Joseph L. Lockett
Dr. Chance
ENGL 401
October 30, 1986
The Evolution of Merlin
In all the long history of literature, some fictional characters
have loomed above others, written about again and again by various authors
of various eras. Arthurian literature is one area of fiction that has
always been popular for writers to recreate in new versions, and one of
the most intriguing characters of all Arthurian literature is Merlin, the
magician/ prophet who aids Arthur early in his reign. As the Arthurian
saga develops, so does Merlin, changing from an aloof, druidical character
into a more human, magical being, though always retaining some traces of
his Welsh origins.
Merlin gains his first mention in eight ancient Welsh poems attributed
to the Welsh bard Myrddin. (Bruce) Signs of his Welsh, druidical heritage
are all through the verses. One poem invokes an apple-tree to hide Merlin
from his pursuing enemies, and magical apple-trees are common in Welsh
fairyland. Another of Merlin's purported poems is addressed to a little
pig, and in another he mentions a wolf as one of his few companions. Both
of these animals are common devotional cult-objects in Welsh druidism.
One poem indicates that Merlin/Myrddin spends a great deal of his time
with deer, perhaps even appearing in the form of a stag and living as one.
This description is reminiscent of the Welsh stag-god Cernunnos, "The
Horned One," who appears as a man with a stag's head and associates
with deer. (Tolstoy) In the Welsh poem "Ymddiddan Myrddin a Thaliesin"
("The Dialogue of Merlin and Taliesin"), written down around
1050, we receive our first indication of Merlin's most prominent gift in
later literature, that of prophecy. The poem ends with the lines
"Since I, Myrdin, am next after Taliesin, / Let my prediction become
common." (Ownbey)
Merlin's predictions do indeed become common, beginning with the
Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth, written
around 1136. Here we first meet the character Merlinus ("Merdinus,"
a more exact Latinization of the original Welsh, was impractical because
of its similarity to the Latin or French word for excrement, surely an
inappropriate name for a great hero). (Bruce) Yet the Merlin of this
story is not the great magician of later works. In his tale, Geoffrey
uses not the Latin word "magus," which would imply that Merlin
was some sort of sorcerer, but rather the word "vates," commonly
indicating a poet or, often, a prophet or seer. (Tatlock) Merlin does
exhibit many features of a mystic in Geoffrey's Historia:
he uses clairvoyance in the familiar case, borrowed from Nennius, of
Vortigern's vanishing tower; he foretells Vortigern's death and prophesies
to Aurelius and Uther of Arthur's coming reign, also making several
predictions about political events occuring just prior to the publication
of the Historia; and he interprets to Uther Pendragon a
portent of the death of the king Aurelius Ambrosius. (Bruce) Clairvoyance,
prophecy, and the interpretation of dreams are all rather shamanistic
actions that would fit Merlin's Welsh character as a druid.
Merlin is not yet a romance magician in Geoffrey's work: the few
feats later expanded into mighty demonstrations of magic are not so in
Geoffrey. Merlin disguises Uther as Gorlois for his rendevous with Igerne
using "medicamenta," which could include greasepaint or other
make-up rather than magical ointments. The movement of the Giants' Dance
(Stonehenge) from Mount Killaraus in Ireland to its present site in
Salisbury is accomplished through Merlin's "machinationes,"
indicating engines or devices of some sort, not incantations. (Tatlock)
Thus Merlin seems at this stage to be more of a wise man or gifted
engineer than a powerful wizard. One interesting point is that Stonehenge
was for a long time associated with druidism (and indeed, some of its
stones actually do come from Ireland) -- more evidence for Merlin's
original Welsh character. (Tolstoy) Geoffrey gives the story of Merlin's
origins as "the boy without a father" (his parents being a nun
and an incubus demon), but we find out nothing more about Merlin himself:
he is a mysterious, aloof, minor character who disappears entirely after
making possible Uther's conception of Arthur.
Another work on Merlin is credited to Geoffrey, probably written
later for a select circle of fellow scholars, containing much more
information on Merlin himself. Geoffrey's Latin poem Vita Merlini
(The Life of Merlin) puts forth a rather different Merlin, both a
prophet and a king. In a war among the princes of Britain, Merlin loses
three brothers and, going insane, flees to the Caledonian forest, where he
lives as a wild man on fruits and berries. His brother-in-law, a king,
takes him back to court, where he keeps him bound so he cannot flee back
to the forest. One day the king finds a leaf in his queen's hair and
throws it away. Merlin, normally silent, burst into laughter. Freed in
return for his explanation, he says that the leaf is from a thicket the
queen passed through for a rendevous with her lover. The queen tries to
discredit Merlin's power by bringing him the same child three times in
three different costumes. Merlin responds with the strange prophecy of
the "triple death": he predicts three different causes of death
on the three different occasions: a fall from a high rock, hanging in a
tree, and drowning. The queen exults in her victory, but the child, when
grown up, chases a stag, and falls from a high rock, catching his foot in
a tree so that he is suspended and drowns in the stream flowing underneath.
Merlin returns to the forest and allows his wife to remarry, as long as he
does not ever see the bridegroom. Merlin eventually sees in the stars
that his wife has chosen her new husband, so he mounts a stag and drives a
great herd of deer and goats to her house as presents. His former wife
smiles, but the bridegroom leans out a window and laughs, so Merlin tears
the antlers off the stag he is riding and hurls them at the man, killing
him. He flees but is captured. Merlin is dejected, so the king takes him
on a walk through town. They see a poor beggar, and then a young man
buying shoes and leather for repairing them in the future. At the sight
of both men, Merlin bursts out wildly laughing. In return for his freedom,
he reveals that the beggar was standing above a hidden treasure and the
young man was drowned just after his purchase. Once again Merlin returns
to the wilderness, where his sister visits him and builds him a house in
the forest with seventy doors and seventy windows where he predicts the
future by watching the heavens and 140 scribes write down his prophecies.
Taliesin joins Merlin, and together the two make various "prophecies"
about the England of Geoffrey's time. (Bruce)
Geoffrey's Vita Merlini is full of characteristics of
the Welsh, druidic Merlin, yet makes him more human and full of emotions
too. Like a Welsh fairy or druid, Merlin hides in the woods and mountains
with his animals and is not easily found. The laughing prophet and the
triple death are old Welsh features, and Merlin's ride on a stag reminds
us of Cernunnos again. Indeed, Tolstoy believes that in the original
story Merlin threw his own horned helm (assumed to be worn, and thus not
explicitly mentioned), rather than the stag's antlers, and that the change
came about through the misapplication of a possessive pronoun ("...he
threw his [whose?] horns..."). The house with seventy doors and
windows may be another reference to Stonehenge, originally a primitive
observatory, or a similar circle. Merlin also becomes more human; he
feels sadness, anger, amusement. (Tolstoy)
The next major work expressing anything new about Merlin is Robert
de Boron's Merlin, a poem written in the very last years of
the twelfth century, now surviving only in a prose version. It too
contains the prediction of the "triple death" and the moribund
man buying shoes. But Robert includes the story of Merlin taking the
young Arthur after his birth to avoid scandal for Uther and Igerna and
giving the child to the good man Antor or Auctor, whose wife brings it up.
Merlin also creates the sword in the anvil, thus setting up the way for
Arthur's accession to the throne, and then the story ends. Merlin is no
longer a minor character, but is of prime importance. (Ownbey) Robert
gives a much more complete version of Merlin's conception and birth than
any previous author. The devils of Hell meet in council to decide how to
counteract the work of Christ. They determine that the task can only be
accomplished by a man born of a virgin who will work Hell's will. One
devil goes to accomplish the deed, but the maiden he impregnates is
totally innocent and the child is promptly baptized, so Merlin inherits
his father's supernatural powers, but not his wickedness. (Bruce) The
child is very hairy and can speak from birth (defending his mother against
the charge of incontinence), perhaps a remnant of the story of a Welsh
fairy-changeling. (Loomis)
Merlin throughout the story acts different than in previous versions
of his tale. In many ways, he is more Christian, both through his birth
and in other ways. He persuades Uther to build a special (Round) table
with a seat for only the Grail knight, but the Table does not indicate
equality. It is a replica of the Grail Table of St. Joseph of Arimathea,
whose table was in turn a replica of the table of the Last Supper. Thus
Merlin establishes a Trinity of Tables, a holy order that will in turn
support the Holy Order of Knighthood. Merlin retains some druidical
characteristics, such as shape-changing, which he does fairly often in a
capricious and playful way, and the usual slew of prophecies. The
magician also becomes more kind and compassionate, serving as a deus
ex machina to rescue heroes from danger from the world of
enchantment. (Ownbey) Further, Robert changes the story: the brothers
Pandragon and Uter die gloriously in battle. They are not poisoned as in
Geoffrey's Historia, since such treachery would be a
violation of Merlin's protective care for kings. (Loomis 2)
Later, the so-called Vulgate additions continued Robert's story by
expanding on his Merline. The Lest„de Merlin,
from about 1230, has Merlin using a wide variety of nature magic on
Arthur's enemies: tempests, flash floods, dust storms, fire, and so on.
(Ownbey) Nature is, of course, a force with which a druid is supposed to
be well-acquainted. The story Livre d'Artus and several
succeeding tales contain the "Grisandole episode." Julius
Caesar is troubled by a recurring dream. Merlin comes as a stag and says
only the wild man of the woods can interpret it. No one but Grisandole, a
princess disguised as a man, can capture either the man or the stag.
Grisandole returns with the man who, laughing all the while, reveals that
the queen is in adultery with her twelve handmaidens, who are really
disguised men. Merlin then reveals that he is both the wild man and the
stag (shades of Cernunnos again). (Bruce) Merlin also visits Jerusalem to
interpret a dream for a Saracen king, and explains nocturnal visions to
those at home in Britain too. He also does a great deal of the (by now)
traditional shape-shifting to help Arthur. Meanwhile he helps in a human
sort of way, arranging Arthur's marriage with Guinevere, and foiling a
plot to kidnap the new queen. (Bruce) We even see mention of genuine,
unmistakable emotion on Merlin's part, for one source says that Merlin
"did this for love of Arthur." (Ownbey)
Merlin becomes as human as he ever can, however, when he falls to
love of another kind: not loyalty, but lust. He must choose between
demonic power and human love. In the various versions of the story,
Merlin falls deep in love with a maiden of the forest named Ninyve or
Vivien, sometimes identified with the Lady of the Lake. The maiden is
afraid of Merlin, and either loves him and wants to have power over him
and retain him, or hates him and wishes to destroy him. Through her
feminine wiles she makes Merlin teach her his magic until she is
thoroughly skilled in them, and then imprisons Merlin in either a tower
with walls of air, a cave, or a tomb of two dead lovers. In all cases, no
one may break the spell but the maiden herself, or sometimes not even she,
and Merlin is trapped forever by his love, placed at her disposal.
Although he can prophecy, he cannot tell the future about himself because
his mind is confused and clouded by his love. The prison of air
corresponds to many knightly tales using Welsh sources about heroes
imprisoned or retained by lovely fairies or damsels, most familiarly the
"Joy of the Court" episode in Chretien' "Erec et
Enide." (Paton)
Throughout early Arthurian literature, Merlin's character has
developed from a Welsh, mystical Druid to a more human, magical being.
Whether appearing in the guise of a druidic stag-god, a furry changeling
child, or a romantic, love-crazed sorcerer, Merlin exhibits qualities both
of the original Welsh bard and the later, fantastic enchanter. Appearing
and disappearing, prophesying and interpreting, Merlin serves to shape the
course of the Arthurian legend, and remains one of the great and enigmatic
characters of the Matter of Britain and, for that matter, of all
literature.
Works Cited
- Bruce, Dr. James Douglas.
- The Evolution of Arthurian Romance.
Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1958.
- Loomis, Roger Sherman.
- The Arthurian Romance.
London: Hutchinson & Co. Ltd., 1963.
- Loomis, Roger Sherman, ed.
- Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages: A Collaborative
History. Clarendon Press, 1959.
- Ownbey, E. Sydnor.
- Merlin and Arthur: A Study of Merlin's Character
and Function in the Romances Dealing with the Early Life
of Arthur. Vanderbilt University, 1932.
- Paton, Dr. Lucy Allen.
- Studies in the Fairy Mythology of Arthurian
Romance. New York: Burt Franklin, 1960.
- Tatlock, J.S.P.
- The Legendary History of Britain.
Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1950.