Once upon a time, there was a teenage boy who idolized wizards and magic. The boy, Ethan, had grown up reading wonderful stories about witches and wizards and the magnificent quests they journeyed on. He had obsessed about their vast powers and enchanting spells. All Ethan wanted out of life was to become a wizard.
But the wizards he read about we old, and he was young. Most wizards had long gray beards, and he couldn't get a single hair to grow on his chin. But most importantly of all, the wizards he read about could do magic, and Ethan had no magical abilities.
Until one day, he was at the market with his mother, and Ethan saw an old man with a long gray beard. As Ethan watched, the wizard made a dove disappear. Ethan's jaw dropped. He had found a wizard at last!
Ethan went running up to the wizard and begged the wizened man to teach him how to perform magic. The wizard happily took on an apprentice because he was growing old and sore. The wizard taught Ethan all he had ever dreamed of. He learned to perform transfiguration, to concoct potions, to speak to beasts, and to move objects around at his will.
Once the wizard had taught Ethan everything he had to teach, he presented a final test for Ethan.
"If you have truly been a good apprentice and learned everything you could, you will be able to turn me into a beautiful staff and sell me at an auction," the wizard instructed. "But keep one small gem from the staffs handle in order to turn me back."
Ethan nodded enthusiastically, and with a wave of his hand, his master became a gleaming gold staff, plated with rubies and sapphires. He carefully plucked a single sapphire from the staff and pocketed it before carrying the staff to the nearest auction.
The staff was very popular and sold for 10,000 gold coins. Ethan was very excited and was sure this would please his master.
With the displaced sapphire in his hand, Ethan waved again and his master became a human again. The auctioneer and the bidders were very angry at the loss of the golden staff, but Ethan could run very quickly. He took the 10,000 gold coins, and calling to his master to follow him, Ethan high-tailed it out of the auction house.
But because the wizard was old and frail and was still recovering from the transfiguration, he couldn't run fast enough and was swarmed by the angry mob of bidders.
Once Ethan had escaped, he turned back, expecting to see his master. But the wizard was no where to be seen.
"Oh no! What have I done?" Ethan lamented.
A little white dove landed on his shoulder and cooed reassuringly.
"Don't fret my dear wizard, your master was old and his time had come. He only wanted to leave you with money to support yourself before he crossed on to the next life. Rejoice at your good fortune, and morn your master respectfully."
With this the dove flew away, leaving Ethan rightfully grieved but also pleased with his good fortune. He had become a wizard at last.
Author's Note: This story was inspired by
The Wizard and His Pupil , from the
Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales book by Ignacz Kunos, with illustrations by Willy Pogany from 1913. In the original story, the young boy keeps running away from school and begs to be the pupil of a wizard. The wizard teaches the boy how to transform things, and they essentially have competitions to see who is better at magic. In the end, the boy turns himself into grain, and the wizard turns himself into a rooster to eat up all the grain. But the boy turns back into a human quickly and rings the roosters neck.
In my version, one of my mains goals was that I wanted to have the apprentice and the wizard get along better. So I chose to tell it in a more awestruck manner than the tricky way the original is told. But I liked the death scene at the end of the story. So I had the wizard sacrifice himself for the boy's happiness.
