First Witch's Tale

If this document is genuine, it represents the first major insight we have into the period of early magical schooling. It shows us a fascinating glimpse of early Whitehall and how the commune’s practices slowly morphed into the system of education we still use today. It also introduces us to someone who should be entered into the historical record, and honoured for her contributions to the school.

It is unclear, of course, if it is genuine. It is quite possible that the scroll was written considerably later, then concealed within the school for reasons unknown. There were certainly times within the history of the school where the tunnels might have been opened and then resealed, although we have little hard information. If that is the case, the document would have passed many magical checks and verifications spells without raising suspicions.

That said, the document is not written in High Speech or the cruder forms of Low Speech. The scroll is written in one of, if not the, oldest known languages, a formal script that eventually evolved into Imperial Script and eventually both High and Low Speech. It is astonishingly difficult for anyone in this day and age to write so fluently in the script and indeed, a great deal of information has been lost - up to and including what the contemporaries actually called the script. Many a fake document has been discovered by the forger carelessly referring to the script as Old Script, the term developed by the History Guild several centuries later; it goes without saying, I think, that Old Script was not the original name. The writer clearly learnt to read and write late in life, as there are random errors within the text that would be extremely difficult to fake. Old Script was more tolerant of errors than the later High Speech, and none of the contemporaries would have any difficulty reading the scroll; indeed, the lack of any more recent flourishes is solid proof the scroll is what it claims to be.

It is worth noting, also, that my female colleagues insist there is something decidedly feminine about the writing. This is something that would be unapparent in any document written in High Speech, where the writing is designed to be largely sexless and rhetorical flourishes are strongly discouraged. This is often blamed for the lack of riveting documents and texts produced between the First Emperor and the Empire’s fall, centuries later. It is unlikely that anyone who wrote during that period would be able to escape the conventions of the time.

Set against this, however, there are the references to magics that literally do not exist. The Lay of Lord Alfred makes many references to impossible feats, from strange creatures at his beck and call to the ancient magician plucking the moon out of the sky, and it is far from alone in attributing wondrous powers to individuals who may never have existed at all, but this document is different. The thing might be one of the Awful Folk, as Janis speculated, or it might have been made up of whole cloth. There is certainly nothing like it active today.

It is quite possible, of course, that certain spells and magical rites were lost over the years, particularly after the disaster that destroyed a number of noted magical bloodlines, but is very rare for magical knowledge be lost completely. That said, magic was far less understood in those days and the combination of that lack of understanding and entities dwelling within nearby high-magic zones might easily have created tales of magic and powers beyond human comprehension.

This is not unknown in other fields. Castle Corte appeared to showcase a whole new method of construction, but attempts to duplicate it proved futile. It was not until several failed attempts that the builders realised the original design had only worked because the castle rested on very solid ground indeed. The early magicians could have had the same problem.

My personal belief is that the scroll is genuine. There are too many details that ring true from the point of view of the founders, but not today. The tendency to view the past through a modern-day lens makes it difficult to understand the limitations facing the founders, their apprentices and students, and everyone else caught up in great events.

But I could be wrong.

Historian Titus, History Guild