THE MISADVENTURES OF WIZARD PRANG

OR: “A FUTILIST’S JOURNAL”

by JAY HOLLOWAY
Being fragments culled from the daily jottings of a medieval
Wizard, together with the true events behind the entries,
revealed in a recently discovered contemporary manuscript.

An e-book in PDF format

© Jay Holloway Copyright 2007

The right of Jay Holloway to be identified as the author of this
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 PROLOGUE
et us, Dear Reader, travel back to a Past Time of Romance and Legend.

L To Merrie Olde Englande and a time of Courtly Love, Knightly

Valour and Daily Disappointment.
The time is roughly the mid twelfth century; around eleven fifty-five -
(almost lunch-time, or maybe time for a late working brunch in a nice trendy brasserie).
’tis an age perceived vaguely through the swirling mists of murky time as The Dark
Ages, and with good reason, whether because of the dark and secret nefarious deeds
common thereabouts, or more likely the totally ineffectual rush-torch type lighting system
they were lumbered with, the invention of the fluorescent tube being a mere speck on the
distant horizon of the map of human invention.
n quite possibly the most mediæval part of England is buried the sombre castle of the
I self-styled King Egbert The Bold, the last remaining independent Saxon Monarch in
England, due to a very nifty loophole in the law which will come to our attention later
in the tale, and a man who could teach Hereward the Wake a thing or two about survival in
twelfth century Norman England.
King Egbert, known behind his back as King Egbert the Basically-Bloody-
Terrifying, due to his hair-trigger temper and huge bristling Saxon handle-bar moustache;
his unsettling habit of shouting into peoples faces from uncomfortably-close range at
incredible volume; and his ingenious schemes for extracting monies from serfs and lords
alike with scant regard for status, wealth or means. For no-one, it seems, is safe from his
grasping claws or his unerringly accurate on-board cash-location radar system. 1

The tales are legion of the innocent land-owner quietly going about the daily round,
patiently dealing with the misery that is Mediæval life in the mistaken belief that this happy
state of affairs will go on for ever, who suddenly discovers he owes twenty-five years back
knight-service without the option. A nasty shock indeed for one who wouldn’t know a
vambrace if it leapt up at him and assaulted him violently about the face with a limp
sturgeon.
he castle with which we are unfortunate enough to be concerned is poised on a low
T rocky crag, or mayhap a low craggy rock, hanging on by its fingernails above a small
valley containing sprawling untidy scrubby farmland of mind-numbing poverty,
beyond which is a poor and shabby excuse for a town sitting astride a narrow and now
long-lost tributary of the Thames, a league or two down river of the City of London, on
the Kentish side.

1
But be it known that the one thing he fears above all are the legal sharks with their writs and injunctions and arcane
incantations of sub judice and habeas corpus and the terrible power of the small print nestling at the foot of a binding
clause.

he whole of the King’s small realm is surrounded by a moth-eaten primæval forest,
T and is effectively sealed off from the rest of so-called civilisation, such as it is in
mediæval England, and yet bizarrely a constant thin stream of divers wandering
troubadours, mediæval merchants, palliards, hucksters and hawkers, jongleurs, vagabonds,
migrant workers, minstrels, mummers, malefactors, inventors, entrepreneurs, con-men,
travellers and time-travellers of all shapes and sizes, trickle through King Egbert’s small
1

domain, and somehow inevitably find their way to his door.

The King’s small empire is so cut off from the general run of life, that critics have
commented that it has been stuck in eleven-oh-one for the last half-century, causing even
the reactionary Guylde of Gothycke Artysannes to denounce it as old-fashioned, or as they
would have it, fasshyonned in a mannere moste archaic, and compelling them to look around
for more up-to-date premises, with all modde-connes, for their meetings.
There is, of course, cunning method in the King’s apparent madness, for if the living
standards lag behind at pre-Big Billy Conqueror levels, then so do the wages, allowing the
King to stash away an obscene amount of cash while paying his serfs and villeins the
equivalent of a handful of poor grade road aggregate for each lunar month they toil.

A gainst this backdrop of dark-age consciousness and mediæval catering are played the
tales of the misadventures of Wizard Prang, graduate of the Thaddeus Q
Susquehannah Postal University by a scant one percent above the minimum pass
2

mark, and unwilling patsy in the King’s various schemes to increase his personal wealth and
general standing in the greater world beyond his boundaries - for, secretly, ‘tis the King’s
fondest wish to become a Mediæval Mogul, a force to be reckoned with, and an important
player in the game of life upon the greater span of the World’s stage, if only he could secure
an influential honorary appointment at the Plantagenet Court alongside the new King
Henry II, a monarch, ‘tis rumoured, with a temper to match his own.
Wizard Prang, that walking testimonial to the woeful level of competence required
to achieve a Susquehannah Diploma, and living embodiment of the difficult technique of
snatching defeat from the very jaws of success.
Yes dear Trembling Reader, this is a tale of dark deeds, underhand dealings, dodgy
traffickings, and horrible tuneless wassailing to the accompaniment of hideous wailing
crumhorns. Of coercion, confidence tricks, lack-of-confidence tricks, self-confidence
tricks, ring-of-confidence-tricks, magicke, fire and brimstone, and the turning of a quick
profit at a dodgy second-hand cart auction.

O ur window into this murky medieval world is through the medium of Prang’s
Journal, a scruffy assemblage of parchment sheets loosely bound in a ratty piece of
second-hand vellum, that has survived the ravages of the centuries against all odds.
Prang’s daily entries however are somewhat economical with the truth to put it mildly,
tending to gloss over his faux pas in his dealings with the King and even omitting some of
the worst episodes altogether. Fortunately for the sake of history we are able to assemble
the true events behind these woefully sketchy diary entries, from various recently-
1
Anachronistic characters are not unknown here for King Egbert’s realm has scant regard for the conventions of
historical fact or the protocols of linear time.
2
Academy Susquehannah; Specialities are pastoral study courses in Wizarding, Tap-dance, Mime, Gallows
Construction & Quantity Surveying: "if you’ve got the price of the postage, we’ve got your diploma"
discovered contemporary writings which, unfortunately from Prang’s viewpoint, put the
record straight.

CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
PART I: THERE’S SNOW BUSINESS …
PART II: GONE FISHIN’
PART III: THE WATER DIVINER
PART IV: THE MAGIC CARPET
PART V: THE FIREWORK SHOW
PART VI: IN WHICH PRANG IS ZAPLESS
PART VII: AL FRESCO
PART VIII: ‘TIS ROUGH MAGIC
PART IX: WRIT LARGE
PART X: AN OVERDOSE OF MAGIC
PART XI: WIZARD PRANG: DUELLIST
PART XII: CHANGING ROOMS
PART XIII: A CANTERBURY TALE
PART XIV: ROBIN HOOD
PART XV: TULL
PART XVI: GO FLY A KITE
PART XVII: LANDSKNECHTS!
PART XVIII: THE GREAT ESCAPE
PART XIX: ASSASSIN!

Read an extract overleaf and find out how to buy a copy of the book.
 EXTRACT FROM AN EPISODE OF THE PRANG CODEX
eanwhile the King had arisen and replenished his on-board almond tartage stocks, and was taking
M a short post prandial constitutional along the battlements, as was his wont of a fine morning when
there was no pressing stringing-up and gonad-spiking awaiting his urgent attention.
He strolled along the aged stones and sucked in a huge lung-invigorating breath, and was about to
breathe out deeply, when his attention was caught by something on the edge of his vision, which choked
off the exhalation at its birth.
“Harbinger!!”
The Chamberlain was crossing the inner keep below, and leapt nervously into the air at the
shouted usage of his name from above.
He looked up warily and espied his Liege’s moustache jutting out over the merlons above.
“Drag your sad arse up here Harbinger, I would have words with you!”
Harbinger slipped into scuttling mode and disappeared from view at a rapid pace as he headed for
the staircase to the battlements above.
inutes passed before the overworked Chamberlain finally emerged, sweating and pasty-faced,
M onto the walkway behind the King, and approached his Lord with trepidation, wondering what
awful misdemeanour he’d unwittingly committed this time, or what vital task he’d omitted to
perform.
“Ah Harbinger. About bally time too! You really have got to do something about speeding up
your bally response time Harbinger, otherwise things might just get a little sticky for you around here!”
“Y-yes Sire. I’ll see what I can do Sire, although I generally go as fast as I can Sire.”
“Well we’ll have to put you in training then. Can’t have you getting slow and flabby can we.”
“N-no Sire.” replied the lath-thin bony Chamberlain.
The King strolled over to the battlements overlooking the castle meadow.
“Now Harbinger. To the matter in hand.”
“Y-yes Sire?”
“Explain to me if you would, just exactly what those bally things are, and what the cack they’re
doing on me bally castle property!”
Harbinger approached the parapet nervously, and reeled with horror as his appalled vision took in
the unwelcome sight of a number of huge craggy rocks and boulders scattered untidily about the
previously pristine sward of the castle meadow.
Feeling the King’s gimlet eye on the back of his neck, he was about to frame a suitable explanation
which would exonerate himself from any possible involvement in whatever was going on down below,
when a stranger hove into view on said turf, tottering under the weight of a huge boulder that had
clearly not been tailored to fit him, while the huge unwieldy bulging sack that swung from his shoulder
exerted a random force that threatened to pull him over in the opposite direction, with the boulder on
top of him.
“Who the blazes is that cretin Harbinger?!”
“I-I’ve no idea Sire. S-sorry.”
“Well you’re supposed to know, dammit!! You’re supposed to keep abreast of what’s going on in
me bally castle and keep me informed, so we can keep out undesirables and charge the arse off the ones
we let in. How the hell am I going to keep up with the rate of inflation of almond tartage otherwise, tell
me that eh what, what?!!”
The Chamberlain, as usual, had no useful input to contribute to the discussion, so the King kicked
the stone wall in frustration and dismissed him with a wave.
“Get down there and find out what the bozo’s up to, then we can work out a suitable scale of
punitive fees.”
 Harbinger scuttled down the long stone staircase to interview the new arrival. However on his
wheezing return to the battlements above, it seemed they were no further forward in their quest for
knowledge of the stranger’s business.
“So what is he up to Harbinger? What does the swine want and why is he infesting me turf?”
“Er … it seems he makes hinges Sire.”
“What?!!”
“Er … hinges … Sire.” repeated Harbinger uncertainly, making a flapping swinging door motion
with his hands.
“Hinges?! What, for bally doors and gates and things?”
“I suppose so Sire.”
“Then what the cack is he doing sodding up the velvet sward of me bally meadow with foreign
boulders, if I might enquire?”
Harbinger shrugged and spread his hands in defeat.
“I suppose I’m going to have to poodle all the way down there myself and sort this out. Remind
me to dock your wages for that Harbinger.”
The King crossed to the staircase leading down from the battlements, and paused at the doorway.
“Oh, and if this incident should turn out to be in the slightest degree connected to you, you can
pencil in a sun-bed appointment for yourself with the Headsman and his brazier.”
With this ominous promise the King disappeared down the staircase, a further injunction floating
back up to the Chamberlain as his voice receded downwards.
“You’d better come too Harbinger. You never know, I might have to exact emergency
retribution on the spot.”
With great reluctance Harbinger dragged his weary bones over to the stairs once more.
eanwhile on the meadow to the rear of the castle, the new arrival to said castle environs had
M deposited the enormous boulder with risk of imminent hernia, and was fighting the large bulky
sack in an attempt to wrestle it to the ground. Finally overcoming it, he began to take out an
assortment of hammers and chisels as the King arrived on the scene.
“Ho there Sirrah interloper!! Now see here, all me doors and gates are in perfect working order,
but there may be a little carpentry about the place you could turn your hand to. How about that?”
“Carpentry? But I’m total crap at carpentry Sire. I can’t tell a chisel from a trepanning saw.”
“What? So how the flamin’ hell do you install the bally things then, tell me that.”
“I just dig a pit and shove them in Sire.”
“What??!! You bury the flamin’ things? And then what?”
“Well … nothing Sire. I just ask for the money and leave.”
“And people actually pay you for this service do they?” queried the King, feeling his grip on reality
slipping away.
“Well not so far Sire.”
“I’m not bally surprised Sirrah! So in a nutshell, if I wanted to order some, you’d turn up, carve up
the surface of me bally land, bury the sodding things for no apparent reason, and then try and charge me
for the privilege?”
“Er, yes Sire. But it’s all in the æsthetics you see Sire. The way the things are cut, and the way they
sit in the land Sire. That’s what you’re really paying for Sire.”
“Oh is it really? Well stap me!! And in the meantime, while we’re all standing around admiring
the lovely æsthetic way the poxy things are rammed into the naffing ground, the gate of me bally castle’s
falling off!!”
“Is it Sire? You want to get in a carpenter Sire. Get some hinges made.”
“WHATT!!! And have him bury the cacking things in the castle meadow I suppose?”
The Stranger is now as confused as the King.
“Er … why would he do that Sire?”
“I DON’T BALLY KNOW!!! It was your sodding idea!!”
“But …”
 The Stranger ground to a confused halt, and he and the King stood staring at each other in
extreme bafflement.
The King began again, trying a different tack this time.
“Right. So tell me why you’ve strewn sodding boulders all over me previously pristine meadow
then Sirrah. And make it a bally good reason!”
The Stranger answered slowly, picking his words with care.
“I’ve just been telling you Sire. How I make a pit to put them in … Sire.”
“Don’t start that again!! We’re just going round in flamin’ circles here Sirrah, and I’m getting
somewhat hacked off, which could result in a certain amount of pain for you. Now … tell me about those
boulders, and forget the bally hinges.”
The Stranger knows he’s onto a loser, but the die is cast.
“But … they … are … Sire.”
“What are what Sirrah?!” yelled the King, now certain he’s sliding down the slippery slope to
madness.
“The boulders are the henges Sire.”
“HENGES??!*!*!”
The Stranger patted the flank of the nearest boulder.
“This is a henge Sire. Or it will be when I’ve aligned it and set it in the ground.”
The King whirled on his Chamberlain, who had been trying vainly to manoeuvre so that one of
the largest boulders came between himself and the King.
“Harbinger you witless bozo!! I’ve been driven to the brink of madness by this imbecile due to
your inability to deliver a simple message correctly! I won’t forget this in a hurry!”
The King paused to let this ominous warning sink in, then turned to deal with the new arrival.
“Now then Sirrah. Let’s forget all about carpentry and pesky hinges shall we? Now what the
blazes is a henge?”
The Stranger indicated the strewn boulders with a sweep of his arm.
“These are Sire, collectively.”
The King has gone too far down this road to quit now.
“And … what … are … they … for?”
“Ah … that’s a difficult one Sire …”
“Well I think you’ll find a short sojourn in my pillory being pelted with runny fruit by a bunch of
rancid peasants loosens up the memory wonderfully Sirrah.”
“It’s not exactly a memory problem Sire. It’s more a sort of never knew in the first place type of
situation.”
“So in other words, you travel around the countryside passing yourself off as a bally henge expert,
when really you’re just a clueless bozo who sods up the pesky landscape!”
“Er … it’s a franchise Sire.”
“Oh My God!! So in other words you forked over a huge sum of money for a sure-fire business
scheme which some clever twat assured you would make you an over-night expert in henge building?”
“Er yes Sire.”
The Stranger chewed at a ragged nail while the King digested this latest information, then
appeared to think of something that might help.
“I did a training course Sire.”
“Oh really. And, tell me, what exactly did that involve?”
“Well … the bloke took me to see one he’d recently built for a special client Sire. A really big one
out in Wessex somewhere. A stone one.”
The King clapped a hand to his brow.
“Oh boy!! I’ve seen that one Sirrah, and apart from being completely pointless and a bally waste of
good land, it’s several thousand years old!”
“Oh shit!!”
 “Shit indeed Sirrah! And you’re in it right up to the bally armpits. Now tell me pray, have you
actually built one of these henge thingys?”
“Er … well I started with a Hay Henge Sire … cunningly wrought from plaited grass Sire.”
“Hmm. Well worth several groats of some poor slob’s hard earned cash I should think. So, that
one’s still standing is it Sirrah? Still a monument to futility?”
“N-no Sire. It got eaten by goats Sire, and the customers took me to court.”
“Quite right! Any others?”
“Well then there was Twig Henge. The customers had a lovely plot by the river put aside for it.”
“So what happened Sirrah?”
“There was a flood and the whole thing fell over and floated away, and I got sued.”
“Sheesh!! Carry on Sirrah.”
“Then I tried Thatch Henge.”
“And …”
“It burst into flames and burned to the ground Sire.”
“Bloody Hell!! So you got sued again.”
“Just about to go through the courts Sire, so I desperately need to earn some cash, and I thought
I’d try my hand at building a Stone Henge Sire.”
“Well no one could accuse you of not persisting in the face of all reason Sirrah. However you’ll
find I’m not in the market for a Henge, the bally things look like the last word in pointless futility to me,
and if you don’t get the surface of me sward returned to its original velvety texture, you’ll be coming up
against Minge Craphound Shagbag Minge on my behalf in open court.”
“Y-yes Sire.”
The King turned to his Chamberlain once more.
“And don’t go thinking I’ve forgotten your part in all this Harbinger. In the meantime you can
help this bozo restore the meadow, then I’ll see you in my solar at sundown and we can get down to
discussing … what in Hades is going on over there?!”
The King’s eye had been caught by a thick greeny-purplish cloud that was seeping oozily from the
narrow slot of window that ventilated Prang and Dragon’s abode, and hanging ominously just above
the surface of the moat.
As he stared in horror, flashes of localised lightning flickered around the narrow embrasure.
“Gad! I’d better go and see what that witless fool Prang is up to this time. You two idiots stay
here and get on with your tasks.”
The King broke into a fast regal stride and disappeared into the castle. Harbinger watched him
go, then let out a pent-up breath of relief.
“Thank God he’s out of the way for a while. Now we can get on with repairing the meadow in
peace.”
But when Harbinger turned around the Henge Builder had made good his escape and left the
hapless Chamberlain to repair the damage by himself.

o read the nineteen episodes from Wizard Prang’s Journal, a chronicler clearly not
T in the same class as Samuel Pepys, together with the real version of events behind
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© Jay Holloway 2007