When I was about four years old, I was walking through the forest and came out into an open field. In the field was a single tree. I walked to the tree for a brief bit of shade in my crossing, and discovered that there was a man standing there with his thumb caught in a knot in the tree.

I recognized the man as an evil sorcerer - you might call him a demon. He was immensely powerful, but my mother had told me to never trust him. I then recognized the tree as enchanted, as no ordinary tree would hold such a being.

He said, "If you free me from this tree, I will grant you any wish."

I thought about it for a moment, and, thinking that I was a particularly clever four year old, I replied, "I will free you if you promise in magic that you will die in an hour if you break your promise". The idea here was that he would curse himself to death if the time elapsed without keeping his word. This is powerful magic indeed, and since he needed to cast it, it would be effective against even such a being.

He agreed, which made me very uneasy. I still could not see how I had made a mistake. Fortunately, he did not need his thumb to cast his promise. He cast it.

I took out my saw, which is something like a wire with handles, and carved a wedge from the tree, taking the knot and his finger with it.

"Look", he demanded, "my thumb is still caught. You haven't freed me at all! How can I cast magic with this thing stuck on my thumb?"

I said, "Now that it is separated from the tree, it will lose its magic presently. Besides, you asked to be freed from the tree, and I freed you from the tree."

Now about this time, the curse was starting to take effect, and he could feel it. He said, "Very well, what is your wish?"

"I wish to know everything."

He pulled the knot from his thumb and cast some very complicated spell. And then I knew my mistake. As a four year old, I could not possibly have enough power to protect myself from his ire. He then banished me to an extremely evil dimension, where almost no magic works, and immortality is nearly impossible, and at best requires constant maintenance. And, I knew that I would not be able to leave until I had forgotten everything.

It's been over a thousand years, and I haven't forgotten much of anything. I've been building a device that can store the knowledge so I can get it back. And, it will bring me home when it detects that I can go. It's pretty tricky, since it has to work without magic...