Quine Kathryn Kent Leonora/Orlando Elizabeth Tassel Michael Fancourt Owen Quine? Career of Evil Kelsey Platt Rock Band Leader Ray Williams, (Hazel Furley) Donny Laing Rhona Bunyan, hostage women Agnes Waite Lethal White Jasper Chiswell Ornella Seraphin, Kinvara Patricia Fleetwood Raphael Chiswell Kinvara Hanratty Ornella Seraphin Troubled Blood Margot Bamborough Paul Satchwell Roy/Anna Phipps Una Janice Beattie Steven Douthwaite/Diamond Dead Mother Dennis Creed Louise Tucker Agnes Waite Ink Black Heart Edie Ledwell Philip Ormond? Joshua Blay, Grant Heather Ledwell Gus Upcott Anomie/Paperwhite, Vikas BhardwajMorehouse Katya Upcott The Running Grave Daiyu Wace, Kevin Pirbright (Jacob) Louise Pirbright Abigail Glover Patrick, Baz Jennifer Wace The Hallmarked Man Tyler Powell Anne-Marie Morgan Chloe Griffiths/Jolanda Lindvall Ian Griffith Jolanda/Sapphire Rita Lindvall?
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe