Chapter 1 - Badger Finds An Intruder

It was a chilly evening in early autumn with few fallen leaves yet on the ground; up above anonymous birds exchanged raucous insults before turning in. A large and solitary badger, deaf to their name calling, tramped along a familiar path through the dense wood back to his sett. Deep in the darkest part of the wood he went underground, closed the heavy door and put his walking stick back in the stand by the door. The Badger – for it was that remarkable animal – could see little but the flickering light of a fire visible through an open doorway someway down the passage, however he stiffened and silently drew a heavy cudgel from the stand. Stealthily he advanced towards that open door.

"Hello Badger, I can only apologise for the intrusion." The voice was quiet and calm and the speaker sounded weary. "I am quite alone."

"Who the devil may you be, and what the devil are you doing uninvited in my study?"

"Calm down Badger, I am a friend. That is, I was a friend of your father. I am here to see you and I let myself in so that others would not see me."

Calm indeed, but gripping his cudgel tightly, Badger advanced into the room. There was a modest coal fire burning in an impressively large grate. Either side of the wide hearth were two ancient wing-sided armchairs; the further one was empty, the stranger was in the nearer, though only his legs were visible. Badger was taken aback by the other's nonchalance: "Did they never tell you not to sit with your back to the door?"

"Well said the Badger, but in your home I feel safer than I have done for some time. I have been pursued by enemies, but they will not come here, in the Wild Wood."

Intrigued, the badger stepped round behind the chair to examine the intruder face to face. A man - no animal – was seated well back in the chair. Everything about him was brown: brown scruffy clothes draped around him; heavy brown boots stretched out on a footstool; a weather-beaten clean-shaven face and long dark hair with a few grey streaks. He looked like a tramp and was certainly exhausted.

"You are a man; no man could enter here, not like this."

"I am not exactly a man and nothing else, any more than you are an animal and nothing more, Mister Badger." This floored Badger almost literally, and he sat down heavily in the other chair. He gaped at the visitor, but still clutched the cudgel; his underground home was fitted with the best locks money could buy, for he did live in the Wild Wood. "But how did you get in?"

"I was able to 'get in' because I have been welcome here in the past. Did I not say I was a friend of your father, your late father I presume? Did he not speak of me? You were a small cub, I'm sure, the last time I was here."

Badger shook his head. "I do not know you sir, though you claim familiarity with me and mine." In his old age Badger had acquired a weakness for grandiose turns of phrase. "What name do you go by?"

"It is a long list, the names I have been called in the world of men. But animals when they name me at all use my old name; I am Radagast … the wizard … Radagast the Brown ..."

Badger looked blank, but he put down his weapon. "Brown you are, but a wizard? They are few and far between in these parts, why …" He stopped, suddenly remembering something and remained silent for a long minute trying to remember more. Finally he nodded, pleased with his deduction.

"It wasn't my father, it was my grandfather and his father before him who were your friends! You have been gone a long while indeed, if you are truly whom you claim." But that last challenge was wasted; Radagast was asleep.

Badger lit an oil lamp and scanned the books on the shelves in the room and then in the adjoining library. He looked high and low; drawers were opened and closed; dusty store cupboards were ransacked; remote stores raided; even the kitchen and its pantries searched. Finally he returned to his study in triumph with a document wallet of the sort that lawyers use, bound with red tape and bearing the title "Wizards & Wizardry". Inside there was a jumble of children's exercise books, printed books, ragged scraps of paper, and a large notebook written in several different hands. An hour later he had only skimmed through these items, but he knew a great deal more about wizards in general and Radagast in particular. A wizard called Radagast had indeed been a friend of his grandfather and had been an honoured guest more than once. Wizards looked old but did not age: it was indeed possible that the stranger was he. Badgers are cautious creatures though, and Badger's long life in the Wild Wood had made him doubly wary.

It was a measure of how much the intruder had unsettled Badger that only now did he consider his own security. Having checked that his visitor was still asleep he picked up the cudgel – just in case – in one hand and the lamp in the other and went round to every room, checking each door, shutter and window. His accommodation was extensive and rambling, and Badger was meticulous, so it was late in the night before he sat down in the kitchen for a hurried supper. Finally he returned to the study, collapsed into the other chair and joined Radagast in sleep.