Godelot and Hereward

Godelot and Hereward are linked by a violent ending that interrupts the history of a dangerous wand: Godelot, a practitioner and writer of Dark Magic, perishes locked in his own cellar by his mad son, Hereward. The account infers that Hereward took his father’s wand, but cannot establish what he did with it afterward. Their relationship thus marks both a family rupture and an uncertain handover in the wand’s passage between owners.

Godelot and His Wand

A century after Emeric the Evil, Godelot advanced the study of Dark Magic by composing a collection of dangerous spells. He described the wand that helped him as “my moste wicked and subtle friend, with bodie of Ellhorn,24 who knowes ways of magick moste evile”. His phrasing presents the wand not merely as an instrument but almost as a companion and instructor, an association that gives the later uncertainty over its fate particular weight.

The account explains that wands can absorb some of their users’ expertise, although this process is unpredictable and imperfect; a wand’s relationship with a particular owner also affects how it performs. Godelot’s description therefore resonates with a broader possibility: a wand used by multiple Dark wizards could develop a marked affinity for dangerous magic. Most witches and wizards prefer a wand that has chosen them, since a second-hand wand may retain habits poorly suited to its new user. The customary practice of burying or burning a wand with its dead owner further limits the number of hands through which it passes.

Father and Son

Godelot is said to have died in his own cellar, locked inside by Hereward, identified as his mad son. The account supplies no further details about the act or its circumstances. It does establish that Hereward’s confinement of his father ends Godelot’s life and leaves the wand’s immediate fate dependent on an inference rather than a documented transfer.

The narrator reasons that Hereward must have taken the wand; otherwise, Godelot would have been able to escape. What Hereward did with it afterward remains unknown. The distinction between the likely taking and the untraced aftermath is central to their brief history: the son’s action is presented as the probable point at which the wand leaves the father’s keeping, but not as a fully recorded link in its later ownership.

Place in the Wand’s History

The narrative next records a wand called the Eldrun Wand in the possession of Barnabas Deverill in the early eighteenth century. Deverill used it to build a reputation as a fearsome warlock, until Loxias ended his reign of terror, took the wand, renamed it the Deathstick, and used it against anyone who displeased him. The account does not prove that this was Godelot’s wand or explain how it passed from Hereward to Deverill; the sequence leaves a gap rather than confirming a continuous chain of ownership.

That uncertainty suits the wider account of the supposed Elder Wand. Its history is difficult to trace, and many people claimed to have killed Loxias, including his own mother. The wand’s repeated association with violent owners contrasts with the claims that it is unbeatable: its alleged power does not prevent it from being taken, while its pursuit repeatedly attracts danger. Godelot and Hereward matter within that history not because the record resolves the wand’s passage between them, but because their father-son rupture leaves its next chapter obscure.