Free Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling Page B

in anything except Mermish while above water.
    Not until 1811 were definitions found that most of the magical community found acceptable. Grogan Stump, the newly appointed Minister for Magic, decreed that a “being” was “any
creature that has sufficient intelligence to understand the laws of the magical community and to bear part of the responsibility in shaping those laws.” 2 Troll representatives were questioned in the absence of goblins and judged not to understand anything that was being said to them; they were therefore classified as
“beasts” despite their two-legged gait; merpeople were invited through translators to become “beings” for the first time; fairies, pixies, and gnomes, despite their humanoid
appearance, were placed firmly in the “beast” category.
    Naturally, the matter has not rested there. We are all familiar with the extremists who campaign for the classification of Muggles as “beasts”; we are all aware that the centaurs
have refused “being” status and requested to remain “beasts”; 3 werewolves, meanwhile, have been shunted between the Beast and Being
divisions for many years; at the time of writing there is an office for Werewolf Support Services at the Being Division whereas the Werewolf Registry and Werewolf Capture Unit fall under the Beast
Division. Several highly intelligent creatures are classified as “beasts” because they are incapable of overcoming their own brutal natures. Acromantulas and Manticores are capable of
intelligent speech but will attempt to devour any human that goes near them. The sphinx talks only in puzzles and riddles, and is violent when given the wrong answer.
    Wherever there is continued uncertainty about the classification of a beast in the following pages, I have noted it in the entry for that creature.
    Let us now turn to the one question that witches and wizards ask more than any other when the conversation turns to Magizoology: Why don’t Muggles notice these creatures?
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    1 The Wizards’ Council preceded the Ministry of Magic.
    2 An exception was made for the ghosts, who asserted that it was insensitive to class them as “beings” when they were so
clearly “has-beens.” Stump therefore created the three divisions of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures that exist today: the Beast Division, the Being
Division, and the Spirit Division.
    3 The centaurs objected to some of the creatures with whom they were asked to share “being” status, such as hags and
vampires, and declared that they would manage their own affairs separately from wizards. A year later the merpeople made the same request. The Ministry of Magic accepted their demands reluctantly.
Although a Centaur Liaison Office exists in the Beast Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, no centaur has ever used it. Indeed, “being sent to the
Centaur Office” has become an in-joke at the Department and means that the person in question is shortly to be fired.

    A stonishing though it may seem to many wizards, Muggles have not always been ignorant of the magical and monstrous creatures that we have
worked so long and hard to hide. A glance through Muggle art and literature of the Middle Ages reveals that many of the creatures they now believe to be imaginary were then known to be real. The
dragon, the griffin, the unicorn, the phoenix, the centaur – these and more are represented in Muggle works of that period, though usually with almost comical inexactitude.
    However, a closer examination of Muggle bestiaries of that period demonstrates that most magical beasts either escaped Muggle notice completely or were mistaken for something else. Examine this
surviving fragment of manuscript, written by one Brother Benedict, a Franciscan monk from Worcestershire:
    Todaye while travailing in the Herbe Garden, I did push aside the basil to discover a Ferret of monstrous size. It did not run nor hide