The great sage and sorcerer of the Dark Ages of Europe … In terms of the scale of his activities, accuracy of predictions and even in appearance, the wizard Merlin, probably, became the prototype of mythological and literary images of all powerful sorcerers of the Middle Ages. His whole life consisted of a series of unsolved mysteries and wonderful events that invariably attracted the attention of writers and lovers of ancient mysteries.
What attracted and does not cease to attract attention to this mysterious character of early history? Here, first of all, one should return to the era of the reign of the legendary King Arthur, whose reign dates back to the late 5th - early 6th centuries. At the same time, his faithful mentor and advisor, the magician Merlin, lived and prophesied.
What is known about Merlin
According to one of the legends, the wizard Merlin was born by an earthly woman from a demon. He was destined to play the role of Antichrist, but the child's mother repented and confessed her sin. The baby was baptized by Saint Blasius, and this, in fact, stopped the action of evil forces, but retained the magical abilities inherent in the child.
Another of the legends of his birth. He was not only born without a father - very soon, in the developing Christian view, he is called the son of a mortal woman and an incubus demon. Such a dubious image of a father gives him not only supernatural power, but also features that clearly speak of a devilish origin. He is truly the type of character between Good and Evil, between God and Satan. The second characteristic is his gift as a diviner. And he put this gift to the service of Arthur and the Bretons.
Vortigern's verdict
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Already at an early age, the young Merlin was able to show his visionary gift in rivalry with the magicians of the Briton king Vortigern (Vertiger). The situation in the state by that time was dramatic: the king with all his might resisted the Germans who tried to seize the island, but they, according to the chronicle, managed to give the ruler a love potion to drink. And the king, inflamed with an insane passion for the daughter of the German leader Ronwen, and in fact made it possible for foreigners to conquer Britain without hindrance.
And then the court magicians, who could not overcome the Germanic witchcraft, advised the king to build a fortress in Wales, which, according to the general plan, should have stopped the enemy's invasion. However, as soon as the foundation of the fortress walls was laid on the top of the hill, it immediately went underground. When this was reported to the monarch, he ordered to convene knowledgeable people from all over the kingdom. The wise men appeared, and Vortigern, having told them about the miracle with the walls, asked reasonable advice. The sages marveled, but they could not find an explanation.
Then famous astrologers were summoned to the palace. Looking at the stars, they said that they could not find out anything about the tower, but there are signs that a certain boy, apparently the son of the devil, is threatening the monarch and his subjects. Then they said that the walls of the tower would collapse until the time when the blood of a teenager was mixed with lime.
Considering what he had heard, the king sent messengers with a command to find the dangerous troublemaker and kill him. And so, passing by the outskirts of one city, the messengers saw a group of children playing. One of the playing boys hit the second boy with a stick, and he, crying, called the offender the son of the devil. The royal subjects ran to them, but then the boy himself - his name was Merlin - approached them, said that he knew about their mission, and promised to tell the king why the walls of his fortress did not hold.
Taking the young sorcerer with them, the ambassadors set off on their journey. Appearing before the monarch, Merlin said that the words of the astrologers were really nothing more than a cunning trick of the deceivers, and he could tell the reasons for the failure of the construction.
“Know,” Merlin continued, “that there is an underground lake under this place, and there are two dragons under the water - white and red. When the walls of the tower are erected, the dragons turn, shaking the ground, and the walls collapse.
Merlin and young Arthur
The king ordered to dig the ground at the site of the collapsed foundation. Soon the workers found an underground lake, the water of which was lowered into the neighboring meadows. At the bottom of a drained lake, between the stones, two huge dragons lay motionless. As Merlin said, they won't move until they touch each other. However, when they feel the touch, they will fight and will not stop fighting until one of them kills the other.
- Which of them will win? Asked the monarch.
“Know, king,” the young seer replied, “that the white dragon will kill the red one. However, first he himself will have a bad time. And his victory will be a sign to us. Until the end of the fight, I will not say anything more.
A lot of people gathered to see the amazing battle. The workers rolled away the stones, under which were two dragons - they were so terrible that everyone backed away in fear. Having touched each other, the dragons turned, grabbed each other with teeth and claws, and a battle began, which lasted for three whole days. The audience thought that the red dragon could defeat the white one, but it turned out the other way around. However, the white dragon himself did not live long after the victory.
"Now, sir, you can build your fortress," said Merlin.
But Vortigern certainly wanted to know what the victory of the white dragon over the red one meant. Merlin agreed to explain, but asked to gather the best people of the kingdom and bring to the council the clerics who plotted to destroy him. And so he said to them:
“You have acted recklessly and unworthily, thinking of ruining me by cunning. And the explanation of the sign is as follows. The red dragon is yourself, Vortigern, and the white dragon is the sons of the former king, Constant. You yourself know that you had to protect them and be a good advisor to them. But you, by cunning and cunning, achieved the death of your predecessor, King Muan, son of Constant, and you yourself treacherously executed his murderers. You seized all the lands that belonged to him, as well as the lands of the younger sons who fled to foreign lands. But you could not find peace, feeling surrounded by enemies, and in order to be safe, you decided to build a fortress. However, she cannot save you.
“Now,” Merlin continued, “I'll tell you what you're going to die of. Know that the big and arrogant red dragon is you and your arrogance. The white dragon is the inheritance of the fled children. The fact that they fought for so long means that you did not rightfully own their lands. And the fact that the white dragon killed the red one means your death from them.
Vortigern got angry and asked where these princes were.
“Now they are at sea,” replied the young seer, “but their ships are already heading here, and after three months they will be at Winchester.
After such a prediction, Merlin withdrew, and the frightened king began preparations for the upcoming battle. Exactly three months later, foreign ships approached the shore. They began to ask who they were, and the aliens said that they had come to expel the king.
Great joy gripped the inhabitants of the kingdom. Vortigern defended himself, but his knights quickly sided with the sons of their rightful king. Not expecting such a development of events, the king locked himself with his entourage in a castle on the seashore. Then the soldiers of the sons of Constant set fire to the royal fortress, and it burned down together with the hated king and his servants.
Allied with Uther
After the death of the cruel pagan Vortigern, the middle son of Constant Pendragon was proclaimed king, and after his death his younger brother Uther began to rule. Throughout all these years, Merlin helped kings with wise advice and correct predictions. But the true glory of the powerful magician was brought by the prophecies about the birth of the future King Arthur, about his life path and about the future of Britain. It happened like this.
Once the mistress of a gloomy castle, standing on a rocky promontory, the beautiful Igraine was waiting for her old husband Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall. And she did not know that the king of Britain Uther desires her so passionately that he is ready to do anything to embrace the beauty in his arms. To achieve what he wanted, Uther turned to Merlin for help, and he temporarily gave the king the appearance of Gorlois. Fate intertwined its threads so that while Uther enjoyed the Duchess's love, the Duke of Cornwall died in another battle.
Feeling a little guilty, Merlin went to say goodbye to Gorlois's body, resting in the deserted hall of the fortress. He was saddened: it was not for the gold or the favor of the sovereign Uther that he went to this substitution. Having foreseen the future, he knew that the child of deceiving love would later become a mighty king who could unite the country and give it peace.
The wizard Merlin knew that much will remain after Arthur: the glory of Britain, the proud spirit of the nation, the noble laws of chivalry, legends that will support in difficult times. Let some day rulers of completely different blood come to the green island, but they will also consider Arthur their ancestor - he will become a symbol of power and invincibility.
When Arthur was a baby, Merlin, foreseeing the attempts of other pretenders to the throne to destroy the baby, forced the king to give the child to him. Where he grew up and was brought up, knew only the magician himself. When King Uther was dying, he turned to him in front of all the lords, so that he recognized and proclaimed his only natural son, Arthur, the new king. So Uther did.
To strengthen Arthur's right to rule the kingdom, Merlin made a huge sword, Excalibur, and imprisoned it with the power of his magic in a large stone, on which he inscribed: "Whoever draws this sword from the stone is by birth the king of all Britain." When the people made sure that, except for Arthur, no one could pull out the sword, all the inhabitants of the country recognized the heir as their ruler.
Pernicious love
Many years passed in the wars and battles for the unification of Britain: Merlin appeared at court, then was absent for a long time, despite the persuasion to be constantly with his pupil. He loved Arthur with all his soul, was connected with him by fate, but he perfectly understood that under his constant tutelage he could not become a powerful king. Therefore, he appeared only when it was necessary.
King Arthur once said to Merlin:
- My barons do not give me rest, they demand that I take a wife.
“That's right, you need to marry,” the magician agreed. - Is there not such a woman that would be dearer to you than others?
- There is. My dearest is Guinevere, daughter of King Laudegrance, who rules the country of Cameliard. He has a round table in his house that he inherited from my father.
Merlin agreed that Guinevere was sweet, but immediately warned the king: he did not need to marry this girl, because the best of Arthur's knights, Lancelot, would love her. The sovereign did not heed the wise advice and, contrary to his warnings, married a beautiful woman. Then everything happened exactly as Merlin had predicted: Guinevere and Sir Lancelot fell in love with each other sincerely, but hopelessly - they could only dream of joint happiness.
The period of Arthur's gracious and peaceful rule lasted 12 years. This was the heyday of the chivalrous spirit. In Camelot Castle, the monarch gathered the bravest and most devoted knights and seated them around the famous round table. And Merlin instructed the knights not to commit murder, not to do evil, to avoid betrayal, lies and dishonor, to bestow mercy on the one asking and, above all, to show respect and patronage to women. It was from Camelot that knights went to fight dragons, giants, cunning dwarfs and other rivals.
Merlin and the Water Fairy
Captured by the future
Once it happened that trouble lay in wait for Merlin himself: he fell madly in love with a certain charming Viviana. British researcher E. Butler wrote that “Viviana was considered by some sources as a royal daughter, others as a water fairy. But whoever this woman was, she fell in love with the great wizard Merlin and bewitched him. And in order to maintain her power over him, she lured from him the secret of the magic tomb, which was carved into the rock, lured him and locked him there forever, so that although Merlin was alive, he was completely cut off from the world."
Anticipating these events, Merlin revealed to Arthur that he did not have long to stay on earth: he would be buried alive. The magician begged the king to take care of Excalibur like the apple of his eye, because he could be kidnapped by a woman whom Arthur would trust.
And so it happened. Arthur had a maternal sister, Morgan, and she had long hated the king. The woman herself was no stranger to witchcraft: in her youth, casting a spell on young Arthur, she spent the night with him and gave birth to a son, Mordred, whom she later planned to put on the British throne. It was this Morgan fairy who stole Excalibur from Arthur, replacing him with a clever fake. She gave the magic sword to a certain Sir Accolon, knocking him into a duel with Arthur, but the king was able to defeat the impostor. Moreover, upon learning of Morgana's role in the conspiracy, he forgave her. And in vain, because the witch did not rest on this.
The brave knight Lancelot for a long time restrained his feelings for the wife of the king Guinevere, but what will be, it cannot be avoided - Merlin's prediction came true: the knight and the queen became lovers. The insidious Mordred exposed them and forced Arthur to condemn his wife to public burning. Of course, Lancelot could not allow this: he stole the queen and fled with her to France. Gathering in pursuit, the king handed over the reins to Mordred, but he, taking advantage of Arthur's absence, made a coup and seized the throne in a criminal way.
The legends tell about the subsequent fate of Lancelot and Guinevere in different ways: in them both the death of both in a bloody war with the knights of Arthur, and the death of Lancelot, and the imprisonment of the queen in a monastery. In some narratives, Lancelot lost his memory, and when he was revived again, he became different: he was no longer a brilliant knight, but a weak, lost man, a beggar preacher, holding a cross in his hand instead of a sword. There are also legends that before his death Lancelot understood that he was used by the forces of darkness, who wanted to prevail over the forces of light.
This meant that there would be no more peace in Britain, the “Brotherhood of the Round Table” ended, the union of honor and love fell apart, the time of betrayal and blood had come.
But about the fate of Mordred, all the authors are unanimous: after returning to Britain, Arthur in a fierce battle pierced the treacherous traitor with a spear. But, alas, the son of Morgana managed to inflict a mortal wound on the king.
Thus ends the story of Merlin and King Arthur. And perhaps it does not end, because somewhere the great wizard imprisoned by Viviana is still alive. According to one of the legends, together with other chosen ones, he was transported to the legendary Shambhala and now lives among the great teachers of mankind.
And what happened to the king? Companions put him in a boat, which slowly, sliding through the fog, carried the glorious Arthur by sea to the magical island of Avalon. “Take comfort,” he said to the grief-stricken knights before dying. "And know that I will come back when Britain needs me."
Continuation of the legend
Centuries passed, but the predictions of the wise Merlin continued to come true. Possessing a prophetic gift, he foresaw many events that occurred much later. These are the invasions from which the inhabitants of Britain itself and little Brittany suffered, and the victories over the enemy, and the accession of new rulers.
Merlin predicted the invasion of the Germanic tribes - the Angles and Saxons, and how Britain could not resist the Angles, and they conquered most of it, which later became known as England. However, after the Angles adopted Christianity, they lived alongside the Britons for a long time. At times, wars broke out between them, followed by years of armistice. But because the Britons lived in luxury, threw feasts and indulged in too free life, fate sent them as punishment hunger, pestilence, disease and other disasters, as prophesied by Merlin. Those who survived had to move to neighboring areas - Wales and Cornwall, where their descendants still live.
Pestilence and disease did not spare the Anglo-Saxons - for a long time the lands of southern Britain became extinct and empty. Only 11 years later, when the disease receded, the Anglo-Saxons returned. They were brought by a girl named Eburga, about whom Merlin said: "The white dragon will rise and bring a young maiden from Germany."
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