[Author’s Note: The following work of fiction has been written in the form of an essay. Be wary of its sources.]

Of all the larger-than-life figures to be found within that grand hodgepodge of epic tales known as “The Matter of Britain”, it must surely be said that the character of Merlyn is the most enigmatic–that is, Merlin in the popular vernacular, or Myrddin, as we know he preferred to be called [CITATION]. Merlyn, that veritable font of prophecy and fatalism, ever making magic and mischief, changing his guises as he deems fit–now a maidservant, now an old farmer, now a precocious young child–for reasons often obscure; pronouncing the futures and tragic fates of knights and damsels alike.

Being the manufacturer of King Arthur’s birth and rise to power, every major event in the Arthurian cannon hinges upon this elusive character — and yet his presence seems out of place beside the knights of yester yore; his motivations mercurial, his behavior erratic. Is he truly but a vehicle for the satisfaction of dramatic irony? Or is there more to be uncovered in the character of Merlin? I say that when seen as both an archetypal figure, and also as a man with an individual’s psychology — and further, when provided with a deeper historic and folkloric context–a much richer and more fruitful understanding of the character of Merlyn lies within our grasp. I say that we can make sense of Merlyn, with a little context, a little research, and a fresh perspective. Here I set out to provide them.

But first, as this piece is not so formal in nature, I have the luxury of providing some personal context.

About a month ago, I was nearing the end of a research trip to the Brittany region of France, and found myself with a few days available to me before my return journey. I spent those days hiking in the Paimpont forest, reveling in the overcast landscape, at once grim and strikingly beautiful. It was on my last day there, as I savored the misty air for all it was worth, that I came upon something that surprised me. It was a cave, its mouth being not quite as tall as I am, and its width a little wider than that. Next to it was a great boulder that, according to my imagination, could have been used to block the mouth of that cave, if one had the strength to move it. It all rang so strongly of the image of Merlyn and the magic cave that Nyneve trapped him within that I of course couldn’t help but go exploring.

Entering the cave, I felt transported, in that way that only very old places can manage, into an earlier time. It was an amazing shift of perspective, nearly an epiphany, of how it might have truly felt to live and breathe in that old world. Within the cave itself I found nothing unusual, but it was a thrilling experience nonetheless.

Later that night, I had a dream that I actually had found something within that cave; an old coin, something like an obol or shekel, dark and worn beyond recognition. I picked up the ancient object and then squeezed it, gripping it tightly in my palm — and then I held it up to the light (in dreams, apparently, I do not follow standard archeological protocol!).

I felt as if the coin presented me a question, and to that question, I said yes. And then it was a staff that was in my hand, a sort of shillelagh, and the staff was my own. And at that moment, quite suddenly, I felt that I knew who Merlyn was, through and through. All this time, he’d been so misunderstood! It was a feeling like looking at a dinosaur’s skeleton, and seeing that the creature had been assembled all wrong — the pieces, they fit like this. And indeed, the pieces now fit together neatly, but in a wholly new way, revealing a wholly new image of who Merlyn could be.

Unlike before, this truly was an epiphanic event; and when I woke, it was still with me, these new ideas, this new perspective. As soon as I returned home, I set to work on them.

Yes, it’s true that dreams are not usually accepted as scholarly evidence (if only!). However, since that time I have accomplished some modest bit of research that I hope will lend credence to my new position. So, with these fresh thoughts, and with evidence to support them, let’s see if I can’t answer the questions I earlier implied. Let’s see if we can’t make sense of Merlyn.

The first task is to explain one of the wizard’s strangest behaviors: his odd habit of appearing as someone else. This behavior is most confounding, since he rarely wields this power as a trick against his enemies, as one would expect him to–only once, notably, to help ensure that Uther fathered Arthur with Igrayne. Otherwise, he mostly seems to use this power to pointlessly confuse and frustrate his own allies and friends.

The following is an example:

And Merlyn was so disguysed that kynge
Arthur knewe hym not for he was al be furred in black
shepe skynnes and a grete payre of bootes / and a bowe and
arowes in a russet gowne / and broughte wild gyse in his hād
and it was on the morne after candelmas day / but kyng
Arthur knewe hym not / Syre said Merlyn vnto the kynge / Wil
ye gyue me a yefte [gift] / wherfor said kyng Arthur shold I gyue
the a yefte chorle [gift, churl] / Sir said Merlyn ye were better to gyue me
a yefte [gift] that is not in your hand than to lese grete rychesse
(Mallory, Sir Thomas. “Book One: Capitulum XVIJ.” Le Morte D’Arthur.) 

Here, Merlyn appears before King Arthur in the guise of a hunter, demands a gift of him, and then when rebuked, goes on to threaten Arthur by revealing his knowledge of the treasure taken after Arthur’s recent victories; a treasure that Arthur had buried where none should find it. Arthur’s knights — Ulsias and Brastius — then correctly guess this hunter’s true identity and point it out to their king, leaving Arthur feeling quite foolish.

All of this done by Merlyn, to what? To show off? To embarrass Arthur before his men?

Merlyn’s time in the Arthurian cannon is littered with events like this one. And so the natural question is why? Why was a cultural figure as important as the wizard of the Round Table presented in this capricious way? What was the meaning behind this depiction? The explanation I propose may be surprising.

First let us reestablish that Merlyn was not a human man, but a cambion. Usually described as a demonic entity, cambion, as a word, is related to change, or changeling — certainly an apt description, considering the many forms he took. Merlyn was often colorfully referred to as “Son of the Devil”, and so his inhuman nature was well known.

But I believe that his being referred to as a cambion was a misunderstanding of Merlyn’s true nature. I posit that Merlyn should be understood as a deal-making spirit, in the Faerie-Faustian tradition.

Look at how he assigns himself to King Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s father:

And thenne Merlyn was bounde to come to the kynge
Whan kyng Vther sawe hym he said he was welcome / syr
said Merlyn I knowe al your hert euery dele [deal] / so ye will be sworn
vnto me as ye be a true kynge enoynted to fulfille my desyre
ye shal haue your desyre / thenne the kyng was sworne vpon
the iiij euuāgelistes [four evangelists] / Syre said Merlyn this is my desyre / the
first nyȝt þ^t [night that] ye shal lye by Igrayne ye shal gete a child on her &
whan that is borne that it shall be delyuerd to me for to
nourisshe there as I wille haue it / for it shal be your worship / &
the childis auaille as mykel [much] as the child is worth / I wylle
wel said the kynge as thow wilt haue it / Now make you
redy said Merlyn this nyght ye shalle lye with Igrayne in the
castel of Tyntigayll 
(Mallory, Sir Thomas. “Book One: Capitulum Secundum.” Le Morte D’Arthur.) 

That appears very much like a deal made with a fae creature, or with Mephistopheles, does it not? In one stroke, Merlyn forever bound King Uther to him, and King Uther’s child as well. (And I would argue that it is from this deal, and from the ownership that he takes of Arthur, that Merlyn finds his latitude to act. He need not make further bargains–as indeed we do not see him do–because, having his claim on Arthur, and Arthur having control of his own court and a divine claim to all of Britannia, Merlyn then had the jurisdiction, so to speak, to act as he pleased.)

Further evidence of Merlyn’s nature can be seen in his comings and goings, which are described as “of the winde” or “as felt like the breth of the winde” [CITATION], which is likely a forgivable mistranslation of the Latin word spirare/spiritus, meaning spirit, or ghost. 

But lastly, and I think most compellingly, we can learn of Merlyn’s origins from the mouth of the wizard himself:

Whence land southe and east I come
In suche a wey as no hors trede/
I traueilled vpon the backs / of man and woman
I rode sadeled vpon their herts
[CITATION]

This passage reveals much. Firstly, it suggests that he was not born of Britannia, but from a land south and east of there. That fact, along with the description of his means of passage, “upon the backs of man and woman…saddled on their hearts” is altogether strongly suggestive of the Islamic shayatin, a possessive and incorporeal spirit common to the folklore of the middle-east. 

If this is true — if Merlyn was meant to be understood as something akin to an Eastern shayatin spirit (the stories of which could have plausibly made their way to the British isles from Araby) — then this radically changes how we might interpret his presence in Arthurian legend. Merlyn was, then, not a wizened old man, but a kind of ghost, passing between vassals, likely following the structure of pact-compact to inhabit them. The real illusion was when Merlyn appeared as himself.

Perhaps it would take some of Merlyn’s great, but surely not infinite, power to change from one vassal to another, or else some period of adaptation was required to get settled into his new occupancy; or perhaps maintaining the illusion of his wizardly form was in fact a greater strain than most would guess. In any case, Merlyn’s erratic appearances, though they were played off as impressive — if not petty — displays, were in fact the necessary result of his true nature; his being not man, but spirit.

Though obscure to us now, this understanding of Merlyn’s nature was the norm when these tales were first being told [CITATION].

But if we now understand Merlyn’s form, we still do not yet understand his function. This brings us neatly to our second mystery: Merlyn’s prophecies.

Merlyn was prolific of prophecy, sometimes good, often fatalistic; but in all cases, what he predicted inevitably came to pass. Why, then, pronounce the downfalls of lords, ladies, and kingdoms, when their fates are unchangeable? When neither the owners of the prophecy, nor Merlyn himself, seem to have it in their power to save themselves?

Examples of this abound, from the prophesying of Sir Balin’s delivery of the “dolorous stroke” — when he wounded King Pellam with the very the same spear that struck Jesus on the cross, thereby laying waste to King Pellam’s castle, and bringing twelve years of suffering and death to the three adjacent kingdoms — to the foretelling of Arthur’s ultimate downfall by Modred the knight: 

…for ye haue layne by your syster / and on her ye haue goten a chyld /
that shalle destroye yow and all the knyghtes of your realme
(Mallory, Sir Thomas. “Book One: Capitulum XX.” Le Morte D’Arthur.) 

At times, it even seems that Merlyn’s own augury instigates the events that lead to said downfalls, as in the case of Sir Balin’s sword, which Merlyn prophesied Sir Lancelot would use to kill the man he loved most in the world, Sir Gawain; Merlyn then proceeded to place the sword where he knew it would be found by Sir Galahad, who would then ultimately bring it into Sir Lancelot’s hands. And so the prophecy was fulfilled, and Sir Gawain slain.

To what end does Merlyn act in this way, pronouncing and affirming fatal futures? The answer, upon consideration, is as simple as it is obvious: Pain. Merlyn’s end, his goal, his purpose, is Torment. Evidence of this is abundant.

Firstly, as we have seen, his foretellings do not bring prosperity, nor any practical good. There is no single example of Arthurian characters, knight or maiden, using a prophecy of Merlyn’s to avert catastrophe, or to make a better future. True, there are a few instances of Merlyn predicting futures that would remain happy, thereby bringing comfort to their beneficiaries, but such examples are in the small minority.

Instead, and in most cases, knowledge of their fates does not serve to forewarn, but instead, to create fear, anxiety, and no small amount of dramatic irony. Merlyn is never quite specific enough to be helpful, but is instead just vague enough that the players can fear their terrible fates, but yet not stop them. 

Take again the example of Sir Balin and the “dolorous stroke”. When first Merlyn delivers this prophecy, Sir Balin bravely offers to kill himself to prevent such grievous catastrophe.

…& balen said yf
I wist it were soth that ye say I shold do suche peryllous dede
as that I wold slee my self to make the a lyar / therwith merlyn
vanysshed awey sodenly 
(Mallory, Sir Thomas. “Book Two: The tale of Balyn and Balan: Capitulum VIIJ.” Le Morte D’Arthur.) 

And what is Merlyn’s response? He vanishes on the spot. And so, somewhat bewildered, Sir Balin does not kill himself, and therefore does not prevent the downfall of the three kingdoms, nor the deaths of many people therein. Merlyn then reappears before Balin only minutes later, so as to guide him on to the slaying of Arthur’s enemy, King Rience, which puts Sir Balin back on the path toward first killing his own brother, Balan, and then ultimately to the delivery of the “dolorous stroke” against King Pellam.

Here we see again that Merlyn’s very acts of prophecy and guidance were what began the fateful domino-chain of disaster.

And one might argue that, yes, true, Sir Balin was a fool, and Sir Kay was a bloody idiot, always snorting that insufferable snort, oinking like a goddamned pig, but perhaps they might have changed their fates, if only they had been better men. And to that I say, exactly. They were not better men. Myrddin had taken their measure and was fully aware of what they would do with the words he gave them.

Consider the great King Arthur himself. What influence does Merlyn have on Arthur and his court? What is the ultimate effect of his presence? Ruin. 

True, it was Myrddin that ensured Arthur’s solidity of position as King of Britannia–the image of Arthur, barely clinging to the wild whippings of his magic swords as they yanked him across the battlefield, as if it was he himself that was doing the chopping, is an important one to keep in mind, as it reminds us that Arthur could not have become King all on his own–but with that said, it was also on Myrddin’s advice that our clumsy young King murdered all of the babes born on May Day in an effort to avert his own downfall by Modred. 

THēne kyng arthur lete sende for al the childrē born on
may day begotē of lordes & born of ladyes / for Merlyn
told kynge Arthur that he that shold destroye hym / shold be
borne in may day / wherfor he sent for hem all vpon payn of deth
and so ther were founde many lordes sones / and all were sente
vnto the kynge / and soo was Mordred sente by kyng Lotts
wyf / and all were put in a ship to the see / and some were iiij [four]
wekes old and some lasse / And so by fortune the shyp drofe
vnto a castel and was al to ryuen and destroyed the most part
sauf that Mordred was cast vp and a good man fonde hym /
and nourysshed hym tyl he was xiiij [fourteen] yere olde
(Mallory, Sir Thomas. “Book One: Capitulum XXVIIJ.” Le Morte D’Arthur.) 

This fails, as Myrddin surely knew it would. Not only that, but this very act creates the exact situation necessary for Modred to have the power and motivation to end Arthur and his reign. If Myrddin, the ever-right soothsayer, had simply said nothing, there would have been no fall of Arthur; or at least, not by Sir Modred the knight.

Furthermore, it bears repeating that–and this is no small point–Merlyn is the Son of the Devil. The significance of this fact was not lost on the first readers–that is, those people who listened to the tales of Myrddin back when they were oral tradition only [CITATION]. They understood Myrddin to be the central antagonist of Arthurian legend [CITATION]. But it seems that as the stories were retold and Western culture changed–and especially through Mallory’s much more modern and, dare I say it, simplistic perspective–Myrddin became reframed as Trusted Advisor and Prophet.

Yet how could Mallory–and to the same extent, the rest of us — ignore the obvious implications of Myrddin’s infernal heritage? It seems, in our modern case, that we have considered this but another eccentric whim of the barely post-pagan peoples who were telling themselves these stories so long ago. In Mallory’s case, perhaps it was that classic folly of thought, that the sins of the father should not be lain upon the shoulders of their sons.

But wait, I hear you say. This explanation still feels incomplete. We still do not understand, fundamentally, why.

Let go of yourself for a moment. Let go of the things that make you who you are; your values, your moral defaults, your prejudices–empty yourself of them, and cast your mind back to the time and place of myth. And now, here, consider the satisfactions that one such as Myrddin might have had in his time.

Watching the chivalric knights taking women to bed, hearing their muffled cries from without their chambers; seeing, as a fly on the wall, or through the eyes of a maidservant, their grief-stricken faces, tear-dried and sniveling, the dripping sop of noble seed come crying out from between their whore legs; laughing as the great heroes strike their chests with their fists and howl and stamp like territorial apes, tugging at the fool kings on their little dancing strings, churning the muddy-bloody hooves of war after war, making feed for the crows and the wolves, coming home to feasts of cooked meat turned raw in their ravaging mouths. A statement, a thesis a thousand years in the making, a message to the heavens themselves: look at your misbegotten ilk, stupid and cruel, self-satisfying and wanton. All of their follies are yours, you old fool. Every rape is yours. Every murder is yours. You kill and you fuck and you strut like a peacock in your pride. Watch as I bring a dark age to the lives of man, and with but the slightest push — with a bow and a word of wisdom.

[CITATION]

And so in that way, with a simple thought exercise, Merlyn as an independent actor can be understood. Furthermore, now that we understand his true form and his true function, we can begin to see the point of Merlyn, in his position in the fables of a long-ago people. We can attempt to explain his purpose as both a character and religious figure.

King Arthur was, according to the tales, God’s chosen in those lands and those times, whose divine task was to unite all of Britannia under one rule. Ostensibly, Arthur succeeded in his task before his death. But I would argue this:

Merlyn was Arthur’s true challenge, and Arthur failed.

With Merlyn properly placed, we can see that the Arthurian myth is not, at its core, about knights and wars, romance and conquest. Fundamentally, it is about spotting the difference between the voice of a friend, and the whisper of a snake.

And what about Myrddin’s own fate? His betrayal and entrapment at the hands of that most treacherous sow, Nyneve? We can rest assured that Myrddin the Wyllt got everything he wanted from her before his ultimate “imprisonment”. How could a mere woman possibly trick one who could so neatly foresee the future? How could a mere woman ever hope to overcome a great power such as he? The idea is laughable, and ought to be scrubbed from our minds and erased from all record. A man of schemes and deceptions, plans and prophecies was Myrddin. Surely not all foretellings did he speak aloud. Surely he kept some for himself.

END

So like I said, this is really just a fun editorial piece, but it could be the start of a real analysis. I know it’s kind of a mess at this stage, but what do you think of my take? Interesting enough for you? Do you think there’s something there? Call me when you get the chance, and if I don’t pick up just try me again, I’m probably napping (I’ve been sleeping like hell lately, napping and waking up all over the place, sleeping through/missing my alarms even. I’m working on my sleep hygiene and all that — quitting late-night caffeine! — hoping that will help get me back on a normal schedule. I hardly remember writing half of this lol, I’m sure you’re thinking that explains a lot — lol) 

Yea verily,

King Author Pendraggin’

Lol jk seriously, thanks very much in advance for your help,

Peller

[J. Everett Feinberg is a writer and poet based in Denver, Colorado. He enjoys staying home and avoiding adventures whenever possible. You can find him on Twitter @JEverettFein]