By J.K. Rowling

Originally published on 

 

 

J.K.罗琳

原载于

 

on Aug 10th 2015

A Boggart is a shape-shifting creature that will assume the form of whatever most frightens the person who encounters it. Nobody knows what a Boggart looks like if nobody is there to see it, although it continues to exist, usually giving evidence of its presence by rattling, shaking or scratching the object in which it is hiding. Boggarts particularly like confined spaces, but may also be found lurking in woods and around shadowy corners.

The more generally fearful a person is, the more susceptible they will be to Boggarts. Muggles, too, feel their presence and may even glimpse them, although they seem less capable of seeing them plainly and are usually easily convinced that the Boggart was a figment of their imagination.

 

2015年8月10日

博格特是一种会变形的生物，它会以任何最令遇到它的人害怕的形式出现。没有人知道博格特看起来像什么，如果没有人在那里看到它，虽然它继续存在，通常提供证据，其存在的嘎嘎声，摇晃或抓挠的对象，它是隐藏的。博格特特别喜欢密闭空间，但也可能会被发现潜伏在树林和周围阴暗的角落。

一个人越是恐惧，就越容易受到博格特的影响。麻瓜们也能感觉到他们的存在，甚至能瞥见他们，尽管他们似乎不太能看清他们，而且通常很容易相信博格特是他们想象出来的虚构人物。

 

Like a poltergeist, a Boggart is not and never has been truly alive. It is one of the strange non-beings that populate the magical world, for which there is no equivalent in the Muggle realm. Boggarts can be made to disappear, but more Boggarts will inevitably arise to take their place. Like poltergeists and the more sinister Dementors, they seem to be generated and sustained by human emotions.

 

就像一个灵异事件一样，博格特从来没有真正地活着。它是居住在魔法世界里的一种奇怪的非生物，在麻瓜的王国里是没有同类的。博格特可以消失，但更多博格特将不可避免地出现，取代他们的位置。就像闹鬼者和更邪恶的摄魂怪一样，他们似乎是由人类的情感产生和维持的。

 

The spell that defeats a Boggart can be tricky, because it involves making the creature into a figure of fun, so that fear can be dispelled in amusement. If the caster is able to laugh aloud at the Boggart, it will disappear at once. The incantation is ‘Riddikulus’, and the intention is to force the Boggart to assume a less-threatening and hopefully comical form.

 

击败博加特的法术可能会很棘手，因为它会让生物变成一个有趣的人物，这样恐惧就可以在娱乐中消除。如果施法者能够大声嘲笑博加特，它就会立刻消失。咒语是‘里迪库鲁’，其意图是迫使博加特采取不那么具有威胁性和希望滑稽的形式。

 

Famous Boggarts include the Old Boggle of Canterbury (believed by local Muggles to be a mad, cannibalistic hermit that lived in a cave; in reality a particularly small Boggart that had learnt how to make the most of echoes); the Bludgeoning Boggart of Old London Town (a Boggart that had taken on the form of a murderous thug that prowled the back streets of nineteenth-century London, but which could be reduced to a hamster with one simple incantation); and the Screaming Bogey of Strathtully (a Scottish Boggart that had fed on the fears of local Muggles to the point that it had become an elephantine black shadow with glowing white eyes, but which Lyall Lupin of the Ministry of Magic eventually trapped in a matchbox).

 

著名的博格特包括坎特伯雷的老博格特（当地麻瓜认为是一个疯子，食人的隐士，住在一个山洞里；实际上是一个特别小的博格特，学会了如何最大限度地利用回声）；老伦敦城的棒打博格特（一个博格特已经采取了一个凶残的暴徒的形式，徘徊在19世纪伦敦的后街，但它可以被简化为一只仓鼠，只有一个简单的咒语），以及斯特拉斯塔利的尖叫妖怪（苏格兰博格特利用当地麻瓜的恐惧，变成了一个有着发光的白眼睛的大象黑影，但是魔法部的莱尔·卢平最终把它困在了火柴盒里）。