THE QUEST FOR CAMELOT
Lesson 2: Merlin's Enchantment.
LESSON 2 MERLIN AND THE PROPHECIES OF THE LAND:
VISION AND ENCHANTMENT IN CAMELOT
15th century image of Merlin
“There was a man, who bathed in the Lake of Wonder,
And his name was Merlin!
To him are the Wonders of the Deep,
The Mysteries of the Earth,
And the Magic of the Air.
Whence came he, O Waters?
Whence came he?
Deep are the Shadows and the Silences,
Deep as Merlin's heart,
Deep as the pool where slept the Dragons.”
from: The Birth of Arthur: A Choral Drama
by Reginald R. Buckley. Music by Rutland Boughton, 1914.
And those who knew Merlin well and who had served Uther Pendragon came to the king and said to him: 'Sire, honour Merlin greatly for he was a good prophet for your father and has always loved your family much. And he foretold to Vertiger his death and it was he who had the Round Table made. Now see to it that he is well honoured, for you will never ask him about anything that he will not tell you.' And Arthur responded that thus he would do.
- The Didot Perceval
God or Druid?
Its time to look at the figure of Merlin, King Arthurs guide and helper.: seer, Enchanter, necromancer, druid or god – all labels that have been applied to him at various times.
Nowhere is the inner nature of the Arthurian Tradition more clearly focused than in the figure of Merlin. Advisor to three kings, prophet, magician and wiseman, his shadowy presence seldom takes any single form for long enough to observe his real nature. His genesis, within the Matter of Britain, is almost as complex.
One commentator has called him a god of the ancient, native people of Britain; his home, at Moridunum, also the site of his cult. Others have seen in him a shaman or a Wildman, an inner guardian of the land or a seer whose prophecies have a very real validity for our own time. But he alludes any fixed definitions; his origins and his ultimate fate remains as mysterious as at the time of his first appearance. Even his own words render him seemingly invisible:
Because I am dark, and always shall be, let my book be dark and mysterious in those places where I will not show myself.