artin, the Sorcerer

aron Von Lodge was the head of a small country known as Lilliland near Switzerland. The time was the early 1900s.

When the Christmas and New Year holidays arrived, Lilliland seemed to be at its festive best with the colorful lights and the natural beauty of the trees and mountains. The lights were reflected in the glistening Castle Lake. The Baron had only one reservation and that was the unwelcome visit of Martin, the sorcerer, from the Alpine Mountains. Martin was an elderly man who lived somewhere high in the mountains. He appeared almost every season just a few days before New Years Day and prophesied the end of Lilliland in the coming year. Lilliland will disappear as the result of an earthquake and huge avalanche coming down the Alpine Mountains. The same prediction had been proclaimed by Martin for the past several years.

For some time the Baron asked his chief advisor, Professor Hamblin, to see if something could be done to make certain that Martin did not frighten away tourists. As hard as Professor Hamblin tried to investigate Martin's background, he could find nothing. No one knew where Martin came from, or whether he had any family, or what his purpose was in frightening the people with stories of gloom and doom for Lilliland.

One day the Baron showed a picture of Martin to Lady Angela of Alpine Castle. While Martin appeared to be an old man, his manner of walking up and down the mountains was that of a much younger man. Lady Angela had a copy made of the picture. It was enlarged and she had an artist remove the long full beard that covered so much of his face. When the artist was finished, Lady Angela remarked that without the beard and ragged attire, he looked familiar. Sure enough, she remembered him to be a suitor of hers when she was a teenager visiting a nearby relative for the summer. The suitor was very much in love with Lady Angela but she was very much in love with Baron Von Lodge. The suitor felt jilted and planned his revenge by trying to destroy Lilliland by predicting the end of the country each year until everyone moved away, including the Baron. Once Lady Angela told the Baron of her discovery, he invited Martin to come to the castle to reconcile the unfortunate situation. Martin came and eventually everyone agreed to be friends. Martin later met and married a friend of Lady Angela's from the South of France.