Enjoy. I did.

Too bad I couldn't get this finished by Halloween, but WHAT the hey...

Wilbur Whateley. Felix Bulmer Kennaston. Gerald Musgrave. Zikali. She-Who-Must-be-Obeyed. The WNU is dotted with people of mystical power. Other accounts---like Carlos Castenada's---indicate reality is more than it seems. If you don't believe in magic, you have to disregard at least half of Solomon Kane's adventures...or Manuel of Poictesme's---or Ludwig Horace Holly's.

Yes, you do believe in magic. Under some circumstances. So let us look into the geneaology of the one of finest mistresses of the magical arts...

Continuing my series at looking at the geneaology of the Justice Leaguers, let's look at Zatanna.

Zatanna Zatara is the son of Giovanni (John) Zatara, an Italian-American stage magician---with the same mystical powers as she---and Sindella, a Turkish member of the Hidden Ones, a Turkish inclave of homo magi....a subspecies of the human race to whom magical powers comes more easily.

The Zataras were related to Leonardo Da Vinci. Indeed, like Leonardo, the first Zatara, Piero Zatara was a bastard son of Piero Da Vinci, a lawyer, just as Leonardo was. Annabella Zatara was of mixed French-Italian blood, and made her living as a fortuneteller and sometimes actress. However, the Zataras for generations afterwards were actors, actresses, and stage magicians....entertainers in an era when entertaining was just a step above prostitution in most people's eyes. Nor, despite their "low" calling, is their relationship to Leonardo Da Vinci their only call to distinction. They are descended from Nicholas Flamel, the famous French mystic, a bookseller who received a revelation from an angel, who, born in 1330, supposedly died in 1415. (Like Cagliostro, Tarzan, and Fu Manchu, it was rumored Flamel had a means of preserving his life for generations beyond that of normal men.)

Piero Zatara's granddaughter had an affair with one of Michel de Nostredame's grandsons, and so the blood of the prophet Nostradamus was linked with the Zataras, through her son by him.

The first Zatara who gave us a hint of what was to come was a juggler and magician named Mario Zatara, great-great-grandfather to Zatanna, born 1841. He found a girl wandering Milan...but not HER Milan, she said. She claimed to be descended from the Dukes of Milan, but a different Milan, a world that was subtly different...she decided to delve into the mystical arts, as an ancestor of hers, Duke Prospero of Milan did. She was named Miranda, after her ancestor, Prospero's daughter. Mario recognized some names, and thought her an amnesia victim and possibly an actress, who was substituting the plot for the TEMPEST in her mind for reality. However, given what Poul Anderson revealed in a MIDSUMMER TEMPEST, that there is a parallel world where every word of Shakespeare is true, including THE TEMPEST, one cannot help but wonder if that is true, and if Miranda was descended from Duke Prospero and Miranda of Shakespeare's last play....Miranda and Mario married, and had children, among which was Luigi Zatara.

Zatara's great-grandfather, Luigi Zatara, born 1866, was a stage magician. His troupe travelled to America, and there he married, briefly a woman who claimed to be a descendent of Cagliostro, and had two children who survived him, an elder daugher, Luisa, and a younger son, Leon.

There is little doubt that Luigi's bride was Josephine Basalmo, who later claimed to be the immortal daughter of Cagliostro by Napoleon's Josephine. This genetic link makes the Zataras directly related to other famous members of the Wold Newton Family, including John (Colonel) Clay, Carl and Irma Peterson, and Dr. Caber.

Luisa married a missionary to Tibet, a man named Mandrake, who had three children---Mandrake the Magician, his sinister brother Derek, and his sister Leona, named for her uncle. They learned the mystic arts in a Tibetian monastery, one that emulated, without fully achieving, the example of the revered Ancient One. (Who would later become Stephen Strange's mentor.) It was formed by those who tried out, and were rejected,as disciples of the Ancient One, and their mysticism specialized in illusion. W.A. Zard visited that same monastery later, and learned much the same abilities, becoming the foe of the Justice Society, the Wizard.

Mandrake and his younger cousin Zatara strongly resembled each other, both in appearance and in mode of operation. (Both were actually mystics who cloaked their activities by being an actual stage magician.)

Zatanna's grandfather, Leon Zatara, born 1891, was a stage manager, and married a Annabella Cardona...elder sister to the Inspector Cardona of the Shadow stories. He also fathered a son out of wedlock, Evan Fulcanelli, whom Zatara once called a deceased uncle of Zatanna's.

Giovanni (John) Zatara was born in 1914. Like his uncle, Inspector Cardona, he found satisfaction in pursuing those who threatened society---but when he accidentally discovered he could focus mystical powers by muttering things backward (as an aid to concentration) he concentrated on tackling mystics. It was one such battle that led him to Turkey, where another woman, also a mystic, named Sindella, aided him.

Sindella was a member of the Hidden Ones, the homo magi who were bred to be especially gifted in the mystic arts. Our own Jean-Marc Llofficier has narrated the beginning of this special breed of humanity. They were twelve distinct groups, centered around "stones of power", started and kept distinct by the mysterious Dr. Mist (also remembered as the African deity Nommo), who, like She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed entered the Flame of Life---indeed, he created the Flame of Life from the life-essence of a drowned civilization that many remember as Atlantis. These sorcery-attuned people would keep him company through the centuries.

It appears that many people can get attuned to the mystical side of things, like the aforementioned Stephen Strange. Still, these homo magi use magic and spells in the same way we use electricity. Moreover, they have been doing it for centuries.

We know of several such enclaves around the world, not just in Turkey. There is a hidden enclave in New Salem, Colorado, where many homo magi gathered. One of their elders, Agatha Harkness, journeyed back to the non-magic world and became the Fantastic Four's nanny-in-residence for their son, Franklin. (One wonders if the opponent of the Demon Etrigan, called Witch-boy, was from the same enclave.)

A female homo magi named Samantha married an advertising executive named Darrin Stevens. Darrin's life was complicated enormously by his magic-wielding in-laws, especially his mother-in-law Endora; nor did the snooping ways of his neighbor, who was named in the series Mrs. Kravitz, help. Finally, as many have found before him, he decided the best way to protect his secrets was to broadcast them in such a way that no one would believe them. Advertising runs television, and he was one of the secret powers behind the show BEWITCHED. Of course the mortal/muggle names were changed. Upon seeing her suspicions played for laughs on a weekly TV series, Mrs. Kravitz learned to mind her own business. (Darrin and Samantha had two children, Tabitha and Adam, both of which took some part of the homo magi genes.)

And of course, J. K. Rowling has exposed some facets of the homo magi educational system, at least in England, with her books about Harry Potter. Many of the stories are softened for the children's audience for which they are intended, yet they remain fascinating. (One also wonders if Harry Potter is any relation---perhaps a first cousin---to another, somewhat older mage who resembles him in many particulars, Tim Hunter. Unfortunately, Hunter's origins have become so muddled that I doubt if even he is sure of his parentage, any more.)

It is instructive that the "Ministry of Magic" reports to the Muggle---i.e. mortal, non-magic-using--- Prime Minister of Britain. Like the Justice Society's secret relation to FDR in the forties, and the Avengers' connection to the National Security Agency in the sixties, the British government kept their relation to a secret society of mystics hidden,as a card to play in matters of international security.

Another possible exposure of same is the CHARMED series, where three sisters specialize in magical effects upon inheriting a family "curse". Evidently they are at last part homo magi, their powers being an inheritance from generation to generation.

I go into these enclaves because it will make sense of what I'm about to relate.

The Turkish Hidden Ones retained relations with the rest of the Wizardling world, just not the "mortal", "Muggle" world. Their refugee in Turkey had been established by Salazar Slytherin over a thousand years ago. Slytherin, of course, was one of the four founders of the "Hogwarts" Academy, who eventually left over disagreements with the other three about including the half-Muggles into the academy. Sindella was a direct descendent of Slytherin, and the Hidden Ones' standoffish attitude towards Muggles/mortals/the nonmagical made them considered very conservative by homo magi standards, as was their barbaric ritual of sacrificing those who wore "the Medulla Jewel" to power their city.

Zatanna's grandmother, Samantha, had also died wearing the "Medulla jewel". Samantha had two siblings, both of whom fled in horror over the death of their beloved sister. Their brother fled to France, and under the name of Maurice became one of the most powerful of warlocks. He married Endora, of the New Salem enclave, (Endora was Agatha Harkness' niece) and their daughter Samantha was named for his beloved sister. (Too bad Maurice and his grand-niece Zatanna never met. In his top hat, tails, and occasional opera cape, their mode of dress would be similar.)

Samantha and Maurice's sister, freed from the repressive ways of the Hidden Ones, spent some time in France, learning their language and their ways extrensively, and then went to England. (Her name at the moment is being researched. It might be Serena, and it is possible she had a brief marriage to a French warlock and had Samantha's cousin Serena.) She then went to England and married Tom Riddle, and like her niece, Samantha Stevens, revealed her witchlike nature on her wedding night. Tom Riddle Sr., of a good family, was horrified and could not reconcile his wife with what he considered her witchly nature...and soon left her, albeit pregnant.

Their son, Thomas Riddle Jr., grew up to become one of the most feared sorcerers ever. He murdered his Muggle father and grandparents, and later became Harry Potter's arch-nemesis, Voldemort, after slaughtering Harry's parents, James Potter and Lily Evans Potter. (Despite the movie, the name should be pronounced in the French fashion, "Voldemore".) The Dread Lord is so feared that most homo magi refused to even say his name.

The senior Samantha's husband was the high priest of the Hidden Ones at the time, by name Marvalo. He secretely sympathized with Maurice and his sister-in-law. His own aunt, named Maria, had left the city of the Hidden Ones years before, because Marvalo and Samantha were second cousins, and Maria was in line to receive the Medulla Jewel; and to keep from being dragged back had assumed the role of a English domestic. Her adventures among her charges were later turned from memories in a series of children's books about "Mary Poppins", the name she hid under. (Her uncle Ailbero, renamed Albert also fled with her, to give her some family far from home. His mystical abilities were draining in his senility, however.)

Marvalo's father, Anesto, sister to Maria/Mary Poppins, was a faithful High Priest, but Petrello, Ailbero/Albert's brother, and High Priest before Anesto, (and Zatanna's great-grandfather) once journeyed to England, to attend a meeting of the Ministry of Magic. There he met and was enchanted---in a totally non-magical manner--- by a married woman with an older husband. (It is rumored that it was one of the Constantines. I'm still confirming that.) The oldest magic of all worked its way, and they had a half-muggle son named Peter. Young Peter did not inherit all of homo magi's gifts, but he was able to wish himself to always be youthful, and with the aid of some fairies he found in nearby dimensions he learned how to fly. Fleeing his stuffy English upbringing, he took up the name of Peter Pan and organized some other wayward children into the Lost Boys in a small pocket dimension he called Neverland, where aging was retarded even for Muggles. Stories about Peter Pan (who often returned to London just on a lark) sprung up among the urban youth, (especially the Darling family) and were later captured by J.M. Barrie. (Captain Hook, like Captain Gulliver, had a perchant of wandering off the known map altogether. How he and the Indians ended up in Neverland must remain a fascinating, but untold, story.)

Sadly, this is all I could discover of the history of that branch of homo magi, although there is a hint they may have intermarried with the jinni near Turkey, and may be related to the jinn that astronaut Tony Nelson discovered and later married. They don't call them the "Hidden Ones" for nothing....still, it is a comfort to realize the origin of many things we previously thought inexplicable.

And---a late, but still heartfelt, Happy Halloween.