The Legend of Merlin

You know how it feels when you finish reading a book and you’re sad that it’s finished, because you want to stay in that world?

That’s how I felt the first time I finished reading Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy back in the late 70s not long after it was first published. And that’s how I felt when I finished reading it again just recently. I felt so strongly about it I went back and read all three books again.

That’s an incredible achievement as an author, to engage a reader so completely. But before I consider that, I suppose I’d better tell you what the books are about.

King Arthur is a person of legend. There is still discussion about whether he actually existed. Mary Stewart states in her notes at the end of book one of her Merlin series (The Crystal Cave) that she thinks he did. Certainly not as he was painted in the twelfth century by Geoffrey of Monmouth. His Arthur was mediaeval. Even so, Mary Stewart admits she based her trilogy to some extent on the ‘history’ according to Geoffrey and certainly as a reader it’s easy to see the familiar tales I learnt as a kid. The sword in the stone, Merlin as a teacher of the young Arthur who doesn’t know he’s the High King’s son, Guinevere, Morgan le Fay etc.

But while these books inevitably include Arthur, they’re actually about Merlin. There’s not much evidence that he was real but Stewart thought the “Merlin” that we know is a composite of at least four people; prince, prophet, poet and engineer. The Merlin legend is as strong in Brittany as in Britain. She has found just about every legend written about the great wizard and woven them into a coherent tapestry spanning (most of) his life. It’s written from first person point of view (not my favourite) but it feels like a narrative, Merlin telling you, the reader, his life story. He is shown as a polymath. He’s an engineer, a doctor, a musician, and a linguist, but not a soldier or a sailor. And he insists that any magic he performs is the work of ‘God’ (whoever that is) acting through him.

This article summarises most of the legends involving Merlin. Each of them is addressed – plausibly – in the Merlin trilogy.

There’s magic, certainly, but most of the things Merlin does are not magic at all. For instance, legend says he used magic to build Stonehenge and brought the King Stone back from Ireland. But in the book Merlin recognizes that Stonehenge was built by men centuries ago and, as a skilled engineer, he works out how it was done so that he can repair it.

Arthur was famously conceived at the Cornish castle, Tintagel. Merlin was supposed to have used magic to disguise Uther Pendragon as Ygraine’s husband, Duke Gorlois, so Uther could enter the castle and Ygraine’s bed. In the final climactic scenes of The Crystal Cave, Merlin explains how it all happened – with no magic. Of course, the truth morphed into legend.

Yes, there’s a sword in the stone. Merlin finds the sword of Maximus and hides it for Arthur to find when the time is right. Magnus Maximus (died Aug. 27, 388) was a Roman emperor who ruled Britain, Gaul, and Spain from ad 383 to 388. A Spaniard of humble origin, Maximus commanded the Roman troops in Britain against the Picts and Scots. In the novels, both Merlin and Arthur are descended from him.

So, the Merlin trilogy is set in the late 5^th century BCE. It’s well and truly Dark Ages Britain. The Roman legions left about a hundred years ago but parts of their fading splendour still remain among the ruins. The petty kings in England who replaced the Romans are constantly involved in battles with raiders from Germany and Ireland.

The first book The Crystal Cave concerns Merlin’s early life. He is the bastard son of the daughter of a petty king, so he’s supposed to be royal but not treated that way. He doesn’t find out who his father is until several chapters into the first book. Then, when he is 22, he orchestrates the events at Tintagel where Arthur is conceived.

The second book The Hollow Hills follows Merlin’s life, keeping an eye on young Arthur and finding Maximus’s sword, until the dramatic climax when, at just 14 years old, Arthur is declared High King when he takes up the sword.

The third book The Last Enchantment follows the years while Merlin mentors Arthur. It includes his sister, Morgan, and his half-sister, Morgause, and her bastard son, Mordred. As he has foreseen, Merlin is indeed entombed alive. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

The story is rich, compelling, and absolutely convincing. I could easily believe that this was how it really happened.

Back when I first read them I became fascinated with Merlin and tried to find out as much as I could about the legends attributed to him. And also the places mentioned in the books. The ruin of Tintagel still exists. Galava, where the young Arthur was brought up, equates to Ambleside at the end of Lake Windermere in the Lakes District. Maridunum, where he was born, is Carmarthen in Wales. But nobody knows where Camelot was supposed to be.

The writing is (IMO) sublime. As authors, we’re urged to take the reader there, show the colours, the textures, the taste, the feel. Stewart does it in spades. Here’s an example:

“The hollow sound of the horse’s hoofs on the iron ground of winter; the crunch of leaves underfoot, and snap of brittle twigs; the flight of a woodcock and the clap of a startled pigeon. Then the sun, falling ripe and level as it does just before candle-time, lighting the fallen oak-leaves where they lay in shadow, edged with rime like powdered diamond; the holly boughs rattling and ringing with the birds I disturbed from feeding on the fruit; the smell of damp juniper as my horse pushed through; the sight of a single spray of whin flowers struck to gold by the sunlight, with the night’s frost already crisping the ground and making the air pure and thin as chiming crystal.” The Last Enchantment (pp. 71-72)

And another.

“I was lying on my belly on the hot flagstones, watching a lizard. Of all that day, this is my most vivid recollection; the lizard, flat on the hot stone within a foot of my face, its body still as green bronze but for the pulsing throat. It had small dark eyes, no brighter than slate, and the inside of its mouth was the colour of melons. It had a long, sharp tongue, which flicked out quick as a whip, and its feet made a tiny rustling noise on the stones as it ran across my finger and vanished down a crack in the flags.

I turned my head. My uncle Camlach was coming down through the orchard.

He mounted the three shallow steps to the terrace, soft-footed in his elegant laced sandals, and stood looking down. I looked away. The moss between the stones had tiny white flowers no bigger than the lizard’s eyes, each one perfect as a carved cup. To this day I remember the design on them, as well as if I had carved it myself.” The Crystal Cave (pp. 31-32)

Wonderful stuff.

All the characters are so real. Not just Merlin and Arthur and the major players but minor bit players like Beltane the jeweler, who is involved with Merlin in a couple of chapters. Life in Dark Ages Britain is drawn convincingly (even though so little is known about that time). Merlin himself is very human, with faults and foibles and insecurities. And he comes across, as he should, as misogynistic. Women at that time were rarely regarded as much more than chattels used to cement alliances and give birth to children. A woman’s helpless life, completely dependent on some man, is well drawn. In the end Merlin’s greatest enemies are Arthur’s two sisters. And then there’s the bit where he falls in love with the Lady of the Lake who, according to legend, learns all his magical secrets, then entombs him.

I would love for somebody like Peter Jackson to make three movies from these books. For the meanwhile, if you haven’t read them, I commend them to you.

I suppose I have to say something about last weekend’s election. I was not just bitterly disappointed, I was astonished. Democracy has spoken, of course, but I have to say that the Baby Boomers on the whole voted LNP. So, all you Gen X, Millenials, and so on, don’t point the finger at us when the deficit rises into trillions and your power bills go through the ceiling. You brought it on yourselves. The only positives for me are that we are not burdened with a minority government, and that the Greens have been decimated.

Oh – and while you’re here, you can pre-order my latest book. It will be published on 29 May. Tap on the cover for more.