Welcome to the best blog about all things wizard, The Diary of a Wizard. If you like all things funny fantasy, then you’ve come to the right place. Over the last couple of weeks there’s been a nasty unicorn flu going around, and all the unicorns are on lockdown. I’ll have to see if I can help out around The Enchanted Woods. After all, when there’s a public health emergency, that is when a wizard must come to the fore.
With my trusty magical steed Horace, being a unicorn and all, I’ve made sure he’s safely locked down, while I see if I can help. The Grand High Wizard or GHW, agreed to meet me to “coordinate the operations”. I rolled my eyes so hard my head nearly flipped over. What he really means, is he wants me to do all the hard work, while he takes the credit. He’ll keep giving me the wrong instructions and I’ll end up doing what I would have done anyway. We all know he only got the big job cos he was the retiring, Grand High Wizard’s great nephew. But hey ho, a bit of nepotism never hurts, I guess.
I had to travel on my feet for once, which since Horace’s rehab, I haven’t done a whole lot of. I was poopeder than a puffed out penguin, let me tell ya. Eventually, I reached Town Hall, which is where GHW likes to conduct his business in the most showy of manners. I arrived via the steps. He appeared in a puff of blue smoke making the air all coughy and spluttery. Now the “main act” had arrived we could get to work.
GHW was barking orders like a general in the army, and on no less than 7 occasions, did I prove him wrong and embarrass him in front of everyone. It was easy, and that’s a thing that should never be easy in my experience. Anyway, being the petty and spoiled brat he is, he sent me to The Squelchy Bog. It’s called that on account of it being super squelchy in case you couldn’t guess. This would be my punishment it seems. He’d heard of some “dramas” over there. I mean, a wizard is not really there for dramas, more to offer help and guidance where one can, but I’ll go and check it out. I may need a ride though because it’s a fair old jaunt over there.
I left GHW behind to mess everything up, and finally, managed to wrangle a warthog that would take me. It surely must be, a temporary steed should rhyme with the location to which we were headed. A hog for the bog fits the bill nicely!
We travelled through the night only stopping so Hoggy could eat some root vegetables to refuel. He was a fast little blighter on account of him farting all the time. It worked kinda like a stinky jet engine, or perhaps, consider the way a squid moves. Anyway, that’s sure to happen if you eat 54 turnips a day. We made good time and thus, avoided any trouble. That is of course, until we reached the Squelchy Bog.
While Hoggy is great at running, he is not so good at stopping. This ended up in me falling face first into the bog as the warthog dove in excitedly. My robes got all squelchy and worst of all, so did my pointy boots. Now I’ll have to squelch everywhere I go. Gross!
I was already proper squelchy so I figured I may as well wade in. Now I seeked the drama that I sought. Apart from some venomous snakes, a few alligators, a bog hippo, some belching swamp toads, and eagle-sized dragonflies, I didn’t find anyone.
Then as if by magic, the mist descended around me. I say “as if by magic”, but there was no doubt, this was magic. This sent Hoggy, honking away like a shakily scared, cowardy custard, leaving me alone, to face this trixie trial.
I stepped bravely into the mist and within, all became clear. This was witchcraft. Well, three witches stirring an enormous caldron with a potent and pungent potion were there. They were clearly tryna make a witchypoos of some kind.
“Hey, you, crone. I say.” I said, giving a friendly wave.
“How do you know my name?” she screeched, like a good crone should.
“It was just a guess.”
“Well, she’s the leader. Not me.” She pointed to the one facing away from me.
The witch turned around.
“Wow!” I said. “You’re not as ugly as your sisters. You must have got the good genes.”
“Good genes!” She was being quite ranty. “Imagine my embarrassment, my woe, and my upsettedness about being a good-looking bog witch. Our parents were so ashamed that the other kids actually wanted to play with me unlike those two lucky hags, that they sent me to drama school.”
“I guess, that’s not ideal then.”
“I do have an ugly name though.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes, it’s Grotesque. It’ll turn your stomach, it will.”
“I doubt that, as we wizards are of strong constitution. But I’ll brace myself just in case you want to tell me.”
She smiled widely and proudly. “My name is Bogrolla.”
“Yeah, that is pretty gross.” I did a pretend shudder, just to make her smile.
“And there’s this.” She picked up the fattest wartyest toad, you ever did see.
“Wow. That’s disgusting.”
She smiled from ear to ear.
“Enough dilly dally, what is the problem?” I asked.
“We don’t need help, we’re fixing it with magic, we’re concocting a witchypoos. Don’t ya know?”
“It seems you’re just stinking the place up. Can I help you at all, in any way? I know stuff and things.”
“We’ve run out of toilet paper, or bog roll as it’s known in these parts. Because of the unicorn flu there’s none in the shops. I’ve seen fae folk murdering each other in the aisles for the merest scrap of the stuff. Obviously, when there’s a flu, we all need tons of bog roll.”
“I have a solution, but it doesn’t involve any stinky spells, or potent and pungent potions for that matter. Least of all witchypooses that don’t even work. Just do it the old-fashioned way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re millennial witches, just getting started in the witchery trade, but the old more experienced hags used to use, bog moss.”
“That’s disgusting!” said Bogrolla.
“Yuck!” said Crone.
“Spew!” said Hagatha Christie.
“I thought you wanted to be disgusting.” I said. “I thought you liked it.”
“We do, but…”
“I dunno, back in the day, all these hygiene products weren’t available over the internet. Folks just had to get by. That was when hags were true masters of haggery, not like you paper witches nowadays, with all ya newfangled tech stuff.”
“We are rough and tough old witches. We’re super gross. You can’t stop us from using bog moss, instead of bog roll. I’ll show you…”
“Please. Don’t.”
“We’ll never order from the internet again.” Bogrolla looked around at her sisters, took her phone in her hand and tossed it into the bog.
“Come on.” She insisted but her sisters didn’t budge. “Come on! It’s called a sacrifice. It wouldn’t be a sacrifice if you don’t love whatever it is you’re sacrificing. We need to get off Soapbox.com, and Kneejerk, and learn how to really be bog witches.”
With 2 plips, the phones disappeared into The Squelchy bog. Afterwards, we made merry, long into the night and had many chuckles, a few giggles, and a belly laugh or 2. Bright and breezy in the morn I found Hoggy.
I got back to the town hall, in time to see GHW scarpering on his tootsies and leaving the rest to the experts. As suspected, he caused far more problems than he solved.
The battle against unicorn flu will surely rage on for a while, but if I’m exhausted, I can’t wizard my best wizardry.
I needed some sleep, so I took Hoggy home and let him crash in the stable. I was more beaten than a beatnik’s bongo, let me tell ya.
Well, another week is over and maybe the bog witches can be the best they can be. It just goes to show, what really matters is, it’s not about being ugly on the outside, but truly being ugly within. I have a feeling I may bump into my new friends Bogrolla, Crone, and Hagatha Christie again sometime. I’m gonna write some cool stories for you now.
I hope the week brings you much health and happiness, chuckles, giggles and belly laughs too, and I thank you for your time.
See ya next week friend!
BB
Barry S. Brunswick is an Author and Best Selling Poet.
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Dreamland Part 1 – The Fabric of Dreams
Dreamland Part 2 – The Masters of Light
Dreamland Part 3 – The Veil of Shadow
Hairy Man a short story
The War of The Turnips
