Wiloughby Stotch once was the prize gem of his parents. "I was the youngest of eight, smart as a whip, charming as a nightengales song." as he tells it. As such, he was afforded other opportunity in life than that of a farmer. He was taught to read and write, the first in his family, and became a clerk for the city of Bree at the age of sixteen. That did not last long, adventure sweeping him up and out of the Breelands and away from his family for decades.

Wiloughby travelled far, from Gondor to Rohan to Dale to Forochel but his first and favorite place was Rivendell. It was here he learned the secrets he enjoyed, and even, some say, sorcery. He was regarded among his compaions as quite the ladies man once, though almost invariably a source of constant trouble from the bevy of animals he kept close at hand. His first wife was a companion in adventure, a dale woman named "Breesia the Bold" who died rather from a surfeit of boldness, falling off a mountainside she was dared to climb.

Wiloughby mourned and kept going, his disposition changing to one of irreverence to mask his hurt for a long time. Nonetheless, his studies and actions propelled him to a degree of fame and noteriety in most places BUT Bree. In some places he was known as "Wiloughby the Wise", while others came to call him "Wiloughby the Wiseass". Years later, after good deeds  done, fortunes earned and spent and every member of his adventering friends dead or retired, he decided to be smart and retire himself, returning home at the age of five and fourty. 

His two brothers, he discovered, were killed in his years away: one by a thief in the night, the other by a horsekick to the head. Of his five sisters, three survived, marrying a Brackenbrook, a Fundlemoore and a Hargrave. He settled in, took care of his parents who passed in the following five years, leaving him more or less alone on his family farm (rather less, considering the pet bear, the too-smart-bird and the blind wolverine).

He remarried to a girl almost twenty years his junior, a sweet woman named Sandy Applecotton from the apple and cotton farm two villages over. Unfortunately, she too died in a horrible carrage accident. He tried his luck one more time with a round, plump woman who hectored him mercilessly with a spoon named Jenny Buckletrough. Despite that, he loved her. However, when she died in her sleep, he resigned himself to not marrying again.

He grew very fond of pipe-weed and as such, converted most of his farmstead away from potatoes and turnips and into the smokable stuff. As he got older, he got slower, unable to keep up the work by himself, he started hiring hands. Of course, such hands would have to pass through his pets inspections and approvals! Most did, but Wiloughby kept anyone from being hurt badly.

As more and more time past, the kids took to spying on old man Stotch, thinking him a crazy kook. Wiloughby scared them off in dramatic fashion, and the children gave him a new sobriquette, that of "Wiloughby the Witch". His interests did well though, his pipe weed selling well, which earned him the nickname from said children's parents of "Wiloughby the Weed-monger".

Today, Wiloughby Stotch leads a quiet life at home. He does not enjoy being bothered at home and the grand daughter of his original bear keeps people well away, as every local knows. However, there the quiet ends, because Wiloughby will talk your ear off when not home and jump around topic so much as to show up a cricket, if you let him. He is slowly going senile, losing more attention and memory as the days pass, but Wiloughby does not seem to notice. He likes kids (some of the only trespassers he will tolerate), and has been pushing local farm families to let him teach their children to read and write. Mostly, he recieves "no" as an answer, which is due in small part to some of the locals truly believing he is a sorcerer and worker of ill-magics, and others because it is clear he is going senile.

Of all regrets, he regrets not having kids of his own. Of all joys, he enjoys his "studies" the most (pipe-weed running a close second). He intends to live out the rest of his days, telling stories, smoking, and offering good and sage council to folk that need it and deserve it. He has little desire to practice the fruits of his studies again, and no desire to adventure.