Chapter 22. From the Journal of Fortinbras Took, S.R. 1158

There is a Wizard among us!

I feel torn between shouting the news in the greatest glee, and whispering, caution being the better part of valour, as they say. After all, I’ve heard the dark rumours, of how Wizards can turn themselves into different things, and how they can turn a mischievous young hobbit into a toad... until bed-time.

His staff, as tall as he is, is leaning against the wall of the Thain’s study where he is taking tea with Grandfa.

Such a to-do! Fanny is pink with excitement, and she says she doesn’t half-envy the maids who must carry the tea trays from the kitchen. A proper high tea it is, too, which I suppose the fellow will take sitting in front of the fire in the study, which Grandfa has ordered to be stoked until it roars, as if he means to roast the stranger!

Of course, he’s dripping wet, likely wet to the skin. I got a glimpse when he took off his sodden cloak, which Uncle S. carried down to the laundy, to hang on the drying lines there, before Grandfa closed the study door. He wore a robe under his cloak, long and dark with rain, and he has a long white beard, curling and disordered with the damp

I must say, he doesn’t look at all like a Wizard, how I’ve imagined one to look. One would think he was just any old man, with his immense black boots and long grey cloak. It was the tall blue hat that was the first clue. Most Men that I have seen passing through Tuckboro, tinkers or jugglers or peddlers, wear caps or hoods suited to travelling. I do not see how suitable the Wizard’s hat may be. I suppose it sheds the rain, all very well, but since his eyebrows bristle out past the brim they were drooping and dripping when Grandfa led him in through the Great Door.

He’d found him along the road while taking his afternoon ride, and invited him to tea. Grandfa is always doing such improbable things, inviting Men and Strangers to tea. We’ve had tall, dark, cloaked Men with silvering hair, and a trader who carried silken gauds in his pack, from some land far to the South, he said...

But I am called away! Grandfa has sent for Mum, and Da, and my sisters, and myself, to take tea in the study!

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A/N: Description of the Wizard taken from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien