A Sudden Wild Magic

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The magical activities of Britain have always been highly organized.

Anyone who doubts this should consider the Spanish Armada and the winds that so conveniently dissipated it — and perhaps further consider why even the most skeptical of historians accepts this convenient hurricane so calmly, as a perfectly natural occurrence. Or the doubter might also consider why Hitler, or Napoleon before him, never got around to invading Britain, and why we accept these facts, too, so easily.

A moment’s unclouded thought should persuade anyone that these things are too good to be true. But of course, no one’s thought is unclouded, for the very good reason that the organization has, for centuries, devoted itself to clouding it and making sure that most people perceive its activities as messy, futile, and mainly concerned with old ladies astride broomsticks. In fact, the organization is so ruthlessly secret that even the majority of those engaged in the various forms of witchcraft are unaware that their activities are being directed by a ruling council — which we shall call the Ring — carefully and secretly selected from the ranks of practitioners all over the country.

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