Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a wizard named Winston. He lived in a very tall tower far away from everyone else in the magical forest. At the top of this tall tower, he had a room full of all the magical things you could ever want. He had a crystal ball that could see all that was happening in the world, a broomstick that was faster than any horse, and powerful magic wands and potions. Winston loved all his magical things and often spent hours and hours just looking at them.
At first, Winston found his magical things made him very happy, but soon the happiness wore off, and he found he was a bit lonely. He thought, “Maybe I should come down from my tower and visit the people who live nearby.” But one day after leaving his tower, he went looking for his neighbors, the fairies and elves, and asked if they wanted to come round his tower to see his magical things, but to his surprise, none of them wanted to come at all. People always looked sad whenever he passed by.
Then Winston thought: “Hmmm, well maybe if I did some good deeds and started to use my magic for good rather than just watching the world with my crystal ball, then they would want to visit.”
One day, as he walked through the center of the fairies and elves’ village, a beautiful lost princess was walking the other way and was on her way to ask the fairies and elves for directions. She was so beautiful that Winston almost did not notice how sad she looked, and before he could speak to her, she asked the other elves.
They pointed this way and that, but sadly ye olde elves who live in the forest had forgotten to mark down many of the roads in their elves magical map, so they were pointing her in circles and never showing her the correct path.
Winston saw that this beautiful princess needed his help, so he walked over to her and sad, “Good day to you, Princess. Where may you be going today?”
“Oh, I am looking for the Castle of the Fairies.”
“Oh dear! You have gone quite wrong!” said Winston. “But do not fear, I know of a much quicker way to get there than those poor elves were telling you. If you come with me to my tower at the top, I can pop you as a bunny and carry you down to the castle in no time at all.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to put you out,” the princess replied politely.
“Oh no trouble at all, hop on,” he said, and he then picked her up and using his magic he flew up to the top of his tower. Quickly, he found the correct spell to turn her into a bunny so that he could carry her safely down the mountain on a broomstick without breaking any of her bones.
When he had returned her to her castle, she invited him in to stay. He laughed and laughed at how funny it was to be at the castle, and happier and happier at how kind and good the princess was.
Now Winston had friends, many friends! Every week on a Sunday, the elves and fairies would come marching up the hill to his tower with produce to share the goodies with him but also to wonder and watch how their magical friend was going. They would be happy to help him scroll down a spell or two in his spell book or cross out the ones he would never use.
All the children of the land would gather below his tower and shout up, “Do some magic for us, Wizard!” Or tell him, “My mom is sick, please make her better,” or even, “I haven’t had any sweets for a month, could you bring me some sugar plums, hotcakes, or jelly beans, please, wizard.”
And when he would play at making his magic, he was surprised to see on his finger how this hero under other heroes made no end of little tiny servants. You would see downs, ups, and squiggles, whirls, and twists until they made quite a large long valley, and then you were quite surprised to see a door appear and then a long line of little elves waddling in with pixie mail and fairy help boxes to fill up with jellies, sweets, teas, or whatever it was the children in the village needed.
So it was that the grumpy selfish wizard found that peace and happiness had come into his life when he used his wonderful gifts not only for himself but also to bring happiness to others.