Wizards

One of the numerous class of magic workers, which includes sorcerers, magicians, thaumaturgists, conjurers, witches, lamias, warlocks, mages, fairies, enchanters, and mystics.

A wizard is often regarded as the male equivalent of a witch, but this is not totally correct. Witches rely on evil spirits or demons to assist them, whereas wizards usually call on benevolent spirits to activate their spells or at least employ both good and evil spirits. It is probably more appropiate to describe sorcerers, who work their magick with the aid of the souls of the dead, as the male practitioners of witchcraft. Wizards often have good working relationships with fairies (who never associate with evil spirits) and have frequently held respectable positions, such as that of Merlin in the court of King Arthur.

Very few wizards are of supernatural descent, but are usually men who learn their craft by prolonged apprenticeship to senior wizards and by lives devoted to study and research. Wizards never marry and usually conserve their vital forces by remaining celibate, and so it is not an hereditary profession.

The power of a wizard depends upon the depth of his learning and experience. As a general rule, it may be said that the oldest wizard have the widest abilities in magic. Almost any man who is prepared to accept the rigid disciplines may learn wizardry, but numerous apprentices to the craft are frightened out of it when their masters conjure up apparitions or converse with disembodied voices. Many other baulk at the immense quantity of booklearning.

A wizard must be able to read spellbooks written in Aramaic, Celtic, Cornish, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Old Norse, Old Scots, Slavonic, Teutonic and many other ancient or obscure languages. The books are never printed or even translated, because it would spread their information too widely, and a young wizard has to copy his own complete set of spellbooks from those in his master's library.

Many wizards abandon the profession even after they have graduated through the first degrees. The idea of casting a spell may seem attractive, but when a young wizard has actually caused invisible hands to prepare his dinner he may think again.

He becomes all too conscious of the flimsiness of the curtain which separates natural from supernatural, and of the ghastly creatures ravening for release. Senior wizards are often haggard and haunted men, afraid to sleep because of fearsome images which leer and gibber through their dreams.