Merlin the Great

Who was Merlin the Great, really? Here’s the history.

Medieval writers transformed tales of an obscure bard into legends of a mighty
wizard who put King Arthur on the throne of Camelot.

MERLIN PRESENTS ARTHUR

In exchange for using his magic to help lustful King Uther to seduce a nobleman’s
wife, Merlin asks the monarch to give him their son, Arthur, at birth.
He holds him while on top of a horse in this oil painting by Emil Johann Lauffer.
Wise old men with magical powers and sometimes long hoary beards are the archetypal
wizards.
These mystical men possess magical powers that can be used for good—or evil.
And literature is full of them.
Prospero, the central character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, is the exiled duke of
Milan who obtains magical powers when marooned on an island.
The central character of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (and
the 1939 film based upon it) reigns as the Emerald City’s mysterious magical ruler.
The pipe-smoking Gandalf the Grey is a benevolent and powerful advisor in J.R.R.
Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy from the 1950s.
And, of course, there’s the benevolent Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of the
wizarding school Hogwarts in the 1990s Harry Potter series of books, who uses his
powers for the greater good.
But there’s one wizard—Merlin the Great—who is the inspiration for them all.
Since his first appearance in medieval literature, he has evolved over many
centuries, transforming from a Welsh bard to a shape-shifting sorcerer.
He is the heart of the Arthurian legend as one of it's most compelling characters.

MERLIN BEWITCHED
The wizard falls victim to the sorcery of the Lady of the Lake, who, according to
Thomas Malory, gave the sword Excalibur to Arthur.
Dark origins
The very first Merlin was not a wizard.
Sources from the Middle Ages speak of a Welsh bard or poet from the sixth century,
Myrddin Wyllt, who lived in the court of Gwenddoleu, the king of the Welsh-speaking
territories of southern Scotland and northern England.
As the story goes, Gwenddoleu is killed in 573 at the battle of Arfderydd, and the
carnage drives Myrddin mad.
He flees to the forests of Scotland, where he lives for the next fifty years as a
wild hermit, expressing himself through cryptic verses and acquiring the gift of
prophecy.
In the Celtic tradition, bards and poets are linked to forecasting the future.
Myrddin Wyllt appears as a prophet in the 10th-century poem Armes Prydein (The
Prophecy of Britain) that predicts how an alliance between Celts and Vikings from
northern Ireland would drive the Anglo-Saxons out of Britain.

CUSTODIANS OF TRADITION
The sixth-century bard Myrddin Wyllt may have been the original inspiration for
Merlin.
He served a Welsh chieftain.
Emerging magician
Merlin took on a more familiar form in the 12th-century texts of Welsh author
Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Skillfully revising the Welsh tradition, he made Merlin a central figure in his
three books—Prophecies of Merlin, the poem Life of Merlin, and, most famously, The
History of the Kings of Britain.
While the main character of Life of Merlin resembles Myrddin Wyllt of the Welsh
tradition, the “new” Merlin appears in Prophecies (which is included in book VII of
Geoffrey’s History).
This revised version is a powerful sorcerer who enables King Arthur to take the
throne of England.
To create this character, Geoffrey drew inspiration from The History of the
Britons, attributed to the ninth-century Welsh monk Nennius.

OLD WORLD

The British Isles appear in this detail from a 1565 world atlas, created by
Portuguese cartographer Diego Homem.
Nennius’s book tells the story of the evil king Vortigern, a usurper of the throne,
who allowed the Saxons to settle on the island of Britain.
Vortigern wants to build a castle, but every time he tries, the foundations
disappear.
His magicians tell him the only way to secure them is to find a fatherless boy,
sacrifice him, and bathe the foundations in his blood.
So they capture a boy, Ambrosius (Merlin), the son of a nun who claims to be a
virgin.
The young man confronts the magicians and claims that two giant worms, one red and
the other white, reside under the castle’s shaky foundations and are locked in
combat.
According to Ambrosius, their dispute is a harbinger of conflict between Britons
and Saxons.
BIRTH OF A LINEAGE

FIRST PLANTAGENET
Through marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, Henry II of England created a
kingdom on both sides of the English Channel.
The Arthurian legend's creation during the 12th century has its roots in politics
project.
During that period, the kings of the Plantagenet dynasty, who reigned in England
but had roots in Brittany, Normandy, and Anjou, were building a great kingdom that
encompassed much of France as well as England.
The Anglo-French dynasty needed to find a precedent, from both the insular Celts
and the Normans, that could ennoble and intertwine the lineages on both sides of
the English Channel.
This precedent was found in the ancient Christianized Celtic kings.
It was said their return was awaited by the Britons.
A sacred center was even created for King Arthur at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset.
The site was identified with the legendary island of Avalon.
Demon’s son
Geoffrey blended the character of Merlin, about whom little had been written at
that point, with young Ambrosius from Nennius’s story, enriching the narration with
new details.
Merlin’s mother remains a nun, but the child is conceived with an incubus, a male
demons.
Medieval people believed demons were cleverer than humans and could predict the
course of events.
In Geoffrey’s work, Merlin inherits these qualities, which he uses for the good.
Geoffrey of Monmouth combined the characteristics of seership from pagan mythology
with a promotion of Christian values, creating a unique blend of historical and
legendary elements.

TWO DRAGONS
Vortigern watches the hidden dragons fight, revealed by Merlin, whose movements
cause his tower to collapse in this illustration.
Another difference is Geoffrey changes the two fighting worms into two fighting
dragons, one red and one white.
Merlin explains the red dragon represents the Britons and the white dragon
represents the Saxons, who will ultimately achieve victory.
In this prophecy, he essentially predicts the early days of the Arthurian
narrative.
But he doesn’t stop there.
Merlin presents a hundred or so prophecies in all, including Arthur’s dominance and
the course of England’s unforeseeable future.
Geoffrey’s “new” Merlin was a great success, to the extent that an Anglo-Norman
author, Wace, who moved between the two sides of the English Channel, translated
the History into his vernacular.
The result was the Roman de Brut, a nearly 15,000-line poem in Norman-French
completed around 1155.
It contains the first literary appearance of Round Table; many believe it was part
of an oral tradition long before that.
The Roman de Brut is not simply a translation.
Wace changed the material to his liking.
For example, he removed Merlin’s prophecies.
His justification for this was that many passages were incomprehensible, although
he possibly wanted to avoid their political nature.
Birth of a legend

MAGICAL CONCEPTION
Sometime in the later 12th or early 13th centuries, Frenchman Robert de Boron wrote
the story of Merlin in verse, although much of it was lost.
After later versions that survived were studied, Merlin's story was pieced
together.
Demonic forces conspired to make Merlin their agent on Earth.
In this 15th-century work on vellum, an incubus mates with Merlin’s mother, but she
thwarts their plans by having the newborn baptized.
The Christian rite protects Merlin from the forces of evil, but he retains his
supernatural legacy, including the ability to speak as a baby, the gift of
prophesy, and the power to shapeshift.

DEATH OF A TYRANT
The usurper King Vortigern is trying to build a tower but it will not stand.
A 7-year-old Merlin tells the king that underneath it, there are two fighting
dragons, each signifying a side in a coming conflict between Vortigern and the
rightful heirs, the brothers Pendragon and Uther.
Vortigern finishes the tower, only to perish there after the brothers set it on
fire, shown in this 14th-century miniature.

UTHER PENDRAGON'S HEART

After Vortigern’s death, Merlin serves King Pendragon, shown listening to the
wizard in this 14th-century miniature, and his brother Uther as an advisor in a war
against the invading Saxons.
Pendragon dies on the battlefield, and then Uther inherits the throne.
Merlin will use his magic to win the heart of Ygerne, wife of the Duke of Cornwall,
for Uther.
Their pairing conceives Arthur, the future king of the Britons.

THE SWORD IN THE STONE

The identity of the next king of the Britons is uncertain, and the people turn to
Merlin.
The wizard predicts that only a true king appointed by God will be able to pull a
sword out of a magic stone in the churchyard.
Young Arthur, who has been raised by a foster father Anto (also known as Ector in
later tellings), is able to complete the deed and reveal his royal destiny, shown
in this 14th-century illumination.
Merlin at King Arthur’s court
A new narrative development in Merlin’s story appeared in the 12th or 13th century
thanks to writer Robert de Boron.
Inspired by Wace, he composed his Merlin in verse, but only fragments of that work
survive to the present.
The text was later retold in prose around 1210, perhaps by Boron himself, and
thanks to that, the poem’s contents have been preserved.
THE STORY OF A LIFE
In a 13th-century miniature, Merlin relates his tales and deeds to the clergyman
Blaise, his teacher and his mother’s confessor, on the left.
Boron’s work opens with a cleric Blaise, whois determined to write about Merlin,
explaining he is translating a Latin story dictated by Merlin himself.
After this introduction, the scene changes, and the reader learns that at Merlin’s
birth, a council of demons are conspiring to turn the baby into a kind of anti-
christ, their agent on Earth.
Their plans fail because the child is baptized by his mother and becomes a
Christian, even though he is the son of an incubus.
Merlin is a positive character, despite his demonic birth and some aspects that
link him to pre-Christian magic, such as the ability to shapeshift (change his
physical form at will).
Vortigern then re-appears on de Boron’s text, and his death is foretold by Merlin.
The wizard joins the new king Pendragon and his brother Uther in the war against
the Saxon invaders.
Merlin erects Stonehenge in honor of the fallen and creates the Round Table.
It is also Merlin who causes Uther and Ygerne, the Duke of Cornwall’s wife, to
meet.
Their union results in the birth of Arthur, whom Merlin will mentor.
The text ends with Arthur winning wins the British crown by pulling a sword from a
stone.

A 13th-century miniature of Merlin at Stonehenge.

He is believed to have brought the rocks from Ireland.
Merlin would continue to evolve from his depiction in de Boron’s work, which laid
the full foundation for the rest of the works to come about King Arthur and
Camelot.
In the 15th century, Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (Death of Arthur),
written in English about 1470 retells the Arthurian legend in chronological
sequence beginning with Arthur’s birth.
Portrayed as Arthur’s mentor who’s instrumental in every aspect of his life,
Malory’s Merlin is the culmination of all other versions of the powerful wizard.
The metamorphosis of Merlin
The magic of Merlin continued to inspire different portrayals of the character
across many different genres well into the modern age.
Mark Twain portrayed Merlin as a swindler in his novel, A Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur’s Court (1889).
French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau turned Merlin the Magician into a cruel and
manipulate old man in The Knights of the Round Table (1937).
One of the most memorable works appeared in 1960: the Broadway musical Camelot,
based on the British writer T. H. White’s series of novels, The Once and Future
King (1958), in which Merlin is a bumbling but wise teacher who encourages the
young Arthur to think for himself.
BLESSED BLADE FOR ENGLAND'S KING

THE KING'S SWORD

Arthur, in Merlin’s company, receives a new sword after Excalibur breaks in combat
in an illustration from 1921.
Whether drawn from a stone or bestowed by the Lady of the Lake, King Arthur’s
magical sword is one of the most iconic pieces of the Arthurian legend.
Best known by the name Excalibur, the sword has various names and origins depending
on the literary source.
It first appeared in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain as
Caliburn around 1136, in which Arthur slays 470 foes with the blade.
Robert de Boron’s Merlin from the 12th or 13th century is the first to use the
“sword in the stone” to establish young Arthur’s role as the divinely appointed
king.
In Sir Thomas Malory’s 15th-century Le Morte d’Arthur, the Lady of the Lake
presents Excalibur to Arthur.
After his final battle, a mortally wounded Arthur demands his knights return
Exaclibur to the lake; when they do, a woman’s arm rises to catch it and then
disappears below the waters with the sword.
Many films have been based on the Arthurian legend, including John Boorman’s
grandiose Excalibur (1981), showcasing Nicol Williamson’s campy Merlin.
There’s also the British satire Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), in which
there is no Merlin at all (or is he the pyromaniac wizard Tim the Enchanter?).
Beginning in 2008, Merlin appeared on BBC One as a fantasy-adventure drama.
Recognizing the Arthur legend had been done to death, this popular show presents
Merlin in a coming-of-age story as unpolished but loveable as he learns to be a
sorcerer.
Familiar elements include Excalibur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, but admittedly, it’s
a long way from the original Arthurian legend.

WAR MEMORIAL
Robert de Boron’s Merlin credits the wizard with with building the imposing stone
circle at Stonehenge to honor fallen warriors.