The Wizard of Winter

There once was a Wizard, some called him Father Frost and some Jack Frost, who lived in a castle of glittering ice at the South Pole.

 

Hundreds of penguins were his servants and he rode about in a sled not unlike that of his half-brother St Nicholas (who lived at the opposite end of the earth), except that it was pulled by a team of arctic wolves and snow leopards and, when flying through the air, flew so fast that it turned into the chill winter wind .

 

And it was he whose job it was to control the months from December to February; he who flew around the globe each year spreading a chill blanket of snow and ice everywhere.

 

But then, one particularly chilly December day, the Wizard was flying about upon his sleigh when he caught sight of a beautiful young maiden who was sitting by her window and, at that moment, his icy heart began to melt and he fell hopelessly in love.

 

But though he was in love it only made the poor wizard sad because he knew that no woman would ever want to love a person like him; a person condemned to live in a cold castle of ice and who chilled everything that he touched.

 

He thought of giving the young maiden flowers but the moment that he touched a flower it only wilted and died. He dreamt of holding her in his arms and of their lips touching but he knew that his icy embrace would only cause her to shiver and his kisses make her teeth chatter.

 

“It is no wonder that my heart was made of ice”, he said to himself, “For only a person with a heart of ice could stand a life of such loveless solitude”.

 

And for the first time in thousands and thousands of winters, the Wizard felt uncomfortably cold and longed to be held and made warm and all his penguin servants were quite distressed to see tears, like melting water, pour down his face.

 

Of course he tried to forget about the young maiden; he took the iciest of ice cold showers to cool his blood but it was impossible to get her face out of his dreams and time after time he would find himself flying to her door with some magnificent ornament carved out of ice that he would leave on her window sill or doorstep like a glittering unicorn with an icicle horn or a praying angel with white wings intricately carved from snow.

 

“Oh, if only I were like my brother Santa Clause”, he would say, “Everyone loves Santa Clause”.

 

“If you can find someone who would take your place upon the throne”, said the snowy owl who was his advisor, “Then you could become a mortal man but it would be difficult finding anyone who would willingly change places with you”.

 

So the Wizard looked into his magic mirror of ice and asked, “Show me someone who would like to be the Wizard of Winter”  and, immediately, within the mirror their appeared the face of a man who looked cold and cruel and miserable and, watching further, the wizard saw that he was a lonely, old miser and money lender who cared about nothing but money and power; so wicked that he leant money to poor penniless widows and had them locked away in debtors prisons if they could not pay it back with a hefty interest.

 

“Is there no one else?”, he asked the mirror, despairingly, “No one with a kinder heart?”.

“No”, replied the mirror, “He is the only one among all the people in this world with a heart cold enough and a greed great enough to desire your job. To him the warm touch of a human hand means nothing and the beauty of a spring flower only fills him with revulsion. He would be quite content to live alone in a castle of ice if he could command all the powers that you have”.

 

The wizard thought the man thoroughly despicable but he longed too much to be human and to be able to hold the young maiden that he had fallen so deeply in love with in his arms and so he said to the Strong North wind that was his servant, “Fly and bring that man here and I will give him my crown and my kingdom gladly”.

 

And the North Wind, spreading its wings, flew swiftly and finding the house of the miser and blowing the door to his house wide open, snatched him up in its eagle like talons of ice and carried the man, helplessly squirming and yelling, back to the home its master the Wizard.

 

“I give you my icicle crown”, he said to the startled man, placing the crown upon his head, “And all the power over wind and storm; ice and snow that goes with it”.

 

And, when he did this, suddenly the Wizard began to change; his skin of deepest blue becoming pale pink; his hair of silver turning to gold and his lips as white as lilies becoming red as roses while, at the same time, the old miser began to transform as well, from a decrepit old man into a powerful, blue skinned immortal.

 

“There”, he said to the man, wrapping himself in a large fur coat because, in his mortal form he could not bear the temperature of the Antarctic, “And I hope you will be happy here”.

 

Then the North wind carried the Wizard off to the country where his beloved maiden lived and he lived there very happily for many years and, over that time, he met and wooed the woman he adored and was married to her.

 

But then, one year the ice refused to melt and the snow refused to thaw and there was no spring and no summer; not even any Autumn; only snow and ice and bitterly cold wind all through the year.

 

The miser who he had given power to was so mean and selfish, you see, that he refused to let there be any spring, summer or autumn and instead had plunged the whole world into a terrible ice age as cold as his miserable, miserly heart.

 

“Oh, what have I done!”, said the Wizard, “What a fool I was, giving power to that villain!”.

 

It got so cold that crops could not grow in the fields of farmers anymore nor fruit ripen upon any tree and even the seas, in spite of all the salt in them, began to freeze over so that fisherman could not catch any fish and, before long, the whole earth looked, from outer space, as white as a snowball, and all across the world people began to starve.

 

But what could the poor Wizard do? He had given away all his power to the miser and now was just an ordinary mortal man.

 

However, on a particularly chilly Christmas Eve, as the Wizard was sitting and praying by the fireplace for the miser’s harsh winter to end, suddenly, he heard the sound of sleigh-bells jingling

outside and thought he saw someone in a sleigh arrive and, running out to see who the strange visitor could be, to his amazement he saw Santa Clause standing there and smiling.

 

“Brother”, he said, “What are you doing here?”.

 

“What do you think?”, asked his brother, jovially, “I’ve come to take you back. Since you gave your throne to that miser he has ruined Christmas for everyone and unless you take charge again there may never be another Christmas”.

 

But the Wizard said that he could not go back.

 

“If I go back then I will have to give up my one true love that is my wife and I would never do that, not if the whole world turned to ice”.

 

Old Santa Clause stroked his beard in thought and then he said, “But if you truly love your wife would you not prefer her to have a happy life, with or without you?”.

 

The Wizard had never thought of this before but now the more he contemplated upon it the more he realised that his brother was right, that the best thing for his wife would be for him to leave her and return to his castle and kingdom of ice.

 

And so he confessed all to his wife. He told her about his past life as the Wizard of Winter; how he had seen her through her window and fallen in love with her and given up everything to be with her and how, now, he had to leave her and go back to his old job for her sake and for everyone’s.

 

But then, much to his surprise, his wife told him that he did not need to leave her; that she would happily go and live with him and be his ice queen because she loved him so much and would no matter whether he were made of flesh and blood or ice and snow.

 

When he heard this the Wizard was overjoyed  and ran to tell his brother and the next thing that happened was that they both climbed into the back of Santa’s Sleigh and he took them, as fast as his six reindeers could gallop, back to the South pole.

 

Of course, when the old miser to whom the wizard had given all his power saw Santa’s Sleigh approaching he raised an entire army of wind and ice and snow against him.

 

Out of the earth came marching snowmen with cutlasses and shields of ice and angry scowls upon their faces and, upon the battlements of his ice castle, penguins in blue and silver braided uniforms loaded cannon balls of snow into cannons of ice; aimed and fired them at the sleigh; even the cold winter wind became a squadron of aeroplanes firing bullets of hail.

 

But, fortunately, Santa Clause had his own regiments for, out of his magical sack came marching wooden toy soldiers by the score and squadrons of toy aeroplanes with spinning propellers and then, weaving his way through the barrage of snowballs Santa reached into his sack and pulled out one of his silver and gold gift wrapped presents which he dropped down the chimney of the ice castle.

 

Sliding down the slippery flue of the ice chimney the parcel landed inside the castle and went skidding, like an ice hockey puck across the castle floor until it landed at the miser’s feet and, looking down, the miser noticed that the parcel had a tag upon it and, written upon that tag in fancy golden lettering, was his name.

 

“To Archibald”, it said.

 

The miser had never received a present before, not from anyone. His kind hearted mother had died, you see, when he was very young and left him in the care of a cruel and selfish father who had never loved him enough to buy him a Christmas present and that is why, in fact, he became cruel and miserly himself.

 

But the moment that he saw his name upon the present he was gripped by an overwhelming urge to tear it open and see what could be inside and, when he opened it and looked at what it contained, a smile spread across his face and suddenly all his snowman armies melted away and the wild antarctic winds subsided and Santa, his sleigh and all his reindeers came flying in through a nearby window.

 

The miser saw Santa and his sleigh and he recognized the man in the back as being the wizard who had given him his power but now he did not feel angry anymore and he didn’t try to stop them.

 

“Look!”, he cried, happily, leaping about almost like a child and showing them the toy spinning top that had been in the parcel, “A Spinning top! I have always wanted a spinning top even as a child but my father wouldn’t let me have any toys”.

 

Then, seeing that the miser was now too distracted by happiness to care, Santa Clause took the Icicle crown off of his head and handed it back to the wizard and the moment that the wizard placed the crown upon his head again he was transformed back into his original form; his hair becoming silver; his skin blue and his lips white.

 

But then, not only he transformed but his wife began to change as well, her dress of white linen turning into one of snow and, upon her head, appeared her own glittering crown; the crown of Snow Queen.

 

And, from that day on both the Wizard and his Wife ruled over his Antarctic kingdom and did so very happily. Because the Wizard was kind he did not punish the miser (who had, anyway, realised the error of his ways) and, instead made him his assistant in charge of blizzards and snowstorms and all over the world the harsh ice age that the miser had inflicted upon the earth began to melt away and, in its place, snow drops and daffodils and bluebells began to bloom.

 

The Wizard’s Brother, Old Santa Clause, was very happy too because the joy of Christmas had been saved for all the children of the world.

 

“Ho! Ho! Ho!”, he said as he flew away in his sleigh, waving goodbye to the wizard and his wife, “Merry Christmas to you both and to all”.