The Hopping Pot

The Hopping Pot is the cauldron at the centre of the first story in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the book of wizarding fairy tales that appears in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. An old wizard brews potions and antidotes in it for the Muggles living near him, never letting on where his remedies come from and leaving them to believe the cures spring ready-made out of his lucky cooking pot. The pot is no ordinary cauldron. It sprouts a single brass foot and hops about with a great clatter, and it takes on the troubles of the people who come knocking at the door, breaking out in warts, braying like a donkey, and filling to the brim with salt water, sour milk, bad cheese and hungry slugs. A single slipper sits inside it.