Serpents and Simpering

This will be the first of probably many short posts on my part coming from thoughts and observations in listening to book 4 on tape - just bits and pieces that occur to me. Two such things just occurred to me in listening to the tapes during an hour and a half drive (3 hours round trip - since I needed to do the drive anyway, great to have the opportunity or being able to get a good chunk of "reading" done too) . -The Basilisk and the Cockatrice: As I noted before, in the development of mythological creatures through the history of the western tradition of literature the Renaissance version of the Basilisk is the "Cockatrice." Interestingly Hermione points out to the others over breakfast that probably the three heads of the participant schools will be judges of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Her evidence for this being the practice is that in 1792 the three school heads were chased by a magical creature involved of one of the tasks that broke lose from that program and went on a rampage - and that magical creature was a Cockatrice. I think Rowling is probably aware of the shift in "character" involved in the literary development of the creature and symbolically views them as two distinct stages in the identity of the one creature but that this is an identification that is missed by many - in other words they may have foolishly used a cockatrice not having paid attention that it is really simply another form of a Basilisk. -Bartimeus Crouch: Since I am used to hearing Barty referred to simply as Barty, I had not really ever thought about his full first name: Bar-Timeus. Literally, within the Christian Tradition and a sa combination of the languages of Aramaic and Latin, I think this would mean "Son of Timidity." (but this is open to argument and actually argument is welcome since this is just something that has struck me off the top of my head and I would greatly appreciate thoughts from other camps as far as other etymologies of the name as used in the real world that might help shield from disapproval any who have this name in real life). The "Bar" is the Aramiac for son and usually used in surnames (like the word "son" gets used in other cultural heritages, such as in the name "Erikson" etc.). It could be argued that there is no reason to suspect that Rowling knows this since Aramiac is probably not in her repertoire of languages, and I would agree except that it is somewhat known through the Western familiarity with the New Testament, where Peter is specifically referred to as "Simon Bar-Jonah" and even I as a teenager had hear that this was some sort of reference meaning "son of so-and-so" (in this case a father named Jonah or John). Given her characterization of Crouch Sr, it also seems likely she would choose this name intentionally - but that is just my initial impression.