Edinburgh Elephant House Adventure

The entrance to Elephant House, a cafe just off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the birthplace of the Harry Potter books.

J.K. Rowling inspires me.

I knew she was all right when evangelicals began trying to ban her books in American libraries.

When her wealth began to rival that of the Queen of England, she became the hero of all writers.

The crowd inside the Elephant House. Table 10, Rowling's favorite, is frequently reserved.

We no longer have to apologize for spending long hours in solitude, or for fits of relative poverty. The cost-benefit analysis of our souls has been permanently silenced.

Edinburgh, Scotland is vividly Rowling’s inspiration. The Medieval roots of witchcraft, British class stratification, and the value of experiential education play themselves out daily in this landscape of castles, old trade streets, and universities.

Yours Truly and my friend budding Hungarian writer and translator Bence Molnar.

As the staff will share with you, Rowling never intended on renewing the writer’s relationship to the cafe. Elephant House was the only public place in Edinburgh she could keep her infant daughter from crying.

Children's drawings of elephants near the cafe counter.

Trophy cases in the cafe are arrayed with elephants: cut of onyx, carved of wood, stuffed with cotton. The music in the cafe is typically smooth jazz or bright, classical piano work.

Fan art, scribbled on napkins or bits of paper by children, is posted on a wall with Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling notices just to the left.

The picture windows at the back catch the south east side of Edinburgh Castle. You can also catch a sliver of Greyfriar’s Kirk graveyard.