Merlin the Magician appears in numerous texts written from Welsh and English folklore after the eleventh century A.D. usually connected with the King Arthur legend. He had special powers that among other things enabled him to see into the future. Scholars have put together profiles of the person from this literature, but in reality, who was he? The answer is that he was only a fictional character and not real. But even fictional characters can sometimes have a real person as a model. As you read on you can see that Merlin began as a bard (poet), who would sing a poetic tune that was composed of verses that related to heroes or heroic deeds, and morphed into a master magician with super natural powers that was an advisor to the king.
Model for the Character: Merlin evolved from Middle Aged oral traditions in England and Wales that pointed to a bard in the sixth century named Myrddin Wyllt, who served the court of King Gwenddoleu of the Welsh-speaking territories of what is today southern Scotland and Northern England. There is a connection between the Celtic word Myrddin and the Latin word Merlinus meaning blackbird, that seemingly meant that Merlin could shapeshift into a blackbird via his magical powers. Other traditions have his name as a combination meaning “madman”, or “wonder man”. A French historian named Jean Markale wrote that the word Merlin comes from French meaning “Little Blackbird”. The traditions go on to say that King Gwenddoleu was killed in a battle, and Myrddin was driven mad by the horror of combat but was cured of madness by Saint Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow. All of these traditions and perhaps many more came together for Geoffrey of Monmouth, who in the twelfth century, became the first major writer of texts pertaining to Merlin as drawn from Myrddin and morphed into Merlin the sorcerer, who used his powers to aid the good causes of King Arthur.
Birth from an Incubus: Geoffrey wrote that Merlin was born from the sexual union of a virgin woman and an incubus, a male demon. This fiction carried weight as the concept of a sleeping woman being ravished and impregnated by a male demon was acceptable in those times. Further, they believed that demons were more clever than ordinary humans, and therefore the child Merlin must have been born with extraordinary powers. As Geoffrey developed the character, Merlin became a seer or soothsayer on the one hand, but a promoter of Christian values on the other. In a further writing Geoffrey tied Merlin to a fifth century historical figure, Ambrosius Aurelianus, a Romano-British war leader. Ambrosius was believed to have the answer to a dilemma facing Vortigern, the King of the Britons. Vortigen was attempting to fortify a retreat on the River Glaslyn near the village of Emrys in Wales. However, the structures that Vortigen erected would collapse the day after being built. Ambrosius was brought before the king, and he explained that the tower collapsed because two dragons, one white and the other red, were fighting in a lake beneath the towers. The white dragon represented the invading Saxons, and the red dragon the native Britons and their final battle would be an omen of what was to come. Geoffrey further tied Merlin to King Arthur with the story of Merlin’s magic enabling the new king of the Britons, Uther Pendragon, to slip into Tintagel Castle in Cornwall in disguise and father Arthur with his enemy’s wife.
The Arthurian Legend: Another author, Robert de Boron of France, in A.D. 1210, elevated Merlin to newer levels in the Arthurian Legend. King Vortigen and his collapsing towers along with the fighting dragons are the same, but Merlin foretells Vortigen’s death. He then joins up with Uther Pendragon in the war against the invading Saxons. As an honor to the fallen warriors, Merlin creates Stonehenge, and also the Round Table further instructing Uther to establish the order of the Round Table to fifty members. The text ends with Arthur pulling the sword from the stone and becoming the next king of the Britons upon Uther Pendragon’s death. Another text by de Boron has Merlin predicting and influencing via magical intervention the course of young King Arthur’s battles. He helps Arthur in other ways including reconciliations with his rivals, and the defeat, surrender, and expulsion of the Saxons from Briton. The work of de Boron paved the way for the remainder of the writings about King Arthur, Camelot, Excalibur, and the Knights of the Roundtable. Three hundred years later in about A.D. 1470, Sir Thomas Malory wrote Le Morte de Arthur (The Death of Arthur). This work describes the Arthurian legend in sequence beginning with Arthur’s birth. Merlin becomes Arthur’s mentor, and the previously written demonic aspects of Merlin and his powers is reduced. He becomes more of a “trickster” than a demon, but remains an important figure in King Arthur’s court.
Death of a Character: Merlin’s weakness appears to be his vulnerability with femme fatal characters who beguile him into risky ventures attempting to exploit his powers for their own purposes. His lusting for one of his female students named Viviane, also known as the Lady of the Lake, becomes his eventual undoing since Viviane learned all she could about Merlin to replace him as Arthur’s mentor. There are many different versions of this part of the story, but they seem to gravitate towards a romantic liaison between Merlin and an enterprising female who uses him to acquire his knowledge and powers only to have him trapped, imprisoned, or executed. Even his burial place has many different descriptions and locations.
His Legacy: Many stories, plays, and films have been made in more recent times that include Merlin as a major character with a sorcerer’s powers. Some of them are:
Idylls of the King: circa 1859-1885, a series of poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s court: 1889, by Mark Twain.
The Knights of the Round Table: 1937, a play by Jean Cocteau.
The Once and Future King: 1958, a novel by T.H. White.
Excalibur: 1981, a film directed by John Boorman.
Merlin (The Adventures of Merlin): 2008, a TV series on BBC One.
Additionally:
Merlin Entertainments, a British Company specializing in theme parks.
Merlin, a literary magazine.
Merlin, a hand-held console developed by Parker Brothers in 1978.
More than a dozen British warships throughout history named HMS Merlin.
A commemorative postage stamp for the Royal Mail featuring Merlin.
A one-pound coin issued by the Royal Mint in 2023 featuring Merlin.
Conclusions: In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there were numerous other texts that appeared concerning Merlin that were drawn from the oral traditions. The authors mentioned here are those who had the greatest impact on the character’s development.
Sources:
Nationalgeographic.com, Who Was Merlin the Great, really? Here’s the History, By Marina Montesano, September 28, 2023.
Wikipedia, Merlin.
Picture Courtesy of Jean Francois Fageol.