80 Fun Facts About Wizard

The name Merlin is a Latinised form of which legendary Welsh bard's name?

Merlin is the Latinised Merlinus built on Myrddin; the wild prophet Myrddin Wyllt, said to have gone mad after the Battle of Arfderydd, supplied much of the legendary figure.

Which 12th-century cleric introduced the familiar depiction of Merlin?

Geoffrey of Monmouth fused two older figures, a fatherless boy seer and a mad prophet of the woods, and his widely copied Historia Regum Britanniae made the result famous.

In Historia Regum Britanniae, Merlin builds Stonehenge with stones brought from Mount Killaraus in which land?

Merlin has the Giants' Ring carried from Mount Killaraus in Ireland and re-erected on Salisbury Plain as a memorial for Aurelius Ambrosius's slain nobles.

Merlin disguises Uther Pendragon so he can enter Tintagel and father Arthur with which duchess?

Igraine took Uther for her husband Gorlois, whose shape Merlin had given him; the real duke was killed in battle that same night, and Uther went on to marry her.

Around 1200, Robert de Boron expanded the Merlin story in an epic poem in which language?

Robert de Boron's Merlin was written in Old French verse; only a fragment survives, but its prose redaction fixed Merlin's link to the Holy Grail.

Because of his demonic father and human mother, Merlin is sometimes classed as what kind of being?

A cambion: in Robert de Boron's telling, demons bred Merlin to be an Antichrist, but a priest baptised him at birth, breaking their hold while leaving him his powers.

In Arthurian legend, the Siege Perilous that Merlin reserves for the Grail knight is what?

A seat: siege is an old word for one; it proved fatal to any unworthy knight who sat there, and in later romances Galahad claims it.

Tolkien took the name Gandalf from a catalogue of dwarves in which Old Norse poem?

Voluspa's list of dwarves gave Tolkien the name, which in early drafts of The Hobbit belonged to the chief dwarf, while the wizard was called Bladorthin.

Before coming to Middle-earth, Gandalf was a Maia known in Valinor by what name?

Olorin was Gandalf's name in Valinor; he at first begged to be excused from the mission, saying he feared Sauron, and Manwe replied that this was all the more reason to go.

Gandalf's Sindarin name Mithrandir translates to what?

Grey Pilgrim is how Mithrandir translates, the name Elves and Gondor used; King Theoden instead greeted him as Stormcrow, because he tended to arrive when trouble did.

Which Gandalf actor based his performance on recordings of J. R. R. Tolkien himself?

Ian McKellen studied recordings of Tolkien and borrowed his speech patterns; the part had first been offered to Sean Connery, who turned it down saying he did not understand the script.

Which sword does Gandalf take from the trolls' hoard in The Hobbit?

Glamdring, the Foe-hammer, once belonged to the king of Gondolin; the goblins of the Misty Mountains knew it on sight, called it Beater and fled before it.

Narya, the Elven ring Gandalf secretly wears, is the Ring of what?

Fire: Cirdan the Shipwright handed Narya to Gandalf at the Grey Havens, telling him it would help him rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.

The name Saruman means what in the Mercian dialect of Anglo-Saxon?

Man of skill or cunning: the Old English root searu also meant a device or contrivance, a fitting name for the wizard who turns Isengard over to forges and engines.

Under what alias does Saruman secretly rule the Shire before the hobbits return?

Sharkey, probably from an Orkish word for 'old man', was the name Saruman's ruffians gave him; his rule ended when the returning hobbits roused the Shire and won the Battle of Bywater.

Who finally kills Saruman on Frodo's doorstep in The Return of the King?

Wormtongue, Saruman's long-abused servant Grima, cut his master's throat at Bag End moments after Frodo had spared him; hobbit archers shot Grima down at once.

Which actor played Saruman in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies?

Christopher Lee was the only cast member who had met Tolkien, and he reread the books every year; he had long dreamed of playing Gandalf but was cast as Saruman instead.

Radagast the Brown lives at Rhosgobel on the western edge of which forest?

Mirkwood: Radagast lived on its edge among birds and beasts; Saruman scorned him as a simpleton, yet it was an eagle sent by Radagast that rescued Gandalf from Orthanc.

Dumbledore's surname is borrowed from an old English dialect word for which creature?

Dumbledore is an old English dialect word for bumblebee; Rowling said she pictured the headmaster humming to himself as he walked.

Who took over as Dumbledore after Richard Harris died in 2002?

Michael Gambon took over from Prisoner of Azkaban onward and never read the books, joking that he just stuck on a beard and played himself.

Voldemort's original wand, bought from Ollivander as a boy, is made from which wood?

Yew can live for thousands of years and has poisonous sap, so Rowling chose it to stand for death and resurrection; the wand's feather core came from the same bird as Harry's.

Through his mother's family, Voldemort is the last descendant of which Hogwarts founder?

Salazar Slytherin: the Gaunts, Voldemort's mother's family, were his last descendants and had sunk into poverty by the time Merope met the Muggle Tom Riddle.

Both Harry's and Voldemort's wands contain a tail feather from which creature?

A phoenix: both cores are tail feathers from Fawkes, the phoenix belonging to the Hogwarts headmaster, which is why the two wands lock in Priori Incantatem.

In L. Frank Baum's books, the Wizard of Oz is a humbug conman originally from which American city?

Omaha: the Wizard tells Dorothy he was born there and worked as a circus balloonist before a runaway balloon carried him to Oz.

In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Wizard appears to the Cowardly Lion in what form?

A ball of fire: the Lion had planned to roar and frighten the Wizard into helping him, but the heat singed his whiskers and sent him creeping back toward the door.

Baum said the name Oz came from what object in his home?

A filing cabinet: Baum's story, first told in 1903, was that his eye fell on a drawer labelled O-Z; his wife insisted that part was untrue, and it is often treated as a myth.

Who played the Wizard in MGM's 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, doubling as Professor Marvel and other roles?

Frank Morgan was cast only after W. C. Fields, an original choice for the Wizard, fell through; Morgan ended up playing five roles, from Professor Marvel to the palace guard.

Who originated the role of the Wizard in Wicked on Broadway in 2003?

Joel Grey, Cabaret's Oscar-winning Emcee, joined only for Broadway: Robert Morse had played the Wizard in the San Francisco tryout before Wicked opened in New York in October 2003.

Which actor plays the Wizard in the 2024 film adaptation of Wicked?

Jeff Goldblum's Wizard is a fraud with no real magic: he cannot read the Grimmerie spell book himself, which is why he needs Elphaba.

In The Tempest, Prospero is the usurped rightful duke of which city?

Milan: Prospero was its rightful duke until his brother Antonio, backed by the King of Naples, set him and the infant Miranda adrift in a rotten boat.

In The Tempest, Prospero freed the spirit Ariel from years of imprisonment inside what?

Pine tree: a witch shut Ariel in a cloven pine for a dozen years, and when the spirit grumbles, Prospero threatens to peg him inside an oak for twelve winters more.

Caliban, Prospero's servant on the island, is the son of which witch?

Sycorax, banished from Algiers while pregnant with Caliban, died before the play begins and never appears on stage; her story reaches us only through other characters.

In Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books, the wizard Ged was born on which island?

Gont: Ged was born in the village of Ten Alders on that mountainous island, a bronzesmith's son whose company with wild hawks earned him the use-name Sparrowhawk.

In A Wizard of Earthsea, what does young Ged let loose when a summoning spell cast out of pride goes wrong?

A shadow: goaded by his rival Jasper, Ged tries to raise the spirit of a dead woman and instead frees a shadow creature that scars his face and then hunts him.

Terry Pratchett's cowardly wizard Rincewind first appeared in which 1983 novel?

The Colour of Magic introduced Rincewind, who failed at Unseen University because one of the Octavo's eight great spells lodged in his mind and scared off every other spell.

Rincewind's Luggage, a gift from the tourist Twoflower, is made from what material?

Sapient pearwood, a magical timber from the Counterweight Continent, gives the Luggage its hundreds of little legs and its habit of following its owner through any dimension.

Which designer created the wizard Elminster and the Forgotten Realms setting?

Ed Greenwood began writing Realms stories as a child in the 1960s, years before Dungeons & Dragons existed, and sold the setting to TSR in 1986; Elminster was among his first characters.

Elminster is known as the Sage of which place?

Shadowdale is home to the old sage, but his creator also wrote him as a guest at the author's own house on Earth, where he swaps spells and news with wizards from other worlds.

Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum in Manhattan stands at which address?

177A Bleecker Street was the real apartment shared by Marvel writers Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich, who wrote it into the comic as Strange's home.

Which relic comes to Doctor Strange's aid of its own accord in the 2016 film's New York Sanctum fight?

The Cloak of Levitation catches Strange as he falls from a staircase, then steers him toward the restraints he uses to bind the zealot Kaecilius.

Before a car accident ruined his hands, Stephen Strange practised which branch of medicine?

Neurosurgery: Strange was a brilliant, arrogant neurosurgeon until the crash left nerve damage in his hands; the search for a cure led him to the Ancient One.

Sabrina the Teenage Witch first appeared in 1962 in a humour comic from which publisher?

Archie Comics ran her in Archie's Madhouse as what writer George Gladir called a one-shot; he and artist Dan DeCarlo were surprised when fans asked for more.

Who plays Sabrina Spellman in Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which premiered in October 2018?

Kiernan Shipka, who grew up on screen as Mad Men's Sally Draper, led a series first planned for The CW before Netflix picked it up and ordered twenty episodes straight away.

In Wizards of Waverly Place, the Russo family's sandwich shop is designed to look like what?

A subway station: the Russos run the Waverly Sub Station, a pun on sub sandwiches, and the door of the shop's freezer opens onto the family's wizard lair.

Wizards of Waverly Place is set on Waverly Place in which New York City neighbourhood?

Greenwich Village: the real Waverly Place was named in 1833 for Walter Scott's novel Waverley, a year after his death, and the misspelling has stuck ever since.

Which studio developed and published the 2008 MMORPG Wizard101?

KingsIsle Entertainment was founded in Texas in 2005 by Elie Akilian, who was inspired by his game-loving teenage son and hired veterans of id Software to build Wizard101.

A new Wizard101 player picks one of seven schools: Fire, Ice, Storm, Myth, Life, Death and which other?

Balance draws on all six of the other schools, which is why its Hydra spell strikes with Fire, Ice and Storm damage in a single cast.

Elizabeth I's court astronomer John Dee has been credited with coining which phrase?

British Empire: Dee used the phrase in his 1577 General and Rare Memorials, setting out a vision of a maritime empire, though the Welsh scholar Humphrey Llwyd may have used it first, in 1568.

The Aztec scrying mirror said to have belonged to John Dee, now in the British Museum, is made of what?

Obsidian: Aztec craftsmen polished the volcanic glass into mirrors, and this one reached Europe after the Spanish conquest; its link to Dee rests on later owners, since his surviving writings never mention it.

Which self-styled medium, then calling himself Talbot, began working with John Dee in 1582?

Edward Kelley, first calling himself Talbot, became Dee's scryer in 1582; the pair spent six years on the Continent before Dee came home to find his Mortlake library ransacked.

What was the real Nicolas Flamel's profession in Paris?

A scribe: Flamel drafted contracts and letters for Parisians who could not write; the tales of alchemy only attached to him in the 17th century, some 200 years after his death in 1418.

Which English playwright turned the 1587 German Faust chapbook into the tragedy Doctor Faustus?

Christopher Marlowe worked from the chapbook's English translation; his Faustus signs away his soul in blood for 24 years of a devil's service and is claimed when they run out.

The word wizard derives from a Middle English word meaning what?

Wise: wizard is Middle English wys ('wise') plus the suffix -ard, and first meant a philosopher or sage; the magical sense came later.

Which name for a practitioner of magic comes from an Old English word meaning oath-breaker or deceiver?

Warlock began as Old English waerloga, an oath-breaker or deceiver, a word once used of the Devil; only in early modern Scots did it come to mean the male counterpart of a witch.

Which enchantress wields a magic wand in Homer's Odyssey?

Circe, on the island of Aeaea, strikes Odysseus's men with her wand to turn them into swine; Hermes gave Odysseus the herb moly to resist her.

The Bronze Age gold cone hats found in Europe are thought to be insignia of priests devoted to what?

The sun: the four golden hats, such as the Berlin Gold Hat, are read as insignia of Bronze Age sun-cult priests; their ornament bands appear to encode a lunisolar calendar.

From 1974 the Wizard of New Zealand preached from a ladder in which city's Cathedral Square?

Christchurch: Prime Minister Mike Moore named him official Wizard of New Zealand in 1990, and the city council paid him an annual fee for acts of wizardry until 2021.

Before becoming the Wizards in 1997, Washington's NBA team played under which name?

Bullets: owner Abe Pollin dropped the name in the mid-1990s, uneasy at its violent overtones in a city then suffering a high murder rate.

Two years before his light bulb, which invention earned Thomas Edison the nickname Wizard of Menlo Park?

The phonograph played back Edison reciting 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'; a machine that talked seemed almost magical to the public, and the nickname followed.

In Disney's The Sword in the Stone, what is the name of Merlin's talking owl?

Archimedes, Merlin's grumpy, highly educated owl, swoops in to save Wart from a hungry pike in the castle moat and later teaches him to fly as a sparrow.

In The Sword in the Stone, Merlin wins his duel with Madam Mim by transforming into what?

A germ: Merlin ends the shape-shifting duel by becoming a germ that gives the cheating Mim a disease, sending her to bed covered in spots.

What is the name of the sorcerer whose apprentice Mickey Mouse plays in Fantasia?

Yen Sid is 'Disney' spelled backwards, a nod to Walt in the name of the sorcerer Mickey serves in the 1940 Fantasia.

Which composer wrote the 1897 symphonic poem The Sorcerer's Apprentice, based on Goethe's ballad?

Paul Dukas was so self-critical that he destroyed many of his own scores, which left this scherzo, written a century after Goethe's ballad, as the piece he is remembered for.

In Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle, Howl secretly comes from which real-world country?

Wales: Howl was born plain Howell Jenkins, and one of the four places his castle door opens onto is his boyhood home in modern-day Wales.

In Dragonlance, the golden-skinned mage Raistlin Majere is the twin of which warrior?

Caramon Majere, the burly warrior, is Raistlin's twin; the mage's cursed hourglass eyes show him the effects of time on everything he sees.

In the original 1974 Dungeons & Dragons, what was the wizard character class called?

Magic-user was the 1974 name for a class that began physically frail and leaned on fighting-men and clerics until its spells made it the party's artillery; later editions called it mage, then wizard.

Which toy giant bought Wizards of the Coast, publisher of Magic: The Gathering, in 1999?

Hasbro paid about $325 million in 1999, months after Wizards of the Coast had added the English-language Pokemon Trading Card Game to Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons.

In Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, which arch-wizard, named for a co-creator spelled backwards, waits on the bottom level?

Werdna is Andrew Greenberg's first name reversed, just as the mad overlord Trebor is Robert Woodhead's; their 1981 game went on to inspire Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.

The Wizard of Id, launched in 1964, was drawn by Brant Parker and co-written with which cartoonist?

Johnny Hart, already known for B.C., co-created The Wizard of Id with artist Brant Parker in 1964; the kingdom's name puns on the Freudian id and on Oz.

What is the name of the cat that accompanies the sorcerer Gargamel in The Smurfs?

Azrael is Gargamel's scrawny, mean-spirited cat; in the comics the sorcerer wants a Smurf for a potion to turn base metal into gold, and Hank Azaria played him in 2011.

Who voiced the Great Dragon Kilgharrah in the BBC series Merlin (2008-2012)?

John Hurt voiced the Great Dragon Kilgharrah, chained beneath Camelot; Colin Morgan's young Merlin hides his gifts in a kingdom where Uther has outlawed magic.

The castle that doubled for Camelot in the BBC series Merlin stands in which country?

France: the Chateau de Pierrefonds, rebuilt by Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century, stands in the Oise north-east of Paris and doubled for Camelot across all five series.

Who directed the 1988 fantasy film Willow, from a story by George Lucas?

Ron Howard directed after George Lucas, who had carried the idea since 1972, approached him in 1985; Lucas wrote the lead for Warwick Davis, his Ewok from Return of the Jedi.

Who wrote The Magicians (2009), in which Quentin Coldwater attends Brakebills College?

Lev Grossman was Time magazine's book critic when he wrote it, reworking Narnia as Fillory, a storybook land his jaded college magicians discover to be real.

The Wizard (1989) gave North America its first look at which Nintendo game?

Super Mario Bros. 3, not released in North America until February 1990, was unveiled in the film's Video Armageddon final; the film also showcased the Power Glove.

In Disney's Aladdin, Jafar's final wish backfires when it turns him into what?

A genie: after wishing himself sultan and then the world's most powerful sorcerer, Jafar is goaded into a third wish, forgetting that a genie is bound to a lamp.

Which author's Dying Earth stories gave Dungeons & Dragons its system of memorised spells?

Jack Vance's wizards can hold only a few memorised spells in mind at once, the idea the game borrowed; it later named its arch-lich Vecna, an anagram of Vance.

In David Eddings's The Belgariad, which sorcerer advises kings alongside Polgara?

Belgarath the Sorcerer, Polgara's father and a disciple of the god Aldur, has guided the kings of the West for thousands of years in The Belgariad.

In The Marvelous Land of Oz, the witch Mombi hides which rightful ruler by transforming her into the boy Tip?

Ozma had been handed to Mombi as a baby by the Wizard himself; only when Glinda forces the old witch to undo the spell does Tip learn he is the lost princess of Oz.

The word 'mage' traces back through Latin to the word for a priest of which ancient religion?

Zoroastrianism: Greek magos named the priestly caste of ancient Persia, and the Greeks so linked those priests with astrology and spells that the same word also gave English 'magic'.