Tom and The Grumpy Wizard

A long time ago, far, far away, in a cave deep in the Misty-Cool Mountains lived an old man, who was simply known as the Grumpy Wizard. He had lived there for so long that everyone had forgotten his real name. So few people had ever seen him that most people didn’t even know he existed, and those that did certainly didn’t know why he was called the Grumpy Wizard or even want to know why. Wizards were a bit frightening when they weren’t grumpy, so you kept well away from ones that were.

The Grumpy Wizard could remember his real name, and why he was so grumpy. In fact it was remembering why he was grumpy that kept him grumpy. We may get to find out why he was grumpy ourselves later in the story, but first things first, let’s carry on with me telling you about him.

He had been living in the cave for eighty years, and in all that time he had only ever spoken to seven people. The last time was nearly twenty years before, so he had become quite used to his own company and didn’t think he cared if he never spoke to anyone again. Eighty years seems an awfully long time to you and me, in fact a whole lifetime for many people, but for wizards it’s not such a long time, because they live for hundreds of years. It’s the magic that keeps them alive, a side effect from using magic, and not a spell they put on themselves. Most wizards are private people, but they do like having company at hand if they decide to socialise. Not the Grumpy Wizard though, and that is why he moved to the cave at the foot of Black mountain in the heart of the Misty-Cool mountains eighty years before. In fact he had put a spell on the entrance to the cave to make it look just like the rock of the mountain. That is why, even if anyone had come looking for him, they wouldn’t have found him, and he hadn’t met anyone for so long. The truth is that most people had forgotten that he existed, and those that hadn’t had only heard stories about him, and many of those stories were bad.