He came unbidden one frosty night
To the village of Barkly Chase,
He didn’t look out of the ordinary
But carried a single case,
The empty cottage of Peggy Sykes
Had been rented once before,
The neighbours watched as the Wizard walked
Right up to the old front door.

‘He’s going in, it’s as sure as sin,’
Said the Widow Marx from her blinds,
‘I’ll tell old Mrs. McCafferty
He’ll be playing around with our minds.’
She’d heard a wizard was headed their way
From Jenny, the Witch of the Moor,
And had bought up seventeen toilet rolls
From Rafferty’s village store.

‘What would you want with seventeen rolls,’
Said Ethel McGurk with the gout,
‘I don’t, it’s part of my strategy,
I’m going to drive him out.
There isn’t a store in a couple of miles
And they’re not delivered ‘til June,
We’ll see how long he can go without
When he’s bursting his balloon.’

The women cackled with evil glee,
They thought it a perfect plan,
‘We’ll see how his spells will help him out
When he has to use his hand.’
‘He’ll not come near, I can tell you that,’
Said the ******, Hazel Pace,
‘If he so much looks, I will knock him flat,
I’ve got fifteen cans of mace.’

The Wizard stayed for a week, he did,
And never came out the door,
The week turned into a fortnight, and
He looked like staying for more.
‘He must have been constipated,’ said
The Widow Marx to her friend,
‘He probably had a roll in his case,’
Said the woman from Brissom End.

Excitement grew in the village square,
‘His washing’s out on the line,
I’d never have looked but I saw it flap,
It’s a most mysterious sign!’
They held their breath at the news from Beth:
‘There are demons all over his jocks,
And you wouldn’t credit the Wizard’s gall,
There are magic stripes on his socks!’

A month went by, and the women pried
At night when his lights were out,
They’d peer on in though his curtains,
Widow Marx and the one with gout.
‘He’s got himself a computer thing
Those ones that glow through the house,
And he’s keeping a little familiar there,
I heard him call it ‘The Mouse’.

They lifted their skirts in horror, and
The ****** had jumped on a chair,
‘Those magical mice are demon things
And they climb up everywhere.’
‘This Wizard’s going to be hard to crack,
I thought he’d be gone by now,
He has to be brewing a terrible spell,
We have to find out, but how?’

The Wizard went for a walk one night
When he thought to get some air,
And Hazel Pace jumped out of a tree,
Poured honey all through his hair,
The Widow Marx had a besom broom
And beat him over the head,
‘We know you’re plotting the village’s doom,
What about this, instead?’

The Wizard packed up his single case
And left the very next day,
All the women hung on the gate
And shouted ‘Hip hip, hooray!’
‘We beat the Wizard, we saw him off
With his spells and his little case!’
But they wonder why there isn’t a man
Within miles of Barkly Chase.

David Lewis Paget