There's an old story about a young chap who goes out in the world to seek his fortune. He befriends a wizard and - I dunno - mows his lawns for awhile, but eventually decides he should go home to see his dear old ma.
The wizard says - don't leave empty-handed! Take this pouch. Every time you open it, you will find a gold florin, a silver shilling, and a copper penny inside. That should sort out the whole grinding poverty deal you guys have going on.
Thanks! says the lad. He sets off home, and along the way stops at an inn for the night. A flagon of your best ale, barkeep! he says, and the feather bed for me. The barkeep eyes him quizzically. Our young rapscallion is possibly not of the best. Can you pay? he asks. And the youth does the pouch trick.
That's a nice wallet, says the barkeep. Oh, it's magic, says the kid. There's always money in there. So of course while he's sleeping off the ale, the barkeep steals in to his room and switches it with a normal one.
When our hero returns home, there's his old ma, boiling a few sickly beans on the stove. He chucks them out of the door. Don't worry, ma, he says, it's feather beds from here on out! And he attempts to demonstrate the magic pouch, but it doesn't work, obvs, and she gives him a clip round the ear.
He goes back to see the wizard, who does some sighing about the magic wallet and rustles up a magic tablecloth. Here you go, son, he says, and he spreads it on a rock. Just say, grub's up! and - well, the tablecloth suddenly produces fine delicacies, viands, vittles, horse doofers and a selection of small plates from El Bulli.
You know this kid is a doofus, though, so he stops at the same inn. Oh don't worry about your sad little roast fowl, says the kid, just bring me a beer and I'll show you good eatin'. He does the trick and - you're ahead of me here I can tell - the barkeep waits until he's getting nine hours of the dreamless to switch up the tablecloths. And lo, he returneth home, and casts the even weedier beans in the pot into the outer darkness, and the tablecloth faileth, and there is a moaning and a clipping of ears.
CUT TO: Back at the wizard's gaff. You can imagine, if you will, the wizard fixing our Picaro with a minatory gleam in his eye. Here's a big stick, he says, handing the same to the kid. What you ought to do is, take it home - all the way home - and say 'Stick, let me have it!'. Wait to you get the whole way home, now. Yeah, I mean it kid. Read my lips. I'm going to pull the beard back so you can read my lips, in fact. Watch: Wait. Until. You. Get. Home. Do not, for instance, go round the corner from my cave to do this. OK? See you, don't let the griffon hit you in the ass on the way out.
So the chump goes round the corner and says, Stick! Let me have it!, and the stick beats the living crap out of him. Whack, whack, whack. It lays into him like Rush Limbaugh into a pinata full of Vicodin. The wizard, who has been watching, concealed behind an Ent and laughing his ass off, chooses a pause in the beating to wander into view. Oh, I forgot to say, when you're done with the stick, you just say Stick! that's enough of that! Say, are you OK?
The stick just lies there, so Yes, fine, thanks, says the kid. Oh, says the wizard, you're all dusty? You OK? Yeah, fine, says the kid. Well, happy trails! says the wizard. And remember what I said about not doing anything until you get home? The kid gives him a dirty look, but picks up his stick and staggers off.
He gets to the inn a sadder and a wiser youth. Orders some soup and a half of shandy. Back again? says the barkeep. Yes, says our hero. Been to, ah, visit your wizard pal again? He sounds like a swell guy. Yes, says our hero. Did he, er - give you anything? Stick, says the kid. This stick right here. What you do is, you address the Stick - you say 'Stick!' - and then you ask the stick to let you have it. Pretty, pretty damn magical, is what it is. OK? I'm going to bed. And he hauls himself up the stairs to the converted toilet that is his room for the night.
So the barkeep creeps in with a similar stick or shillelagh, and swaps them, and then steals off to the barn to test out the Awesome Dweomer, and it knocks seven shades of Scientology out of him. It tonks him from one end of the barn to the other. In comes the youth, who has been awakened by his piteous cries, and who swiftly notes the pouch and the tablecloth safely locked away in, let's say, some kind of glass-fronted cabinet or armoire. It doesn't matter why it's in the barn, shut up.
Oh, hey! Nice evening for a stroll. Enjoying the stick? the kid yells. Aargh! the barkeep gargles. You may now improvise a long amusing dialogue between the two, with stick-beatings, which I shall not attempt to reproduce owing to a earlier, inadvisable, stylistic choice about the punctuation of speech. It wasn't really working with the wizard that last time, huh. So anyway, the kid gets his stuff back, and he calls off the stick, and to avoid suggesting that beatings are correlated with increased sagacity let's say the barkeep learns no lesson, and is sadder but not wiser, and later is clipped by the Mob when he is found to be skimming on the numbers receipts.
So the kid goes home and there is much rejoicing and magic and stuff (there is optionally a coda in which we allow the stick to beat up Ma, possibly as a kind of corrective for the ear-clipping earlier, but it seems like that's slightly off karmically, and we wonder at any editor who would include it; I'm looking at you, Professor Calvino.)
MORAL: A wizard did it.
COROLLARY: This isn't the kind of story where *how* the wizard did it is remotely important. There are of course many others.
VERY SALIENT:
This.
). It's still a good magic system (though needs simplifying), but if I do revive it, it will be in the background and no more explained than the magic in Harry Potter.
