Merlin and the Lady of the Lake

This edited article about Arthurian legend first appeared in Look and Learn issue number 520 published on 1 Jan...1972

Merlin, picture, image, illustration
Merlin and the Lady of the Lake by Richard Hook
Barbarians were hammering at the gates of Rome, and the mighty Empire was collapsing in disarray. Hastily and frantically, the once powerful legions were recalled from far-flung outposts to defend their motherland in a bitter fight to save and restore the glory that had once been Rome.

It was round about 400 A.D. when they let loose their grip on Britain, abandoning the culture they had imposed on most of the island for about four hundred years. At the same time, raiders from across the North Sea were already steering a course that was to unleash brutal havoc on the confused country.

A period of darkness descended upon the land – and for several hundred years this Dark Age lay like a shroud over history, giving only occasional glimpses of the grim fighting, barbaric horrors and eerie mysteries of the time.

Among the more mysterious people in those distant days were the Druids – the strange priests of a cult that thrived among the Celts of ancient Gaul and Britain.

Since the beginnings of their history – which were long, long before any Roman set foot in Britain – they had exerted a strong and mystic influence over their followers Scholars, early scientists, men of medicine, extraordinary astrologers and astronomers who held the secret keys to all religious rituals and doctrines, the Druids were said to be masters of one of the world’s oldest religions.

Understandably they were called magicians and wizards, and there is little doubt they displayed powers that would mystify us even today. But of all their mysteries, one was more commonplace than any. Since the start of their history, most Druids were renowned for what was called An-da-shealladh – the two sights – the ability to see into the future.

Most famous of the Druids, and most uncanny prophet of them all, was one, Abrosius Merlin.

Merlin! His name must be known by millions, his reputation bound forever with that of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

At some time every schoolboy and girl must have read the wonderful tales of these legendary figures and how the great magician aided Arthur in so many marvellous ways.

In a pass, he put to sleep a huge knight who nearly killed Arthur. Once, when Arthur was opposed by eleven kings and a duke, Merlin cast a spell that caused all the tents of the enemies to fall down, and in the panic that followed, Arthur vanquished his foes. By Merlin’s help, to Arthur won Guinevere for his wife. Merlin it was who made the Round Table. And then it was he who led Arthur to the sword that he took from the mysterious hand and arm that rose from the lake.

So the lovely stories go on. So too do the winks of disbelief. The tales are viewed only as delightful myths and legends embroidered to add colour to a colourless age. Certainly it would be a very gullible person who could take them too seriously.

But what about Merlin and Arthur themselves? Did they exist at all? For centuries, most people who thought deeply about it, denied the possibility entirely.

Arthur, it was said, was the name of one bold knight who was given all the credit for the bravest deeds of many warriors who fought in those troubled times. Today, however, piecing together and analysing the accounts of historians and poets like Cretien de Troyes, Sir Thomas Malory, Gildas and Nennius, it seems likely that there did exist a fearless leader named Arthur.

Some scholars think that Merlin really existed. Wizard and magician he may or may not have been – you either believe fairy stories or you don’t – but that he was one of the most notable Druids who ever lived, there is no doubt.

That he possessed their incredible powers of prophecy to the full there seems to be even less doubt, unless a 12th century monk named Geoffrey of Monmouth was a complete charlatan. Geoffrey, using old documents, wrote about Merlin, and his work was published in the 17th century. Merlin’s visions spanned as many centuries as those of the remarkable Nostradamus, and truly were alarmingly accurate.

Wales was the last stronghold of the Druids, and it was there that Merlin first appeared during the reign of King Vortigern.

When exactly he was born is not known for certain, but it was round about 415. Apparently his mother, the daughter of a king, was living in a nunnery; and his father was not known at all, when the young Merlin was first brought to the court of Vortigern.

While still a child, he had been noticed as one of a mystic breed by wise elders, which was why he was summoned to court to display his prophetic powers. And there he stayed for many years, as vision after vision came into his far-staring eyes.

He saw the coming of the Saxon invasion, he told of the contest between the Welsh and the Saxons, during which rivers would run with blood, and then, he said, “From Cornwall shall come the Boar who shall tread upon the neck” of the Saxons – King Arthur.

Finally Merlin knew it was time to leave Vortigern’s court. Again he had seen what was about to happen. The sons of King Constantine, whom Vortigern had overthrown and murdered for his crown, were on their way to avenge their father’s death amid great bloodshed.

Merlin, who many times later cheerfully confessed himself a coward, wanted no part of the coming fray and disappeared in a hurry, though he did have the decency to leave a message for the king, telling him to flee. Vortigern dismissed that prophecy, however, and by his grizzly end fulfilled yet another prophecy of his seer Merlin.

Perhaps we can imagine Merlin’s wanderings for a while from that time on. A long-haired, long-bearded figure dressed in a robe of stars and crescent moons, he would be greeted with respect wherever he travelled, for all folk bowed to the powers of the far-seeing Druids. It may have been during his wanderings that he met King Arthur, who was, perhaps, a warrior chieftain with Roman and British blood in his veins, and formed an association with him.

His prophecies continued to be uttered, and time has tested and fulfilled his uncanny predictions.

All those events he would seem to have prophesied near his own times came true: civil war in Britain during the reign of a king called Cadwallo; famine in the latter part of the 7th century; the cowardliness of Ethelred against the Danes; the death of Godwin, Earl of Wessex in 1053, and the way his lands would vanish beneath the sea – today’s Godwin Sands.

William the Conqueror was to invade and remain. Merlin saw that as well, and also knew the fate of the Conqueror’s sons, one of whom “by devious dart . . . shall expire.” William Rufus, or William II, was killed by an arrow in August, 1100.

“Last by a poisonous shaft, the Lion die,” wrote Merlin of another king who was to rise against the Saracens, he said, win great glory and then suffer imprisonment before his ransom. That prophecy was accurate in every detail about Richard the Lionheart who did die a few days after being shot by a poisoned arrow while besieging a castle near Limoges.

For his own nation, Wales, he saw no great or glorious future. “You will keep your language and your race,” he said, “but of your old kingdom, nothing will remain but Gwalia’s rugged mountains.”