Cock thy ears to the voice of ancient wisdom.

He who has cast mighty dragons down from the sky and made sweet love to them. He who has thwarted a veritable carnival procession’s worth of dark lords, via a series of catspaws and proxies. He who is called, through the ancient ritual of court enforced community service, to answer your questions when you find that mortal wisdom is insufficient to see you through the tangled maze of confusion in which you find yourselves.

***

Hey Ulesorin,

Nobody ever gets my jokes. I tell them, and they flop every time.

Send magical help please,

Laughless in Leattle

***

My Dearest Laughless,

I must confess that I am all too familiar with this particular dilemma. It is not that I am not a hilarious font of wit as well as wisdom, nor that my delivery is in some way hampered by the newt costume that I am forced to don each time I am in company with my beloved children. No! It is simply a matter of cultural dissonance.

You see, reptilian humour tends to be based less in wordplay, puns and witty observation and rooted more in prat-falls and physical comedy. When I stumble due to the limited range of vision that this newt-suit provides me, or trip over the poorly stuffed tail, it is a source of great amusement among my children. Yet when I wittily observe that the doors to my chamber have been transformed by magic into a glass container for jams and preserves they are bereft of the odd wheezing sound that I take for laughter. It is thoroughly vexatious.

My current assumption is that the intellectual capabilities of my young wards have been stunted by the involvement of their mother’s rather less than stellar heredity. It was not that she lacked intellect, you must understand, it is simply that dragons tend not to be polymaths. Their interests are limited, and their expertise in the areas of pyromania, domination and hoarding cannot be matched even by my own extensive studies, yet… none of these lend themselves particularly well to the fine art of comedy.

So, in answer to your query, perhaps you simply need to find people who are your intellectual equals, who may appreciate humour on the same level as you? Alternately, perhaps you should attempt to lower your jokes to ones that even buffoons might appreciate. Don the foul mask of a clown and launch custard pies. Dress yourself in the garb of an oversized lizard and then deliberately fall down a flight of stairs so that your children appreciate you. Deliberately. I did not trip. I was being funny. Hilarious in fact. So funny that several of my loyal and beloved children immediately began shedding their skin in amusement.

I need to get out of this place. I may not survive much more comedy.

***

Having relationship issues? Need career advice? You name it, our ‘Agony Ant’ can help!* Email your problems to thefantasyhive@gmail.com with the subject ‘Ask the Wizard’, or leave a comment below.

*Disclaimer: All answers are provided for entertainment purposes only. It may not be in your best interests to follow advice provided by a 1794-year-old man who can only interact with his family while wearing a potato-sack newt costume.