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A wizard is a practitioner of magic, especially in folklore, fantasy fiction, and fantasy role-playing games. In popular use during 16th century England, "wizard' was used to denote a helpful male folk magican, a cunning man as they were usually called. The word does not generally apply to Neopagans, or to stage magicians (or illusionists).

Etymology

During the 15th century, the term "wizard" referred to "philosopher, sage", from Middle English wysard (from wys "wise" and the -ard suffix also in drunkard etc.) The semantic restriction to "sorcerer, magician" occurred in the 16th century. They have historical roots in the Shamans and the Magi.

Derived Uses

Colloquially, anyone who is especially adept at some obscure or difficult endeavor may be referred to as a wizard. For instance, someone who is particularly skilled with computers might be referred to as a "programming wizard". Wizard is also a slang term for an expert pinball player (cf. The Who's song Pinball Wizard). (However, normal usage applies more specialized superlatives to specific fields of endeavor, thus a musician is more likely to be called a "maestro" than a "wizard").

In MUD games, a wizard is a member of the world-building staff.

Related terms

In most cases there is little to differentiate a wizard from similar fictional and folkloric practitioners of magic such as an enchanter, a magician, a sorcerer, a necromancer, or a thaumaturgist, but specific authors and works use the names with narrower meanings. When such distinctions are made, sorcerers are more often practitioners of evocations or black magic, and there may be variations on level and type of power associated with each name.

The ever-shifting chaos of fantasy writing has, of course, muddled the meaning of each term, but they should never be stuck with a single meaning, for they change depending upon where they're found.

Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition, for example, distinguishes between the sorcerer and wizard character classes as follows:

• "Sorcerers create magic the way poets create poems, with inborn talent honed by practice."

• "Wizards depend on intensive study to create their magic... For a wizard, magic is not a talent but a deliberate rewarding art."

Steve Pemberton's The Times & Life of Lucifer Jones describes the distinction thus: "The difference between a wizard and a sorcerer is comparable to that between, say, a lion and a tiger, but wizards are acutely status-conscious, and to them, it's more like the difference between a lion and a dead kitten."

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, "wizard" has essentially the common usage meaning, while a sourcerer is a wizard squared (an eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son) and is a "source of magic" who can create new spells and is immensely more powerful.

Myths and Legends

Wizards found in old fairy tales and myths include:

• Faust - an alchemist, but in some versions of the tale also a magician.
• Merlin - the famous wizard from Arthurian legends and their modern retellings.
• Prospero - the famous wizard in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
• The Telchines - four wizards of ancient Greek myths.
• Thoth - Egyptian god of magic.
• The wizard in fairy tale of The Wizard King.
• Zhang Jiao - the leader of the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
• Väinämöinen - the grand wizard of Kalevala

Wizards in Fiction

Famous wizards in folklore and fiction include:

• Elminster - featured in many of the Forgotten Realms fantasy novels and RPGs.
• Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast, Alatar and Pallando - from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings - are called Wizards, but are really supernatural entities. In the Middle-earth legendarium, "wizard" is a term applied only to the five members of the Order of the Istari; the term "wizard" could never be applied to a human, and a human magic user is simply called a sorcerer.
• Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Lord Voldemort, and all other non-Muggle male characters from J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and its sequels. (The females are witches).
• Merlin, the wizard, associated with King Arthur.
• Rincewind - strictly a "Wizzard" (it says so on his hat) and the wizards of Unseen University - from many of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.
• Thoth-amon in The Phoenix on the Sword, Tsotha-lanti in The Scarlet Citadel and Yara in The Tower of the Elephant are examples of evil wizards from the stories about Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard.
• The eponymous character of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a stage magician pretending to be a genuine wizard; in the 1939 movie version the wizard was also a fake. However, in later Oz stories, he studies magic with Glinda and becomes a genuine wizard. See Wizard (Oz).

"Real-Life" Wizards

In history, there have been several real people who are popularly believed, or who claimed to be, wizards, sorcerers, etc. Examples include:

• Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa a magician, occult writer, and an alchemist.
• Aleister Crowley is a controversial figure, the most famous "modern wizard," who is believed to have coined the alternate spelling, "magick."
• John Dee, whose magical powers were said to come from angels.
• John Diamond, and his granddaughter, Molly Pitcher, were supposed to have the ability to foretell the future and help (or doom) sailors at sea.
• Gerald Fitzgerald, the Earl of Desmond, was said to be a shapeshifter wizard, whose spirit is said to still haunt the living.
• Nicholas Flamel, though he is really more of an alchemist.
• Michael Scot may have been fictional, though those who claim his reality say he could do amazing feats by conversing with spirits.

References

• Wizard in the Jargon File, and its Wiki version
• The Dragonfighters of Kulamain, ISBN 1-4116-4568-5

• Fictional magicians
• Magic