“Help is just a crow’s caw away” said the man whose age could be anywhere between 40 and 90. Yes, he’s got a long, grey beard but he’s using a silly filter on Instagram right now, so it is impossible to tell just how many years through which he’s lived.
There comes a time in every man’s life where he comes across another man who has reached another, different specific time in his own life where that other man chooses to espouse words of wisdom and we – the first man – have to decide whether to take his words to heart or discard them like the top slice of a loaf of bread. Was that last line rather vague and/or confusing? So is whatever it is the old man said to you and/or us.
The elderly by definition have lived through a lot. That is a basic fact. Life can wear you down. You may learn from whatever it did to you and choose to redirect your knowledge to a more exuberant vessel. You may also start rambling incoherently about the good old days. The possibilities aren’t quite endless but there’s more than one. But as a young person who could very well be an up and coming, unaware protagonist in a fantasy novel involving chosen ones or ogres, how can we identify what type of elderly man that we happen to be speaking to at the time?
It is a question that has weighed ever so heavily on all our minds and quite frankly, we as a people will never get this right 100% of the time. We can come close, however.
Here are some identifying features.
Beard-Length & Colour
Every wizard has a beard. To qualify as a crazed vagabond there is no requisite in this matter. No beard means you’re in the presence of a raving lunatic, it is best to get the hell out of there, he’s about to shove his fingers in your ears and scream bloody murder. But just a beard does not indicate anything.
You will need to look into two further aspects; length and colour.
We begin with length. If the hair from their chin happens to graze the floor, sweeping the path before him like it was specifically designed to make certain his feet never touched dirt, then with a 100% certainty we can declare this man magical. Whatever nonsensical, flowery verbiage he puts before you has meaning, has depth. You must write this down for future reference. The same goes for if his beard is waist-length and they have to shift it around when they sit.
When we get to chest-level things get iffy. Near impossible to decipher whether or not the man can levitate things with his mind. From here onwards we need to shift our criteria to colour.
If the beard in question is dark or blonde, run far for the man is insane. Grey or white, pay attention because he is about to hand you a quest. Take it as he does not choose his questees lightly. He is after all, an all-knowing magic man.
If the man has dark stubble, ignore him entirely, he has nothing to add to your life. When he says, “a flower is growing in my chest”, he does not mean it metaphorically.
Eye Contact
When a wizard provides wisdom-infused advice they have a habit of looking away for the first three-quarters of it and then, whilst turned 90 degrees away from you, they will turn only their head to face you as they provide the most important detail.
Let me explain with an example.
You are at a bus stop. The man in question is standing right beside you. You both are facing the area where the bus is expected to temporarily park itself to allow people to board.
He begins by saying something along the lines of, “there was a time”. At first you believe you just so happened to mishear them, but then he repeats what he’s just said but louder. He proceeds to tell you what was so special about the time to which he is alluding. He talks of a secret society, a different world, a utopia of sorts. But that whimsical world seems to change when introduced to a dark, unstoppable force. All of that, he says while looking away from you.
But then he slowly faces you and says that there was one that has been picked to defeat the darkness. That slow turn to face you is his version of implying that that person is you.
If the interaction you have follows this same example then you can safely conclude that he is telling the truth. If there is any difference, however minute, he is insane. Ignore and go about your bus trip.
Wand = Not a wizard
This point will surely come as a surprise to all reading this. Surely a wand is the most wizard thing in existence. No! It’s just a twig! Nothing more!
A true wizard would not need to channel his power through an object.
This misconception has gotten many in the past in to a ton of trouble. If the person near you chooses to brandish a long stick and claim that sparks will fly out of it, they are lying to you.
It is quite possibly the longest-standing, albeit fairly pointless lie propagated to and by us regular folk and I cannot stand it.
You can even buy wand replicas from famous book-based stores. Why? Twigs are readily available. Go outside! If I had a penny for every twig I’d seen in my entire life I’d be flattened to death.
Wands are a lie.
The Ipe Collection 