the king and the mage
Whoever can read aright the myth of Merlin will understand the hidden place four-square in the Island of the Strong Door.
…
Manly P. Hall, Orders of the Quest
The Oldest Arthur
The Arthurian legends are far older than many suppose. This is not the place to go into the historicity or otherwise of the man called Arthur—who may have lived in the second century AD or the fifth—but rather we shall be looking at the mythical and archetypal figure that is for all time. Nor will we deal overmuch with the literary history of Arthur, whose extended life begins in the eleventh century and is still very much with us today. This book will deal with another Arthur, one far older and deeper than the medieval king and his knights, yet whose outline can still be glimpsed in the pages of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote the first connected history to have survived in his History of the Kings of Britain,20 or in the vast, lush, and powerful medieval novel Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory,21 who magnificently delineated not only the mythic history of his hero but also gave us the best picture of Arthurian chivalry based on the reality of the fifteenth-century world but with a dash of something more. In fact, both of these Arthurs, along with many more—a multiple set of personalities existing side by side and within each other like nesting boxes—have been subsumed into the shadowy presence of a far older figure, who actually might have been a god.
We know very little about this first proto-Arthur, or, as he was probably known, Artos (which can mean “bear”). It is possible, though not provable, that a very ancient deity, a spirit of the land who ruled alongside his consort Artio, may lie at the root of all the rest, and that the other later “Arthurs”22 took the name in the full knowledge that they were assuming the mantle of an archetype that would both strengthen them and resonate with their followers. This might be the Roman Arthur of the second century AD who led a band of warriors from far-off Sarmatia (who brought their own Arthur-type myths with them) or the later fifth-century hero who brought together the feuding Celtic tribes and welded them into a force strong enough to keep out successive waves of invaders from Germany, Friesland, and Jutland for some forty years, stamping his personality and deeds so utterly on the land that he has never been forgotten.23
But again, it is not these historic Arthurs whose call we answer, though we may do more than nod to them across the centuries. The Arthur we seek is a far loftier figure, one who walks across the infinite reaches of space or lies sleeping under the green earth awaiting his own call to rise up and restore the fortunes of his native land.
Despite the cosmic nature of this figure, he is not so far removed from us as we might think. He can and does reach out across the vastness of time and space to touch our hearts, and he may choose to walk with us on our journeys. He is a figure as much for the present as the past—a shining exemplar, a passionate teacher, and a wise and noble companion.
The Greatest Mage
As do all great men and women, Arthur had a teacher: Merlin, a name almost as resonant as his own. Just as we will not trace the historical reality (or otherwise) of Arthur, so we shall not delay ourselves with speculations regarding the possible identity of Merlin. There is indeed a figure who bore the name Myrddin and who was a bard, a warrior, and a visionary, and who may have lived in the sixth or seventh centuries, but very little of this figure remains in the record of the time, and the reality of the Merlin we shall introduce in these pages is, again, a far older and more cosmic figure than the wizard of medieval and contemporary storytellers. Behind him stands an even more ancient being named Blaise, who was, according to some accounts, Merlin’s own teacher. He is a figure so distant that only through the journey of meditation can we access his teachings, and even then he may seem as distant as a star.
For most of us he is Merlin the Magician, Merlin the Enchanter. He lives backwards in a crystal cave, growing younger every day, though in fact both of these details stem only from the world of twentieth-century fiction, where Merlin is very much alive. There, he wears a pointed hat and starry cloak and carries a staff and may answer to the name of Gandalf, Dumbledore, or even Mr. Spock. But there is much more to him than this composite of medieval and modern imagery drawn from varying sources. Merlin’s roots go far deeper, and he is far older than any of these ideas of his history. Indeed, he has had many incarnations since he first arrived on the scene sometime in the fifth century AD as a prophet and shaman. From this shadowy beginning he has reappeared over the succeeding centuries as a medieval magician, an alchemist, a sage, and even as a lover. In our own time these elements have been combined into the figure we recognize from countless novels, films, plays, and even a couple of operas.
Yet despite the fact that he is one of the most well-known characters in myth, legend, and literature, Merlin remains one of the most enigmatic and subtle players in the vast tapestry of the Arthurian legends. He said of himself, in the medieval text known as the Didot Perceval, “Because I am dark and always will be, my words shall be mysterious”—a truth which remains eminently true to this day.
The oldest stories in which Merlin features derive from the great treasure trove of myth and legend belonging to the Celts. These sources, often forgotten or neglected, are important for a complete understanding of who he was, for while the Arthurian legends in which he plays such a leading part betray the influence of French and German storytellers, the myth of Merlin, in its purest form, draws upon traditions dating from far earlier than any of these. In fact, though we are more used to thinking of Merlin as a medieval magician who arranged the birth of Arthur, who created the Round Table, who set a magical sword into a stone, who performed great feats of magic before being shut under a stone or in a cave by the vengeful faery Nimue, there was another Merlin, an older Merlin whose life and deeds are very different from those of his medieval successor. This Merlin is not a magician but a seer and a prophet—or, as we might call him today, a shaman.24
The first shamans fulfilled many of the roles later attributed to Merlin: they were lore keepers, healers, prophets, diviners, and ceremonialists, as well as ambassadors to, and interpreters of, the gods. Shamans were born, not made; they were literally walkers between the worlds whose attunement to both tribal consciousness and the spirits of the otherworld was so fine that they could slip between the hidden chambers of life and death and report on what they saw there. It is upon the shaman’s revelations and visions that much of our oldest known religious practices and beliefs are founded. While individual tribal members had only a vague notion of the threshold dividing the worlds, not only could the shamans divine future events through interaction with the spirits of nature and of elemental forces, but they were also supremely sensitive to the will of the ancestors, the first gods.
In each of these aspects of the shaman we can find something of the character and actions of Merlin. He too is a mover and a shaper, a seer who offers profound insights into the inner worlds of the spirit. Even in the later medieval figure of the magician, weaving his spells and shaping the destiny of Arthur and his people, we can catch a glimpse of the shaman, while in the earliest records in which the name Merlin appears it is central to his character.
These early records can be enigmatic, often not written down for several hundred years after they were first composed, held in oral memory in the form of poems meant to be spoken or sung by court bards in the halls of early Welsh chieftains; here we shall only touch upon them to demonstrate how ancient and powerful the archetype of Merlin really is.
The first recorded mention of the name Merlin (in its Old Welsh form Myrddin or Mirdyn) is in a ninth-century poem called Y Gododdin that references a warrior called “Mirdyn,” though nothing more is said of his character or role, and we have no means of knowing whether this character is in any way related to the more famous Merlin.25
Another Welsh poem, the Armes Prydein (Prophecy of Britain) that dates from roughly the same period, is more helpful. It uses the phrase Dysgogan Myrdin (Merlin foretells) as the opening words to several of its stanzas. The poem foretells various events that are to come and establishes Merlin as a prophet.26
These brief references suggest that the name Merlin was known as long ago as the eighth or ninth centuries—possibly earlier since these references had almost certainly been preserved in oral tradition for several hundred years before this. Again, whether this Merlin has or had anything to do with the later character, the references are intriguing enough to give us pause for thought.
Elsewhere, in a collection of poetic triplets used by the native British bards as a kind of aide-mémoire for storytellers and poets, we also find mention of Merlin, who is even given a pedigree of sorts. These enigmatic writings, known as Trioedd Ynys Prydein, or the Triads of Britain,27 date in manuscript form from the thirteenth century, but their origins are once again much earlier, being traceable to sixth-century sources at least or even earlier if we refer them to oral tradition. Triad 87 lists Three Skillful Bards of Arthur’s Court: Myrddin son of Morfren, Myrddin Emrys, and Taliesin.28
This reference is particularly important, as it is the first time that Merlin is associated with Arthur, as well as suggesting that there may have been more than one Merlin. We should also note that here Merlin is presented as a bard, a role which at this point in time was assumed to include not only the ability to write poetry and to sing, but also to possess prophetic insight.
In his next appearance in the early literature of Wales, Merlin is not only a poet but also a warrior. A few enigmatic references scattered through a collection of medieval poems, some of which are actually attributed to Merlin himself, tell us a little more and hint at a story that would not be fully retold until the eleventh century.
Merlin and the Dragons
Beyond these fragmentary references most of what we know about Merlin today derives from two written sources, both attributed to the medieval author Geoffrey of Monmouth (1100–1155). The first, his History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Brittaniae), deals only briefly with earlier rulers and concentrates most of its lively retelling on Arthur. But it is here that we meet Merlin for the first time in a role that has remained largely unchanged ever since.
In Geoffrey’s account, Merlin’s first appearance forms a dramatic centerpiece to the first half of the Historia. Vortigern, a minor king, makes a bid for power after having the rightful king assassinated and bringing in Saxon mercenaries to fight the Picts in the north and his own enemies elsewhere. He is briefly popular, but his star soon wanes as more and more Saxons arrive and begin acquiring more extensive areas of land. Finally the exiled sons of the former high king return at the head of an army and Vortigern flees to Wales, where he intends to build a stronghold from where he can mount a counter-offensive.
Having chosen a site, he sets his builders to work, but every night the progress they have made is undone by a mysterious agency. Vortigern consults his Druids and learns that only the blood of a fatherless child, spilled on the foundation stones, will ensure the completion of the fortress. Sent out to search for such a child, Vortigern’s soldiers discover Merlin at Carmarthen. He is the son of a Welsh princess, but no one knows his father. The woman and her son are brought before Vortigern, and Merlin’s mother explains that she has led a devout and pure life, but that she was visited in her chamber by a mysterious being who fathered the child upon her.
Vortigern is tempted to disbelieve this account, but Merlin himself speaks out in defense of his mother and challenges Vortigern and his Druids to explain the real reason why the tower will not stand. He tells them that there is a pool beneath the hilltop and that within it is a stone coffer containing two dragons, one red and the other white, who battle mightily every night, thus causing the ground to shake and the work of the king’s masons to fall. Vortigern orders his men to dig and finds that everything is as Merlin foretold. The wise child then explains that the red dragon symbolizes the Britons and the white dragon the Saxons, and prophecies that after a time the white will overcome the red. He then goes into a trance and for the next fourteen pages in Geoffrey’s book proceeds to expound the future of the race to the very end of time.
Among other events, he prophesies the coming of Arthur, “the Boar of Cornwall,” who will “bring relief from these invaders, for it will trample their necks beneath its feet,” and warns Vortigern of his own forthcoming death. The end of this extraordinary outburst is apocalyptic, with references to a riot among the planetary houses and the fall of deadly rain. Finally, “in the twinkling of an eye the seas shall rise up and the arena of the winds shall be opened once again. The Winds shall do battle together with a blast of ill omen, making their din reverberate from one constellation to another.”29
The structure and content of these prophecies show a remarkable grasp of the tides that control the fate of the world, and Merlin’s vision of the future is as terrifying as anything foretold by Nostradamus several hundred years later. Wherever Geoffrey found the material for this part of his book, it was clearly not from his own mind, indicating that he was in some way the recipient of a body of traditional lore associated with Merlin. From this point onward Merlin is forever associated with dragon energy, the lifeblood of the earth that races and thunders beneath our feet wherever we go and that is most active in the ley lines which crisscross our planet, carrying energy from place to place.
Geoffrey’s book became, by medieval standards, an overnight bestseller, with dozens of manuscripts being copied and distributed. The author, emboldened by the success of his first book, turned to Merlin as the subject of his second work, the Vita Merlini, or Life of Merlin,30 completed around 1150. For this he turned to earlier records, many now lost, and re-created Merlin as a seer and a shaman.
The Life of Merlin
At the beginning of the Vita, Merlin is described as a king of the South Welsh, famed far and wide for his wisdom and power. When war breaks out between Gwendollau, the king of Scotland, and Peredur, a prince of North Wales, Merlin fights alongside two local lords named Peredur and Rodarchus. Also mentioned are three “brothers of the prince” who are mighty warriors and slay many of the enemy until they are themselves slain. The effect of this on Merlin is profound. He laments their deaths movingly and commands a tomb to be raised over them. Finally, the weight of sorrow at their loss overthrows his mind and he runs mad, fleeing from the battlefield into the forest. Merlin now becomes a “man of the woods,” living on roots and grasses, observing the wild animals and even conversing with them and generally displaying all the aspects of the traditional figure of the shaman. Here we are firmly in the world described in the poems attributed to Merlin.
When winter comes he finds it increasingly hard to survive. He complains of this aloud in verses that clearly show Geoffrey’s indebtedness to older poems collected within his lifetime by monkish scribes.
One day a man hears his laments. He is from the court of King Rodarchus, who is now married to Merlin’s sister Ganeida (Gwendydd in Welsh). He reports what he has seen and heard and a party is at once dispatched to the forest to capture the wild man and bring him back to court. They send a bard with the soldiers, and it is this man’s playing that brings Merlin back to the edge of sanity. Through music he remembers both his sister and his wife—a shadowy figure named Guendolena who has almost no part to play in the story, though her existence will contribute to Merlin’s history later on.
The Triple Death
Once back at court, the sights and sounds and the large gathering of people drive Merlin back into his shell of madness. He begs to be allowed to return to the woods he has grown to love, but Rodarchus has him incarcerated until he can be restored to health.
A famous episode now follows that was to be repeated several times in the later stories of Merlin. When he sees Ganeida with her husband, he laughs aloud. Puzzled, the king demands to know what causes this mirth. For an answer, Merlin says that when he saw Rodarchus remove a leaf from his wife’s hair, he laughed because he knew that she had got it while meeting with her lover in the woods. Furious, the king rounds on Ganeida, but she conceals her guilt by dismissing her brother’s words as those of a madman. She then offers to put the king’s mind at rest by proving just how mad Merlin is. She sends for a boy and asks Merlin how he will die. He replies that the boy will drown. Ganeida then sends the boy away, has his hair cut and different clothes put on him, and presents him again to Merlin, asking the same question. This time he says the boy will die by falling from a cliff. Finally, Ganeida has the boy dressed as a girl and asks the same question for a third time. Merlin laughs and says that “he” will hang.
By this time everyone is convinced that Merlin is truly mad, and they prepare to release him back into the wild. Ganeida and Guendolena make an effort to persuade him to stay, but he refuses. Ganeida at this point asks him if his wife should be allowed to remarry, and Merlin says that she may do as she pleases but that any man who marries her should watch out and never come near him. He then returns to the forest.
Shortly after, the boy for whom Merlin predicted three separate deaths is out riding and falls from the back of his horse over a cliff; his foot is caught in a tree branch, and as he hangs there upside-down his head goes beneath the waters of a river and he drowns. Thus Merlin’s prediction is proved true as the boy falls, is hung, and drowns in the same moment.
This whole episode focuses on a very ancient theme indeed. Among the early Celts such a triple death would have marked the one who suffered it as being chosen by the gods. Evidence has come to light in recent years suggesting that those chosen for sacrifice may have been killed in this way. The body of a man found in a peat bog in Cheshire and dating from the first century AD was found to have been both strangled and had his throat cut before he was thrown into the water. The contents of his stomach indicate that he had eaten a ritual meal just before his death, suggesting that he was indeed a chosen victim offered to the gods, whose otherworldly kingdom was believed to be accessed though water. The presence of this episode in the Vita points to a genuinely ancient source for this part of the story, perhaps a distant memory of a time when a figure not unlike Merlin would have served as a priest—and may himself have dealt the triple death to a chosen sacrificial victim. It is very much in line with the shamanic aspects of his character.
Merlin in the House of Stars
In the Vita time passes and Guendolena finally plans to remarry, having given up any hope of seeing Merlin again. He, watching the stars, reads this coming event and feels abandoned. He summons a herd of deer and, riding on the back of a stag, drives them before him to the court. There, seeing Guendolena’s would-be bridegroom standing in a window laughing at him, Merlin wrenches off the stag’s antlers and throws them, killing the man instantly. Officers from the court pursue him and catch him when he falls into a river. He is brought back to the court in chains and on the way laughs aloud twice more, apparently without reason.
When he hears this, Rodarchus is consumed with curiosity and demands to know why. At first Merlin refuses to explain anything, but he finally agrees to talk if he is allowed to return to the forest. Rodarchus agrees, and Merlin explains that the first time he laughed was when he saw a man begging in the street, little knowing that he was sitting on top of a hoard of gold (a story also told of the biblical prophet Elijah). The second time was when he saw a man buying a new pair of shoes, though in fact he would drown in the river a few hours later. Once again both predictions are proved true and Merlin is set free.
Before he departs, Ganeida again begs him not to leave, but Merlin is adamant.
Why, my dear sister, do you strive so hard to hold me back? Neither winter with its storms, nor the chill north wind when it rages with savage blast and lashes the flocks of bleating sheep with sudden hail-shower…will be able to deter me from seeking the forest wilderness and the green glades…31
Then he relents. After all, food might grow short, so he lets his sister build him a house with seventy doors and windows through which he may study the stars and read the future of the nation. Further,
let there be many secretaries trained to record what I say, and let them concentrate on committing my prophetic songs to paper. Come here often yourself, dear sister, and you will be able to stay my hunger with food and drink.32
It could be said indeed that those who work magically with the archetype of Merlin today are “secretaries” taking down his wisdom.
So Ganeida builds Merlin a house with seventy doors and windows, as requested, and comes to visit him as often as she can. Most of the time he continues to live under the trees, but in winter he retreats inside to watch the stars and to prophesy. Soon after this he is joined by the bard Taliesin, and the two wise men fall to talking of the mysteries: wind, weather, and the secrets of creation.
As we observe Merlin and the bard discussing the wonders of creation, we may notice a significant detail. Taliesin recalls how together he and Merlin carried the wounded Arthur from the Battle of Camlan and, with the help of the mythical ferryman Barinthus, took him to the Island of Apples, ruled over by a ninefold sisterhood, of whom the first and most famous is named Morgen. This character will later metamorphose into the familiar Morgan le Fay, Arthur’s half sister and archenemy in the great medieval epics that follow; here she is represented as a goddesslike figure well-versed in the healing arts, once again proving Geoffrey’s familiarity with more ancient folklore and myth, in which Morgane (under the guise of the Morrighan) appears as a goddess of war. This remains one of the oldest sources that connect Arthur, Morgen, and Avalon, and here for the first time we learn of the fateful Battle of Camlan and of Arthur’s eventual end.
These memories prompt Merlin to begin a further strand of prophecies about the leaders who will follow Arthur. But while the two seers are thus engaged, word comes of a new spring that has broken forth from the ground nearby. They go to view this, and when Merlin drinks from it his mind is at last restored. Word of this reaches Ganeida and the rest of the court, and people begin to make their way into the woods to ask Merlin to lead them again. But he refuses, pleading old age and a desire to retire from the world and to continue his observances from within his house. Taliesin decides to remain also, and soon after Ganeida also comes to join them. Ganeida herself now finally begins to express her own prophetic gifts, the powers she has shared with Merlin but had chosen to lay aside in her role as queen and mother to her children.
Many of these events, especially the stories of the wild man of the woods and his prophetic gift, strike a shamanic note. As with most traditional shamanic figures, seership comes after a period of sickness or seeming madness. In common also with such people, Merlin lives separately from his fellow men in the forest, eating grasses and roots. He talks with animals, watches the stars, and makes prognostications from events he has observed. Like shamans from the dawn of time, people come to consult him and he responds with revelatory visions. Virtually every aspect of his character as depicted here seems to point to memories of the shamans who once served as guides and interpreters of the mysterious world around them.
Geoffrey gives us an unforgettable portrait of Merlin: intensely human, crushed by the horror of war, yet crafty and cunning as any shaman of the old world. His Merlin is a lover also, capable of experiencing jealousy, yet he harbours an awesome power—the gift of prophecy and seership that enable him to foretell the future and see the truth hidden beneath everyday events. By presenting him in this way, Geoffrey established a basic pattern for the characterization of Merlin, which would be reworked again and again through the ages.
Like the ancient shamans in whose footsteps he treads, Merlin is an elemental figure here who may perhaps remind us of the Green Man, a powerful nature spirit of ancient and world-wide tradition who represented the very essence of the natural world. But when he withdraws into the forest again, as he does at the end of Geoffrey’s tale, to live not in the wilderness but in an observatory from which he studies the pathways of the stars, he has already begun to transform into another Merlin. This being is both a prophet and a magician, and it is in this guise that we shall meet with him again and again in our journey to Camelot.
Merlin’s Esplumoir
It has become customary to view the end of Merlin’s career in a certain light: as an ageing magician captivated by a young woman. In this scenario Merlin is beguiled into giving away his greatest secrets in return for sexual favours; once the temptress—whose name may be Nimue, Niniane, or Vivienne—has succeeded in extracting this knowledge, she at once uses it to imprison her aged lover, sometimes under a great rock, sometimes within a hawthorn bush, sometimes in a glass tower. From here he is said to utter elusive prophecies or gnomic sayings, while in some versions the Perron de Merlin, or stone of Merlin, becomes a starting point for adventure, to which those in search of the strange or the mysterious resort to await events or instruction.
Such is the story which Malory gives us in the Morte d’Arthur (book IV, ch. 1):
Merlin fell in a dotage on the damosel that King Pellinore brought to court, and she was one of the damosels of the lake, called Nimue. But Merlin would let her have no rest, but always he would be with her. And ever she made Merlin good cheer till she learned of him all manner thing that she desired; and he was assotted on her, that he might not be from her…and always Merlin lay about the lady to have her maidenhead, and she was ever passing weary of him…and she could not be rid of him by no means. And so on a time it happed that Merlin showed her in a rock whereat was a great wonder, and wrought by enchantment, that went under a great stone. So by her subtle working she made Merlin to go under that stone to let her wit of the marvels there; but she wrought so there for him that he came never out for all the craft he could do. And so she departed and left Merlin.
In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Vita Merlini and elsewhere, Merlin reaches a great age, or a particular stage of spiritual development, and decides to retire from the world of his own accord. He is sometimes still accompanied by a female companion, though, as in the Vita, it is more likely to be his sister than his lover, and the place of retirement may still be a tower, an island, or a cave, but these are all seen as places of Merlin’s own choosing or even construction.
To understand this aspect of the story, we need to ask why Merlin should withdraw from the world. We have already suggested one answer: that he sought further knowledge or the opportunity to grow. However, this may only be one aspect of the truth. There are, in fact, several other figures, though from different traditions, each of whom shares some of Merlin’s attributes as prophet, mystic, and seer, and has a specific reason for withdrawing. Consideration of these figures may help to clarify matters.
The figures in question are generally known by the term “hidden” or “inner” kings, beings who have responsibility for a particular aspect of tradition or teaching and who continue to administer this even after they have withdrawn from active participation in the world, although they are not actually dead. Among the most notable are Melchizedek, Enoch, Elijah—and Merlin himself.
Despite their many differences, these figures share certain important aspects. They are all mysterious, shadowy beings who appear at a time of crucial import and who seem to have neither an orthodox beginning nor end to their lives. Finally, they each withdraw or disappear, leaving conflicting accounts of their actual existence, function, or allegiance.
Melchizedek was “without beginning or end”33 while Enoch “walked with God and was not”34 but beyond this seems to have no point of origin. Enoch is first mentioned in Jewish traditional sources—significantly, as we shall see—as living in a hidden place from which he watches and records the deeds of mankind and holds occasional converse with God. Later he is represented as a king over men who ruled for more than two hundred years before being summoned by God to rule over the angelic hosts.
To this rather sparse account we can add, from various other sources, that Enoch visited heaven, often while still in the flesh, and that he was instructed by Archangel Michael in all things, after which he wrote some 366 books—an interesting detail, as some have claimed that Merlin wrote the same number of prophetic books.
When transported to heaven, Enoch had bestowed upon him “extraordinary wisdom, sagacity, judgment, knowledge, learning, compassion, love, kindness, grace, humility, strength, power, might, splendour, beauty, shapeliness and all other excellent qualities,” and received besides
many thousand blessings from God, and his height and breadth became equal to the height and breadth of the world, and thirty-six wings were attached to his body to the right and to the left, each as large as the world, and three hundred and sixty-five thousand eyes were bestowed upon him, each as brilliant as the sun…35
The description continues for several more paragraphs, outlining a truly cosmic figure. At the end it is revealed that Enoch—whose name, not surprisingly perhaps, means “the enlightened one”—received a new name. As the text puts it:
A magnificent throne was erected for him beside the gates of the seventh celestial palace, and a herald proclaimed throughout heaven concerning him, who was henceforth to be called Metatron. God declares: I have appointed my servant Metatron as prince and chief over all other princes in my realm…whatever angel has a request to refer to me, shall appear before Metatron, and what he will command at my bidding, ye must observe and do, for the Prince of Wisdom and the Prince of Understanding are at his service, and they will reveal unto him the science of the celestials and the terrestrials, and knowledge of the present order of the world, and the knowledge of the future order of the world. Furthermore have I made him guardian of the treasures of the palace of heaven, Arabot, and of the treasures of life that are in the highest heavens.36
Enoch has thus become a Lord of Hosts and a guardian of the treasures of life in heaven. More interestingly, he is also said to have assumed the position left vacant by the fall of Lucifer. He thus balances the uneven ranks of the angelic host, and perhaps it is not stretching the analogy too far to see here an echo of the place left empty at the Round Table, which will one day be filled by the destined champion of the Grail. In the description of the revelation of the sciences celestial and terrestrial, the knowledge of present and future, we have another analogy of the knowledge and wisdom of Merlin, derived from within his observatory with its seventy doors and windows. That he is also a guardian of treasures adds yet a further parallel, as Merlin is also said to guard the Thirteen Treasures of Britain.37
Many ages after the withdrawal of Enoch, another figure appears to represent the mysterious hierarchy of the withdrawn kings. This is Elijah, who even in biblical sources comes across as a rather cantankerous, argumentative character, not at all above telling God how things ought to be done. The story is told that when the time came for him to ascend to heaven, the Angel of Death was reluctant to admit him. Elijah argued so violently before the gates of heaven that God himself was forced to intervene and gave permission for a wrestling match between Elijah and the angel. Elijah was victorious and now sits with Enoch and Melchizedek, like them recording the deeds of mankind. He is also seen as a psychopomp, detailed to stand at the crossroads of paradise and guide the righteous dead to their appointed place. He is thus, like both Enoch and Merlin, a way-shower, guiding travellers on an inner journey, and, like Enoch, he rules over a portion of paradise.
Many stories are told of Elijah’s travels through the world and of his many disguises, through which he becomes something of a joker, though always remaining a stern judge of human frailty. Thus he is often to be found travelling the roads with some unsuspecting companion, behaving in an extraordinary manner or laughing unaccountably as one who knows the inner truth of the situation from an unknown source. In this he resembles Merlin closely, since there are several well-attested instances of “Merlin’s laughter,” where he has perceived things unseen by others and finds the foolishness of men too funny to restrain his mirth.
Indeed, there are so many similarities between Elijah and Merlin that it is very easy to pass from one to the other, especially if one considers one of the most significant accounts of Merlin’s end. It is found in the medieval Grail romance known as the Didot Perceval. Here Merlin declares that God “did not wish him to show himself to people any longer, yet that he should not be able to die until the end of the world.” To Perceval, he adds: “I wish to make a lodging outside your palace and dwell there, and I shall prophesy wherever our lord commands me. And all those who see my lodging will name it the Esplumoir (or Molting Cage) of Merlin.”38
The word esplumoir takes us even more deeply into the heart of the mystery that connects Merlin to the inner kings and also provides the true reason for his withdrawal.
The Nest of Vision
Much speculation has gone into the meaning of the word esplumoir, since there is no exact equivalent in English. For a long while it was believed that the term originated from the cage in which hunting falcons were kept, and that because Merlin happened to share his name with an actual bird of prey, an elaborate pun was intended. In one sense this was correct, since birds molt in order to change and to grow fresh plumage, and Merlin himself, under another guise, is described as wearing a cloak of feathers and living like a bird in a tree.
However, the real meaning of esplumoir is even stranger and takes us into some very curious areas. In Celtic tradition we find an episode from the Voyage of Maelduin, in which the travellers arrive at an island where they see a huge bird renew itself over and over in the waters of a lake. When one of the crew drinks this water, he is said never again to be troubled with bad eyesight or toothache, so strong are the properties of the water. The same text adds a biblical reference for the validity of this episode, from the psalm which says “You shall renew yourselves as eagles,”39 and it is to a biblical, or rather a Hebraic, source that we must turn for a further definition of the esplumoir.
In the Zohar, one of the most important mystical texts of the Judaic tradition, we find a description of paradise that both recalls the earlier passages dealing with Enoch and Elijah and takes us a step further. In this passage we read of a part of heaven in which is “a certain hidden place, which no eye has seen but those to whom God shows it, and which is called ‘the Bird’s Nest’…Within this the Messiah (in Jewish tradition there are many Messiahs, so that Christ is not necessarily meant here) lies ailing, in the fifth hall of Paradise, in the Castle of Souls, the Bird’s Nest, visited only by Elijah, who comforts him.”40
This conjures up a scene that will be well known to students of the Grail. There, in many different texts, we find an old, ailing king lying in the hall of the Grail Castle (which could certainly be termed the Castle of the Soul) visited by Arthur’s knights. When we discover that in a romance almost contemporary to the first known compilation of the texts that became the Zohar, this same king is called “Messias”—a word that could only have come from the Hebrew—the parallel is even greater. What, then, of the “Bird’s Nest”? The text further describes it as a place of prophetic vision:
The Messiah enters that abode, lifts up his eyes, and beholds the Fathers (Patriarchs) visiting the ruins of God’s sanctuary. He perceives mother Rachel with tears upon her face; the Holy One, blessed be He, tries to comfort her, but she refuses to be comforted. Then the Messiah lifts up his voice and weeps and the whole Garden of Eden quakes, and all the righteous saints who are there break out in crying and lamentation with him. When the crying and weeping resound for the second time, the whole firmament above the Garden begins to shake, and the cry echoes from five hundred myriads of supernal hosts, until it reaches the highest throne.41
Merlin, also, when he enters his esplumoir, is able to see things that others cannot: glimpses of British history, just as the Messiah sees glimpses of Jewish history. There is, also, a marked similarity between the apocalyptic descriptions in the Zohar and the extraordinary visions of Merlin in both the Vita Merlini and the earlier Prophecies set out in Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the middle of the twelfth century.
Nor should we be surprised by these points of similarity between Christian and Judaic authorities; the barriers between the two cultures in the Middle Ages were far less severe than is often supposed. It is more than likely that any one of the widely read, much-travelled romance writers could have encountered the tradition embodied in the Zohar and elsewhere, and that it became a seed planted in the soil of their own vision. Thus Chrétien, who was the first to capture the story of the Grail in a coherent form, may himself have been a converted Jew or at least may have had access to the extensive Jewish library in his hometown of Troyes.42
In Celtic literature also, long recognized as a primary source for the Arthurian myths, are descriptions of the otherworldly abode of the dead, in which both Enoch and Elijah are described as living on a mysterious island until the day of judgment, while in an early poem of the bard Taliesin, who also identified himself with Merlin, we find the line “I was instructor to Elijah and Enoch.”43
Merlin likewise is said to retire to a glass house containing the Thirteen Treasures of Britain—including the Cauldron of Annwn, the Celtic Grail—and this also is on an island. Indeed, an early nineteenth-century scholar interpreted this in his own particular way, describing
a museum of rarities in King Arthur’s time…which Myrddin ap Morfran, the Caledonian, upon the destruction of that place, carried with him to the house of glass in the isle of Enill or Bardsey…This house of glass, it seems, was the museum where they kept their curiosities to be seen by everybody, but not handled; and it is probable that Myrddin…was the keeper of their museum in that time…44
Merlin’s esplumoir is here both a treasure house and a place of prophecy, as is the Bird’s Nest, and within it, like Enoch and Elijah, Merlin notes down the history of mankind to a clerk named Helyas, whose name is a corruption of Elijah and who writes down all that Merlin recounts from inside his retreat, just as Blaise does for Merlin in other versions of the Arthuriad.
Again, remembering how, in the Vita Merlini, Merlin withdraws to his observatory to study the heavens and the mysteries of creation, we see another version of the molting cage as a place of study and learning—a place where, in the magical inner realm built by Merlin himself in another dimension, the prophet and wise man can put together the fragments of his knowledge to make a whole. This is Merlin as phoenix, and we may remember that in the thirteenth-century poem Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the Grail is described as a stone, having the properties of renewal, “like that from which the phoenix renews itself when it is near to death, and from which it arises again restored.”
There are a number of references in Arthurian literature to an early name for Britain being Clas Merddin, Merlin’s Enclosure, and it is said elsewhere that he built a wall of brass around this island to protect it from invasion or attack; here, perhaps, we have another aspect of the esplumoir.
Along with the references to Clas Merddin are many more that relate the island of Britain to the magical realm of Faery. In a text concerning the adventures of Ogier le Dane, a hero once as famous as Arthur, we find him carried off to Avalon by Morgan le Fay. The description is interesting:
The barge on which Ogier was, floated across the sea until it came near the Castle of Loadstone, which is called the Castle of Avalon, which is not far this side of the Terrestrial Paradise, whither were wrapt in a flame of fire Enoch and Elijah, and where was also Morgan le Fay…45
Virtually the same story is found in a thirteenth-century Spanish Arthurian romance called La Faula by Guillem de Torroella.46
Here we have descriptions of the otherworld in which are not only Morgan le Fay but also Enoch and Elijah. Again, in the Vita Merlini, we find a description of Britain that leaves us in no doubt that the tradition drawn upon here saw this island in a particular light. Britain is
…foremost and best, producing in its fruitfulness every single thing. For it bears crops which throughout the year give the noble gifts of fragrance to man, and it has woods and glades with honey dripping in them, and lofty mountains and broad green fields, fountains and rivers, fishes and cattle and wild beasts, fruit trees, gems, precious metals, and whatever creative nature is in the habit of furnishing.47
This is Avalon as much as it is Britain; Merlin’s isle, where adventure begins at the stone that bears his name, and where his voice may be heard upraised in prophetic utterance.
The Withdrawn King
Together with Enoch, Elijah, Melchizedek, and many more, Merlin has become a withdrawn or inner king, one who has chosen to enter an inner realm from which he will no longer play a direct role in the affairs of the world, electing instead to mediate events at a deeper level, where the barriers between humanity and the otherworld are less defined.
This new house is the real esplumoir, the molting cage where it is possible to sever all ties with the outer world and move towards another state of being. There are parallels for this in many other areas of study, including Sufism or the Qabalah. This shifting jigsaw of people and places happens outside of time, where different names are given to the same people manifesting in time and at each junction taking on a new aspect with an ongoing purpose. A late medieval manuscript wonders how so wise a man as Merlin could have allowed himself to be entrapped by a girl and speculates as to the real nature of the story:
For there are a variety of opinions and talk among the people, for some of them hold that…Merlin was a spirit in human form, who was in that shape from the time of Vortigern until the beginning of King Arthur when he disappeared…After that, this spirit appeared again in the time of Maelgwn Gwynedd at which time he was called Taliesin, who is said to be alive yet in a place called Caer Sidia. Then, he appeared a third time in the days of Morfran Frych son of Esyllt whose son he was said to be, and in this period he was called Merlin the Mad. From that day to this, he is said to be resting in Caer Sidia, whence certain people believe firmly that he will rise up once again before Doomsday.48
Merlin is evidently still seen as active from within the sphere of Caer Sidi (misspelled “Sidia”), which is yet another name for the Celtic otherworld, as well as a place where a famous prisoner, Gwair (or Guri or Mabon), once resided.49
In the other, parallel version, Enoch/Metatron begins as a replacement for Lucifer, righting the balance of power in heaven. He reappears as Melchizedek, initiating a line of priestly kings who lead to Christ and beyond, to the Grail itself. He reappears next as Enoch, who becomes Sandalphon, the way-shower, and returns yet again as Merlin, who takes the Grail to the Nesting Place, the Bird’s Nest, the esplumoir, from where it passes into other hands.
This is all a far cry from the view of a lovesick old fool who allows himself to be tricked into an imprisonment from which he cannot escape. Here Merlin’s withdrawal is a willing one, made from choice, to allow him the freedom of spirit necessary to enable him to grow and change. This can best be brought about within the chamber of the Grail, which is called by many different names but had only one identity, like the withdrawn kings. They are the same, yet different, as is the Grail and all it stands for. Merlin is one of those figures that travels through the world for a while, only to withdraw again into the inner realm.
Merlin’s Mysteries
As soon as we move beyond these impressive beginnings into the epic landscape of the medieval romances that made Arthur famous the world over, we see just how deeply Merlin’s work is woven into the tapestry of the Arthurian world. According to the medieval stories, Merlin is a failed Antichrist whose mother is visited in her chamber by a golden man who lies with her and gets her with child. When it is born, the infant is strange, otherworldly, covered in black hair. His mother sees a merlin hawk flying over and names him for it and has him baptized so that the black hairy pelt falls off him and he is no longer part of the plot to destroy humanity. However, the child retains the knowledge that came to him from his dark origins, only now he uses it to the betterment of humanity by attempting to found a perfect earthly kingdom ruled over by Arthur and Guinevere.
Other sources suggest that the being that visited Merlin’s mother in secret was a faery, one of the Sidhe perhaps, so that Merlin had faery blood. Another idea is that he was born in and from the great forest of Broceliande, the place evoked by Dante in his famous line “Midway though this life I woke to find myself in a dark wood…”,50 a dark wood that somehow contains the whole of human consciousness, all our dreams and nightmares or hopes and fears—an endless pool of knowledge from which Merlin borrows what he needs to create the Arthurian kingdom.
The Begetting of Arthur
Once Merlin had been drawn into the sphere of the Arthurian tradition, it was inevitable that his role should become that of guardian and guide to the young king. More importantly, he is seen as active in the actual process of the future king’s conception, as though echoing his own strange birth to produce another child of wonder.
Once again it is Geoffrey of Monmouth, who did so much to shape the Arthurian mythos, who gives us the earliest surviving version of the story. Though well known, it is worth looking at again. In the Historia after the triumphant return of Aurelius and Uther, the former rules only briefly before being poisoned, after which Uther becomes king. His first victory, over the Saxons, is aided by an alliance with Gorlois, duke of Cornwall, and at the celebrations that take place after the battle, the duke’s wife, Ygerna, is present. As soon as he sees her, Uther is immediately filled with desire for her, with the result that he took no notice of anything else, but devoted all his attention to her. To her and to no one else he kept ordering plates of food to be passed to her. Also, he kept sending his own personal attendants with golden goblets of wine…When Ygerna’s husband saw what was happening, he was so annoyed that he withdrew from the court without taking leave.51
This made Uther so angry that he declared war on his former ally and raised a huge army to pursue Gorlois back to his lands. Fearing for his life and the safety of his wife, the duke placed her in the care of trusted officers in the castle of Tintagel. He himself fortified the nearby camp at Dimilioc. Learning of this, Uther attacked both places and was repulsed. Tintagel Castle itself was virtually impregnable, and the knowledge that Ygerna was within drove Uther mad. At the suggestion of his advisors he summoned Merlin, who was, according to Geoffrey, amazed at the strength of Uther’s passion and promised to help him. Interestingly, there is an attempt to avoid Merlin’s use of magic to bring about the desired events. Geoffrey’s text reads:
If you are to have your wish (said Merlin) you must make use of methods which are quite new and until now unheard-of in your day. By my drugs I know how to give you the precise appearance of Gorlois, so that you will resemble him in every respect.52
Just what these drugs are that Merlin is supposed to use is never revealed, though in Robert de Boron’s later version of the story Merlin gets Uther to rub his face with a herb that transforms him. Still later texts make it clear that he uses magic, but the outcome is that they arrive at Tintagel looking like the duke and his men, and are admitted. That night Uther lies with Ygerna and begets Arthur upon her. At the same time, Gorlois leads a foray against Uther’s army and is killed, thus ensuring by a technicality that the future king Arthur’s paternity is assured and leaving the way clear for Uther to marry the widowed Ygerna.
The Sword in the Stone
Arthur’s birth, brought about in this way through the disguising of a man by otherworldly means to resemble the husband of the woman he loves, fits the ancient Celtic myth of the Wondrous Child. In addition, it paves the way for Merlin to engineer his next miracle, the sword in the stone, which brings with it public recognition of his protégé.
Other writers were not slow to take up the story that Geoffrey had launched, and in the accounts that followed, Merlin’s true magical status came more and more to the fore. In Robert de Boron’s version, as in most that followed, the election of Arthur to king was less of a foregone conclusion. Others contested his parentage and legitimacy, and it is up to Merlin to arrange a spectacular event to ensure that the destined king is chosen.
The scene is one of the most famous of the stories of Arthur and has been retold countless times. Merlin arranges for all the various contenders to come together in London to choose a new leader. He then sets up a block of marble with an anvil set into it through which is sunk the blade of a sword. Around the anvil is written, in letters of gold, the following legend:
Whoso pulleth this sword from this stone is rightwise king born of all England
When word of this spreads, all of the would-be kings try to free the sword. But of course Merlin has seen to it that only Arthur can succeed, and with this single act he establishes himself as the most worthy person to rule.
The sword from the stone is often confused with Arthur’s more famous weapon, Excalibur, but in fact the young king does not get this sword until later, when the first one provided by Merlin shatters in battle. In fact, the enchanter’s next great magical act is to provide Arthur with a far more powerful weapon.
Heroes have always been portrayed with magical swords, which often ensure their recognition as the rightful heir to a kingdom. The Greek hero Theseus earns the right to rule by lifting a huge boulder beneath which lies his father’s sword. In Germanic mythology Siegfried proves his worth by pulling forth a sword embedded in a tree. Arthur is no exception, and in virtually every version of the story it is Merlin who arranges for Arthur to get the sword, which is in the keeping of the Lady of the Lake, one of the most powerful otherworldly and magical figures alongside Merlin himself. When the sword from the stone breaks, Arthur is bereft of his heroic weapon, but Merlin calms him by saying that he will obtain for him a far better sword. Let Malory take up the tale:
…they rode until they came to a lake, the which was a fair water and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in the hand. Lo! said Merlin, yonder is that sword that I spake of. With that they saw a damosel going upon the lake. What damosel is that? said Arthur. That is the Lady of the Lake, said Merlin; and within that lake is a rock, and therein is as faire a place as any on earth, and richly beseen; and the damosel will come to you anon, and then speak ye fair to her that she will give you that sword. Anon the damosel came…Damosel, said Arthur, what sword is that, that yonder the arm holdest above the water? I would it were mine, for I have no sword. Sir Arthur, king, said the damosel, that sword is mine, and if ye will give me a gift when I ask it of you, ye shall have it. By my faith, said Arthur, I will give what gift ye will ask. Well, said the damosel, go ye into yonder barge, and row yourself to the sword and take it and the scabbard with you, and I will ask my gift when I see my time. So Sir Arthur and Merlin alighted and tied their horses to two trees, and so they went into the ship and when they came to the sword that the hand held, Sir Arthur took it up by the handles, and took it with him, and the arm and the hand went under the water.53
As in so many instances within epic and mythic story, this magical gift comes with a condition that will cause Arthur trouble later on, when the lady demands the head of a rival damosel, but from this time on Arthur holds the most powerful weapon on earth, which while he carries it makes him undefeatable. However, as Merlin explains shortly after, the scabbard is every bit as important:
Then Sir Arthur looked on the sword, and liked it passing well. Whether liketh you better, said Merlin, the sword or the scabbard? Me liketh better the sword, said Arthur. Ye are more unwise, said Merlin, for the scabbard is worth ten of the swords, for while ye have the scabbard upon you, ye shall never lose no blood, be ye never so sore wounded; therefore keep well the scabbard always with you.54
Merlin’s part in all this is more than a simple go-between. He knows the Lady of the Lake and is aware of the sword’s unique power, for this is no ordinary weapon but one of the ancient and sacred hallows of Britain. By accepting it Arthur enters into a contract as ruler over the sacred earth. Merlin and the lady together bear witness to this agreement, and both will guard and protect the young king throughout his life. This is a theme to which we shall return later, as it had far-reaching effects within the Arthurian world and is still important to modern practitioners of magic. And as we shall see, the power of the sword remains central to the stories and to an understanding of their deepest inner nature.
The Round Table
Merlin is now at the height of his powers. Arthur has been chosen king, a group of rival lords has been successfully defeated (not without a little help from the enchanter, who causes the rebel army to see terrifying visions), and now the king has his magical sword. Only one further act remains for the great enchanter to bring about: the building of the Round Table and the establishment of a fellowship of knights who will sit around it, and whose names and deeds will continue to live in memory long after Merlin himself has departed.
The first mention of the Round Table comes in the work of the Anglo-Norman poet Wace in his Roman de Brut,55 in which he gave his own version of the events described by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Wace evidently had access to other sources than those used by Geoffrey, and one of these may have contained a reference to the creation of the table. Wace tells us that it was created at the request of Arthur himself, in order to prevent his followers from quarrelling over who should sit closest to him. However, it is Robert de Boron who seems to have been the first writer to elaborate the story and to describe Merlin as the table’s actual creator. In this instance he makes the table not for Arthur but for Uther, to whom he tells the story of the Last Supper and of a second table built at the command of Joseph of Arimathea in memory of the first Eucharist. Here the members of the Grail Family, a select group of guardians whose task it is to protect the sacred vessel, sit to eat and are fed by the Grail.
Now Merlin proposes a third table, at which will one day sit a great company whose chivalrous deeds will be honored all over the world. In the later versions of the story Merlin has the table made “round, in the likeness of the world” and presents it to Arthur when he marries Guinevere. Even the suggestion to send out a call for all knights of worship and strength to come and sit at the table originates with the mage, who also warns Arthur that one seat should be left empty until the one destined to sit there appears. This is said to be in memory of the seat occupied by Judas at the Last Supper, and later we are shown how anyone foolish enough to disobey this instruction is likely to be swallowed up as the earth splits open and a warning voice announces that this chair is only for the destined Grail knight. Long before this, when the table is installed at Camelot, Merlin arranges for statues representing twelve kings overcome by Arthur to be installed, each one holding a candle to light the hall. And when the first fifty knights (there will be three times this number in the end) arrive, Merlin has seen to it that their names are already inscribed in letters of gold on the backs of each chair. The “fairest fellowship in all the world” is thus established with the help of Merlin’s magic. (See also chapters 7 and 9for more about the magical nature of the table.)
Merlin’s Wonders
From here on, Merlin’s role as a magician and wonder worker is well established. We see him appearing to Arthur in various guises—as a fur-clad hunter, as an old man, and as a child, each one blessed with a unique wisdom. On one occasion, when Arthur catches sight of the mysterious Questing Beast, a creature made up of several animals, Merlin appears first as a youth who offers to explain to Arthur the meaning of the creature. When Arthur rejects this information on the grounds that the boy is too young to know of such matters, Merlin reappears as an old man, to whose words Arthur is far more willing to listen. From this point on, we are given to understand, Merlin will take this form at all times, for in this way he is more certain of being listened to. It may well be to this moment that we owe the characteristic image of Merlin as a white-bearded elder, though he remained a young man beneath his disguise. His initial appearance as a youth, however, reveals Merlin’s essentially otherworldly form as a wondrous child who can accomplish the most remarkable deeds.
Once the Round Table is established, Merlin’s role begins to diminish. He looks ahead to the future appearance of the Grail, destined to be the new fellowship’s greatest adventure, and prepares the way for this in various ways. Almost his last act before apparently falling into a trap set for him by the otherworldly Nimue is the part he plays in the story of two knights, the brothers Balin and Balan.
The story begins with the arrival of the Lady of the Lake demanding the gift she had been promised by Arthur, which turns out to be the head of another lady who had only recently asked for help from the fellowship. Caught in a dilemma, Arthur refuses, and in the ensuing melee the hot-tempered Balin snatches up a sword and cuts off the Lady of the Lake’s head. From this moment he is under a curse and sets out on a series of adventures, shadowed by Merlin at every point. The final act in this tragic series of events occurs when Balin, pursuing an evil knight who attacks people under a cloak of invisibility, accidentally wounds Pelles, the Grail king. This event, known as the Dolorous Blow, is one of several events that take place at this time and that foretell the coming of the Grail. Shortly after this Balin meets up with his brother, Balan, though neither recognizes the other since they are disguised in unfamiliar armor. The brothers fight and mortally wound each other. Merlin, who has watched all of this, now appears, and, taking the sword from Balin, embeds it in a stone that he then sets adrift on a river. In an echo of Arthur’s drawing of the sword from the stone, Galahad, the future Grail winner (also a Wondrous Child), will later take this weapon for himself. Merlin meanwhile buries the two dead knights in a single tomb over which he erects a stone. He prophecies that many famous combats between rival knights will take place there.
This story illustrates the nature of Merlin’s involvement in the affairs of the Round Table and of King Arthur’s realm. Constantly watching, sometimes intervening directly, he is always shaping the future, as though following some secret dream of his own. It is here that we see him in his most typical guise as the mover behind the scenes, as someone who knows what is to come and sets out to ensure that the destiny of Arthur and his knights is fulfilled. Soon he will retire to his esplumoir, from where he can reach out even to our own time.
Practice
The work connected to this chapter will be found primarily in chapters 9–12. There, the meditations and rituals are designed to open the way into the realm of Arthur, the mysteries of Merlin, and the magic of the Round Table.
20. Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, trans. Lewis Thorpe (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966).
21. Malory, T. Le Morte d’Arthur, ed. J. Matthews (Orion, 2000).
22. A possible etymology might be har-tios—(as in theos)—“the (house) of God.” This is Hebrew and Greek, though it could also be armes dio—in Welsh/Latin “prophecy of God”). Suggested by David Elkington.
23. Matthews, J. and C. The Complete King Arthur (Inner Traditions, 2016).
24. Matthews, J. Merlin: Shaman, Prophet, Magician (Mitchell Beazley, 2004).
25. O’Grady, D. Y Gododdin (Dolmen Editions, 1977).
26. Matthews, J. and C. Taliesin: The Last Celtic Shaman (Inner Traditions, 2000).
27. Trioedd Ynys Prydein, ed. R. Bromwich (University of Wales Press, 1978).
28. Ibid.
29. Stewart, R. J. The Prophetic Vision of Merlin (Arkana, 1986).
30. Vita Merlini, Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. and trans. J. J. Parry (University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, 1925). Edited with commentary as The Mystic Life of Merlin, R. J. Stewart (Arkana, 1986).
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Heb. 7:3.
34. Gen. 5:24.
35. Ginsberg, A. The Legends of the Jews, 138–139.
36. Ibid., 139–40.
37. Trioedd Ynys Prydein, ed. R. Bromwich (University of Wales Press, 1978), appendix 1.
38. Didot Perceval, 94.
39. Psalms 18, 22.
40. Zohar III, 22ff.
41. Ibid.
42. Weinraub, E. J. Chrétien’s Jewish Grail (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1976).
43. Matthews, J. and C. Taliesin: The Last Celtic Shaman (Inner Traditions, 2000).
44. Silvan Evans, D. Celtic Remains (London, 1878).
45. Roman d’Ogier le Danois, a fourteenth-century prose romance (unpublished).
46. La Faula by Guillaume de Torroella, Editorial Tirant Lo Blanch (2011).
47. Vita Merlini, Geoffrey of Monmouth, ed. and trans. J. J. Parry (University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, 1925).
48. P. K. Ford, “The Death of Merlin in the Chronicle of Elis Gruffydd,” Viator 7 (1976): 379–90.
49. Matthews, C. Mabon and the Mysteries of Britain (Arkana, 1987).
50. Alighieri, Dante. Divine Comedy, trans. L. Binyon (Agenda Editions, 1977).
51. Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain, trans. L. Thorpe.
52. ibid.
53. Le Morte d’Arthur, book 2, chapter xxv.
54. Ibid., book 1, chapter xxv.
55. Wace’s Roman De Brut: A History of The British: Text and Translation, ed. J. Weiss (Exeter Mediaeval English Texts and Studies, 2011).