Overview

Knarls are magical creatures that looks almost identical to the hedgehog. They commonly have a black eye colour and their skin- and hair colour are brown. These magical creatures are native to North America and Northern Europe.

About the Creature

Even though a Knarl closely resembles, almost identical, a hedgehog, there is one big behavioural difference between the two. If a hedgehog sees food being left out for them, they will greatly appreciate it and consider it a gift, but if knarl sees food left out for them, they see it as an attempt to lure it into a trap and will completely destroy the garden of the householder that left the food out. Because Muggles don’t see the difference between a hedgehog and a knarl, Muggle children were often blamed for the damage that was caused by this magical creature.

Knarls are known to very much enjoy wild daisies and potioneers often have to extract these knarls from their daisy patch in order to be able to pick these flowers. A Stunning Spell is mostly used for this task, as it removes these creatures well without any permanent harm if it is cast correctly. The quills of a knarl had various magical uses, mostly potion-related. For example, Zygmunt Budge, a very well-known potioneer, used knarl quills when he was developing and brewing the Laughing Potion that he himself invented somewhere after the 6th century. The Weasley Twins used knarl quills the experiment with for future Weasley’s Wizard Weezes products.

History

In 1995, Fred and George Weasley had to pay six Sickles to Mundugus Fletcher for a bag of knarl quills to experiment with for future products.

During his time at Hogwarts, Barnabee Lee owned a Knarl that was also named Knarl, but during the school year of 1988-1989, it caused the destruction of several sets and costumes that were used for the play called Equinox Enchanted.

When Constance Pickering was a child, she told her neighbour, a Muggle named Silvia, that hedgehogs loved it when you left snacks out for them overnight. However, the supposed hedgehog was actually a Knarl and completely destroyed Silvia’s garden and that left a feeling of guilt with Constance.

Professor Silvanus Kettleburn taught his sixth-year students how to properly handle Knarls in Care of Magical Creatures during the 1989-1990 school year.

Later on, they were also featured in the Care of Magical Creatures O.W.L. examination in the year 1996. For this examination, fifth-year students had to locate Knarls amongst a group of hedgehogs.

Credits/References

Written by Liane Hawthorne
Base code by Andrew Sutherland, edited by Iselin Merilä and Desmond Gray.