Merlin

For other uses, see Merlin (disambiguation).

"Merlyn" redirects here. For other uses, see Merlyn (disambiguation).

Merlin dictating his poems, as illustrated in a French book from the 13th century

Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures. Geoffrey combined existing stories of Myrddin Wyllt (Merlinus Caledonensis), a North British madman with no connection to King Arthur, with tales of the Romano-British war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus to form the composite figure he called Merlin Ambrosius (Template:Lang-cy).

Geoffrey's rendering of the character was immediately popular; later writers expanded the account to produce a fuller image of the wizard. Merlin's traditional biography casts him as a cambion; born of mortal woman, sired by an incubus, the non-human wellspring from whom he inherits his supernatural powers and abilities. Merlin matures to an ascendant sagehood and engineers the birth of Arthur through magic and intrigue. Later authors have Merlin serve as the king's adviser until he is bewitched and imprisoned by the Lady of the Lake.

Name and etymology

Merlin advising King Arthur in Gustave Doré's illustration

The Welsh name Myrddin (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈmərðɪn]) is usually explained as deriving from a (mistaken) folk etymology of the toponym Moridunum, the Roman era name of modern Carmarthen, as referring to a person (OED).

Some accounts describe two different figures named Merlin. For example, the Welsh Triads state there were three baptismal bards: Chief of Bards Taliesin, Myrddin Wyllt, and Myrddin Emrys (i.e., Merlinus Ambrosius). It is believed that these two bards called Myrddin were originally variants of the same figure. The stories of Wyllt and Emrys had become different in the earliest texts that they are treated as separate characters, even though similar incidents are ascribed to both.

Medievalist Gaston Paris suggested that Geoffrey chose the Latinization Merlinus rather than the regular Merdinus to avoid a resemblance to the Anglo-Norman word for "shit", merde.

The common name of Falco columbarius, "merlin" is unrelated, having lost an initial s- in Old French, originally deriving from a cognate of Old High German smerle (OED).

Geoffrey's sources

Geoffrey's composite Merlin is based primarily on Myrddin Wyllt, also called Merlinus Caledonensis, and Aurelius Ambrosius, a mostly fictionalized version of the historical war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus. The former had nothing to do with Arthur and flourished after the Arthurian period. According to lore he was a bard driven mad after witnessing the horrors of war, who fled civilization to become a wild man of the wood in the 6th century. Geoffrey had this individual in mind when he wrote his earliest surviving work, the Prophetiae Merlini (Prophecies of Merlin), which he claimed were the actual words of the legendary madman.

Geoffrey's Prophetiae do not reveal much about Merlin's background. When he included the prophet in his next work, Historia Regum Britanniae, he supplemented the characterization by attributing to him stories about Aurelius Ambrosius, taken from Nennius' Historia Brittonum. According to Nennius, Ambrosius was discovered when the British king Vortigern was trying to erect a tower. The tower always collapsed before completion, and his wise men told him the only solution was to sprinkle the foundation with the blood of a child born without a father. Ambrosius was rumored to be such a child, but when brought before the king, he revealed the real reason for the tower's collapse: below the foundation was a lake containing two dragons who destroyed the tower by fighting. Geoffrey retells this story in Historia Regum Britanniæ with some embellishments, and gives the fatherless child the name of the prophetic bard, Merlin. He keeps this new figure separate from Aurelius Ambrosius, and to disguise his changing of Nennius, he simply states that Ambrosius was another name for Merlin. He goes on to add new episodes that tie Merlin into the story of King Arthur and his predecessors.

Geoffrey dealt with Merlin again in his third work, Vita Merlini. He based the Vita on stories of the original 6th-century Myrddin. Though set long after his time frame for the life of "Merlin Ambrosius", he tries to assert the characters are the same with references to King Arthur and his death as told in the Historia Regum Britanniae.

Merlin Ambrosius, or Myrddin Emrys

Main article: Ambrosius Aurelianus

A giant helps Merlin build Stonehenge. From a manuscript of the Roman de Brut by Wace (British Library, Egerton 3208)

Geoffrey's account of Merlin Ambrosius' early life in the Historia Regum Britanniae is based on the story of Ambrosius in the Historia Brittonum. He adds his own embellishments to the tale, which he sets in Carmarthen, Wales (Welsh: Caerfyrddin). While Nennius' Ambrosius eventually reveals himself to be the son of a Roman consul, Geoffrey's Merlin is begotten on a king's daughter by an incubus. The story of Vortigern's tower is essentially the same; the underground dragons, one white and one red, represent the Saxons and the British, and their final battle is a portent of things to come.

At this point Geoffrey inserts a long section of Merlin's prophecies, taken from his earlier Prophetiae Merlini. He tells only two further tales of the character; in the first, Merlin creates Stonehenge as a burial place for Aurelius Ambrosius. In the second, Merlin's magic enables Uther Pendragon to enter into Tintagel in disguise and father his son Arthur with his enemy's wife, Igraine. These episodes appear in many later adaptations of Geoffrey's account. As Lewis Thorpe notes, Merlin disappears from the narrative after this; he does not tutor and advise Arthur as in later versions.

Later adaptations of the legend

Merlin, from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)

Several decades later the poet Robert de Boron retold this material in his poem Merlin. Only a few lines of the poem have survived, but a prose retelling became popular and was later incorporated into two other romances. In Robert's account Merlin is begotten by a devil on a virgin as an intended Antichrist. This plot is thwarted when the expectant mother informs her confessor Blaise of her predicament; they immediately baptize the boy at birth, thus freeing him from the power of Satan. The demonic legacy invests Merlin with a preternatural knowledge of the past and present, which is supplemented by God, who gives the boy a prophetic knowledge of the future.

Robert de Boron lays great emphasis on Merlin's power to shapeshift, on his joking personality and on his connection to the Holy Grail. This text introduces Merlin's master Blaise, who is pictured as writing down Merlin's deeds, explaining how they came to be known and preserved. Robert was inspired by Wace's Roman de Brut, an Anglo-Norman adaptation of Geoffrey's Historia. Robert's poem was rewritten in prose in the 12th century as the Estoire de Merlin, also called the Vulgate or Prose Merlin. It was originally attached to a cycle of prose versions of Robert's poems, which tells the story of the Holy Grail: brought from the Middle East to Britain by followers of Joseph of Arimathea, the Grail is eventually recovered by Arthur's knight Percival.

The Prose Merlin contains many instances of Merlin's shapeshifting. He appears as a woodcutter with an axe about his neck, big shoes, a torn coat, bristly hair and a large beard. He is later found in the forest of Northumberland by a follower of Uther's disguised as an ugly man and tending a great herd of beasts. He then appears first as a handsome man and then as a beautiful boy. Years later, he approaches Arthur disguised as a peasant wearing leather boots, a wool coat, a hood and a belt of knotted sheepskin. He is described as tall, black and bristly, and as seeming cruel and fierce. Finally, he appears as an old man with a long beard, short and hunchbacked, in an old torn woolen coat, who carries a club and drives a multitude of beasts before him (Loomis, 1927).

The Prose Merlin later came to serve as a sort of prequel to the vast Lancelot-Grail, also known as the Vulgate Cycle. The authors of that work expanded it with the Vulgate Suite du Merlin (Vulgate Merlin Continuation), which describes King Arthur's early adventures. The Prose Merlin was also used as a prequel to the later Post-Vulgate Cycle, the authors of which added their own continuation, the Huth Merlin or Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin.

In the Livre d'Artus, Merlin enters Rome in the form of a huge stag with a white fore-foot. He bursts into the presence of Julius Caesar and tells the emperor that only the wild man of the woods can interpret the dream that has been troubling him. Later, he returns in the form of a black, shaggy man, barefoot with a torn coat. In another episode, he decides to do something that will be spoken of forever. Going into the forest of Brocéliande, he transforms himself into a herdsman carrying a club and wearing a wolf-skin and leggings. He is large, bent, black, lean, hairy and old, and his ears hang down to his waist. His head is as big as a buffalo's, his hair is down to his waist, he has a hump on his back, his feet and hands are backwards, he's hideous, and is over 18 feet tall. By his arts, he calls a herd of deer to come and graze around him (Loomis, 1927).

These works were adapted and translated into several other languages; the Post-Vulgate Suite was the inspiration for the early parts of Sir Thomas Malory's English language Le Morte d'Arthur. Many later medieval works also deal with the Merlin legend. The Italian The Prophecies of Merlin contains long prophecies of Merlin (mostly concerned with 13th-century Italian politics), some by his ghost after his death. The prophecies are interspersed with episodes relating Merlin's deeds and with various Arthurian adventures in which Merlin does not appear at all. The earliest English verse romance concerning Merlin is Arthour and Merlin, which drew from the chronicles and the French Lancelot-Grail.

As the Arthurian mythos was retold and embellished, Merlin's prophetic aspects were sometimes de-emphasized in favor of portraying him as a wizard and elder advisor to Arthur. On the other hand in the Lancelot-Grail it is said that Merlin was never baptized and never did any good in his life, only evil. Medieval Arthurian tales abound in inconsistencies.

In the Lancelot-Grail and later accounts Merlin's eventual downfall came from his lusting after a huntress named Niviane (or Nymue, Nimue, Niniane, Nyneue, or Viviane in some versions of the legend), who was the daughter of the king of Northumberland. In the Suite du Merlin , for example, Niviane is about to depart from Arthur's court, but, with some encouragement from Merlin, Arthur asks her to stay in his castle with the queen. During her stay, Merlin falls in love with her and desires her. Niviane, frightened that Merlin might take advantage of her with his spells, swears that she will never love him unless he swears to teach her all of his magic. Merlin consents, unaware that throughout the course of her lessons, Niviane will use Merlin's own powers against him, forcing him to do her bidding.

When Niviane finally goes back to her country, Merlin escorts her. However, along the way, Merlin receives a vision that Arthur is in need of assistance against the schemes of Morgan le Fay. Niviane and Merlin rush back to Arthur's castle, but have to stop for the night in a stone chamber, once inhabited by two lovers. Merlin relates that when the lovers died, they were placed in a magic tomb within a room in the chamber. That night, while Merlin is asleep, Niviane, still disgusted with Merlin's desire for her, as well as his demon heritage, casts a spell over him and places him in the magic tomb so that he can never escape, thus causing his death.

Merlin's death is recounted differently in other versions of the narrative, the enchanted prison variously described as a cave (in the Lancelot-Grail), a large rock (in Le Morte d'Arthur), an invisible tower. In the Prophetiae Merlini, Niviane confines him in the forest of Brocéliande with walls of air, visible as mist to others but as a beautiful tower to him (Loomis, 1927). This is unfortunate for Arthur, who has lost his greatest counselor. Another version has it that Merlin angers Arthur to the point where he beheads, cuts in half, burns, and curses Merlin.

"I am a Heterosexual," Merlin Declares

File:Merlinevivien.jpg

"I am a heterosexual," the Arthurian wizard Merlin declared recently in a press conference. While Merlin maintains that his sudden sexuality-affirming statement has nothing to do with any other wizard (or their sexuality), wizarding experts argue otherwise. They believe that his statement, coming on the heels of several hundreds of years of seclusion following the now infamous "lady in the lake of fire" incident must in some way be tied to another famous wizard's outing.

"Yeah. Again, that whole fire lake thing? My bad," Merlin stated at the press opening. "I put a woman in water and all she got was pruny. I thought I could duplicate that with all the elements. You know, make it my trademark or something. Man, that whole lake of fire thing sure did cost me. And don't even talk about the lake of earth. Archaeologists are still digging around for that one… Sure do wish I remember where I put her. But just because I put women in awkward positions, some of them fatal, does not mean anything. Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I am a heterosexual."

But where the press anxiously anticipated finally hearing the long-silent mage explain the "ladies of earth, wind and fire lakes" debacle, any belief the press held that Merlin's conference was not related to other wizards' sexuality were soon removed by his long explications. "Look," Merlin began. "What other wizards do, whether they Avada Kedavra each other's magic wands into some kind of rigamortis fun time so that they can Cornelihole Fudgepack the crap out of each other is no business of mine. Hey, maybe some of them even like to get a little bit freakier than that and cast Cruciatus Curse to add in a little pain to their pleasure. I wouldn't know. That's not my thing. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it. All I'm saying is that I'm not gay."

Gandalf. The good GRAY wizard.

Despite wizarding experts' castigations that Merlin's pronouncements are "stealing someone else's thunder" and "legacy-conscious, compensating, and littered with paternalism towards gay culture," there are still some experts in the wizarding world who have come to Merlin's defense. Shandril of Myth Drannor, a wizard's understudy stated that "you look at these guys and they all fit a certain profile. They are all at least four hundred years old and never married. They live by themselves. Maybe they have a cat. You know, I can't say I blame the guy. It is easy to assume in this day and age that something was going on there."

One hobbit, who declined to be named and so as not to "tarnish a great wizarding friend's image" refused to identify the wizard of which he was speaking, said that "he was always hanging around the shire. At first it was kind of weird, this normal sized old guy just always hanging around with us, crashing our parties and telling us that our youth and our purity of spirit were greater assets than his command of magic. He even said that one day we would change the fate of the world. I could have sworn he was hitting on us. To be honest, at first we thought he was kind of creepy. Like maybe he was a dude who was into little boys or half-sized men or something. It just turned out he was a friendly and wise old man."

For Merlin, the secret to understanding the magical man is to understand his position. "As a wizard of both immortality and infinite fame, in order to be a sage to men capable of great feats, you must aid in their realization of their true potential through cleverly disguised clues. I'm not gay, and what I'm telling you people is that if you look at my behavior as a wizard, it is clear that I'm not gay. Now if I were gay, would I leave as my gift of ascension and birth-right to future King Arthur a sopping wet half naked hotty in a lake holding a gigantic metal phallus? I don't think so. I think it is pretty clear here that only the most heterosexually oriented of wizards would come up with a plan that heavily laden with male on female innuendo."

Elminster lives among the dainty and overly pretty elves. Think about it.

Among the attendees of Merlin's speech was Lord Manshoon, a "B-list" evil-magi whose constant fire ring protection spell set several seats around him ablaze, and whose easy commingling among an otherwise young (no press member was over sixty, whereas Lord Manshoon is believed to be five hundred and twelve) press audience is indicative of his now faded evil persona. Manshoon, who was greedily taking in the discussion in addition to prepping a fireball with Merlin's name on it, said that "it will be interesting to see how other wizards handle this news. Given our history as recluses, our prominent lifestyles among the dainty and pretty elves, and our fascination with collecting thick wands and pointy hats, I wouldn't be surprised if Merlin is but the first among many wizards who feel an irrepressible desire to affirm their sexuality."

Manshoon then initiated a "wizard duel" which the winner (Merlin) proclaimed was "completely heterosexual in nature. This is what wizards do. We launch fireballs at each other. It doesn't mean anything."

Fiction featuring Merlin

Further information: List of films in which Merlin appears and Fiction featuring Merlin

Literature

Many parts of Arthurian fiction include Merlin as a character. Mark Twain made Merlin the villain in his 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. He is presented as a complete charlatan with no real magic power, and the character seems to stand for (and to satirise) superstition, yet at the very last chapter of the book Merlin suddenly seems to have a real magic power and he puts the protagonist into a centuries-long sleep (as Merlin himself was put to sleep in the original Arthurian canon). C. S. Lewis used the figure of Merlin Ambrosius in his 1946 novel That Hideous Strength, the third book in the Space Trilogy. In it, Merlin has supposedly lain asleep for centuries to be awakened for the battle against the materialistic agents of the devil, able to consort with the angelic powers because he came from a time when sorcery was not yet a corrupt art. Lewis's character of Ransom has apparently inherited the title of Pendragon from the Arthurian tradition.

Merlin is a major character in T. H. White's collection The Once and Future King and the related The Book of Merlyn. White's Merlin is an old man living time backwards, with final goodbyes being first encounters, and first encounters being fond farewells. Mary Stewart produced an influential quintet of Arthurian novels; Merlin is the protagonist in the first three: The Crystal Cave (1970), The Hollow Hills (1970) and The Last Enchantment (1979). Merlin plays a modern-day villain in Roger Zelazny's short story The Last Defender of Camelot (1979), which won the 1980 Balrog Award for short fiction and was adapted into an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone in 1986. Additionally, the last five books in Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber star a character named Merlin, with seemingly little to do with Arthurian legend, though other references to the legend seem to hint at a connection.

Film and television

Merlin is a main character in the 1963 animated Disney film The Sword in the Stone, based on T. H. White's novel of the same name. Disney's (and White's) version of the character aides and educates King Arthur about various things. He was voiced by Karl Swenson and animated by several of Disney's Nine Old Men, including Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, and John Lounsbery. Kahl also designed the character, refining the storyboard sketches of Bill Peet. Merlin later appeared in a number of Disney productions, where he has been voiced by several different actors. Merlin, played by Nicol Williamson, has a large role in the 1981 film Excalibur, which is roughly based on Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. Laurence Naismith appears as Merlyn in the film version of the musical play Camelot, (based on T. H. White's The Once and Future King). In the 1998 miniseries Merlin, the protagonist Merlin (played by actor Sam Neill) battled the pagan goddess Queen Mab.

In 2006 and 2007, the television series Stargate SG1 used Merlin and Arthurian legend as major plot points in both Season 9 and 10. Specifically, Merlin is portrayed as an Ancient whose superior knowledge of the universe is the source of many components of the legends. Also in 2007, the film The Last Legion portrayed Merlin (initially called Ambrosinus) as a druid and tutor of both the last Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus Caesar, as well as of his son Arthur. In 2008, the BBC created a television series, also called Merlin, which deviated significantly from more traditional versions of the myth, portraying Merlin as the same age as Arthur, and Nimueh as an evil sorceress dedicated to his death. Merlin, portrayed by Simon Lloyd Roberts, was the protagonist of the 2008 fantasy film Merlin and the War of the Dragons, which was based loosely on the legends of King Arthur.

Notes

In BBC's 2008 adaption of Merlin, Merlin Emrys was potrayed by actor Colin Morgan

References

• Lacy, Norris J. (Ed.) (1991). The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.
• Loomis, Roger Sherman (1927). Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance. Columbia University Press.
• Monmouth, Geoffrey. The History of the Kings of Britain. The Romance of Arthur. Ed. James J. Wilhelm. New York: Garland Publishing, 1994. 63-93.

External links

• Vita Merlini, Basil Clarke's English translation from Life of Merlin: Vita Merlini (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1973).
  • At Grove of the Great Dragon: Manuscripts Site is not active
  • At Branwaedd
• Merlin: or the early History of King Arthur: a prose romance (Early English Text Society [Series]. Original series: 10, 112), edited by Henry Wheatly. (1450s) (The complete prose Middle English translation of the Vulgate Merlin. Chapter I to VI cover Robert de Boron's Merlin.)
• Prose Merlin, Introduction and Text (TEAMS Middle English text series) edited by John Conlea, 1998. (1450s) (A selection of many passages of the prose Middle English translation of the Vulgate Merlin with connecting summary. The sections from The Birth of Merlin to Arthur and the Sword in the Stone cover Robert de Boron's Merlin).
• Of Arthour and Merlin: Auchinleck Manuscipt (National Library of Scotland) (1330s). (A Middle-English verse adaptation of the Vulgate Merlin combined with material closer to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia. Lines 1-3059 cover approximately Robert de Boron's Merlin).
• The Cry of Merlin the Wise, translated into English by Dorothea Salo from the 1498 Burgos publication of the Portuguese El baladro del sabio Merlin. (The original is essentially a medieval Portuguese adaptation of the Post-Vulgate Merlin. From Prologue 3 to Chapter 18 to the sentence And thus was Arthur king in Londres, and held the land in his power and in peace corresponds to Robert de Boron's Merlin). (not available anymore)
• XIIIth century Merlin manuscript BNF fr. 95 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, selection of illuminated folios, Modern French Translation, Commentaries.
• The Beguiling of Merlin, Edward Burne-Jones
• Merlin: Texts, Images, Basic Information, Camelot Project at the University of Rochester. (Numerous further texts and art concerning Merlin.)
• Merlin : Opera by Ezequiel Viñao with a Libretto by Caleb Carr, (Words and Music. Excerpts from the opera)
• 'Was Merlin an Old Magician or a Young Fortuneteller?' by Nathan Currin.