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| Said to be the image of Merlin: pic by Peter Herring |
Research opens all sorts of doors into the past, and my research for The Search for the Stone of Excalibur uncovered some fascinating characters. One wonders if Merlin,
the famous magician in the Arthurian legends, was a real person. Apparently, Merlin,
like Arthur, has his roots in history.
He was born circa AD 400, the
illegitimate son of a monastic royal princess of Dyfed. The lady’s father, however,
King Meurig ap Maredydd ap Rhain, is not found in the traditional pedigrees of
this kingdom and was probably a sub-king of the region bordering on Ceredigion.
Merlin’s traditional biography casts him as a
cambion: born of a mortal woman,
sired by an incubus, the non-human wellspring from which he inherits his
supernatural powers and abilities. The name of Merlin’s mother is not usually
stated, but is given as Adhan in the oldest version of the Prose Brut (a mediaeval legendary and historical chronicle of
England named after its first hero, Brutus, a descendent of Aeneas and the epic
founder of Britain). The original story may
have been invented to save his mother from the scandal which would have
occurred had her liaison with one Morfyn Frych (the Freckled), a minor prince
of the House of Coel, been made
public knowledge.
Legend then tells us
that after the Roman withdrawal from
Britain and the usurpation of the throne from the rightful heirs, Vortigern was in flight from the Saxon attacks and went to
Snowdonia, in Wales, in hopes of constructing a mountain fortress at Dinas
Emrys where he might be safe. Unfortunately, the building kept collapsing
and Vortigern's house wizards told him that a human sacrifice of a fatherless
child would solve the problem. One small difficulty was that such children are
rather hard to find. Fortunately for Vortigern's fortress, Merlin was known to
have no human father and happened to be available.
Before the sacrifice could take
place, Merlin used his great visionary powers and attributed the structural
problem to a subterranean pool in which lived a red and a white dragon. The
meaning of this, according to Merlin, was that the red dragon represented the
Britons, and the white dragon, the Saxons. The dragons fought, with the white dragon having the best of it, at first, but then the
red dragon drove the white one back. The meaning was clear. Merlin prophesied
that Vortigern would be slain and followed on the throne by Ambrosius Aurelianus, then Uther, then
a greater leader, Arthur. It would fall to him to push the Saxons back.
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| The dragons fighting: image courtesy of Wikipedia. |
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| Stonehenge: image courtesy of Wikipedia |
After Arthur’s birth, Merlin became
the young boy’s tutor, while he grew up with his foster-father, Sir Ector (alias
Cynyr Ceinfarfog (the Fair Bearded)). In the defining moment of Arthur’s
career, Merlin arranged for the sword-in-the-stone
contest by which Arthur became king. Later, the magician met the mystic Lady of the Lake at the
Fountain of Barenton (in Brittany, France) and persuaded her to present the
king with the magical sword Excalibur.
In the 12th Century romances,
Merlin is the creator of the Round Table, and is closely involved in aiding and
directing the events of the king and kingdom of Camelot. He is pictured by
Geoffrey of Monmouth at the end of Arthur’s life accompanying the wounded
Arthur to the Isle of Avalon for the healing of his wounds. Others tell how
having fallen deeply in love with the Lady of the Lake, Merlin agreed to teach
her all his mystical powers. She became so powerful that her magical skills
outshone even Merlin’s abilities. Determined not to be enslaved by him, she
imprisoned the old man in a glass tower, a cave, or similarly suitable prison.
Thus his absence from the Battle of Camlann was ultimately responsible for
Arthur’s demise.
If you’re looking for
more adventures, then please visit The Quest Books, where Middle Grade authors Cheryl Carpinello,
Wendy Leighton-Porter and I have teamed up to offer readers an array of
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