The great wizard and prophet Merlin is probably the very figure from which the portraits of all the powerful sorcerers of the Middle Ages are written off. From birth to death, his life consists entirely of secrets and miraculous events.
The reign of the famous King Arthur is dated to the end of the 5th - beginning of the 6th century. At the same time, the life and deeds of his faithful adviser, the magician Merlin, fell. According to one of the legends, he 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 neutralized the action of evil forces, while retaining, however, the magical abilities inherent in the child. And they soon came in handy for the boy. At an early age, he was forced to fight the magicians of the Briton king Vortigern.
The situation in the country by that time was difficult: the king fought with the Germans, who were trying to seize the island, but they, as the chronicles say, managed to give him a love potion. And the king, inflamed with an insane passion for the daughter of the German leader Ronwen, actually allowed foreigners to conquer Britain without hindrance.
And then the court magicians, who could not overcome the Germanic witchcraft, advised the monarch to build a fortress in Wales, which supposedly should stop the invasion. But as soon as the foundation was laid on the top of the hill, it immediately went underground.
Then the magicians proclaimed that it would not be possible to build the fortress if the hill was not sprinkled with the blood of a boy born to a mortal mother, but who did not have a mortal father. The search for such a child ended with Merlin and his mother being lured to Vortigern Castle.
However, the future great sorcerer appeared before the king full of grandeur, beauty and nobility. He so charmed the monarch that he did not dare to kill him, and even asked for advice.
To which Merlin replied: “Your Majesty, your magicians are devoid of intelligence, and diviners are primitive and stupid. They showed their ignorance and complete ignorance of the secrets of nature: after all, under the hill there is a huge reservoir, which has absorbed the foundation. Order to deepen the trenches, and you will find a lake, at the bottom of which are two flat stones hiding sleeping dragons."
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This prophecy turned out to be true, and when the dragons were discovered, they entered into mortal combat with each other. So Merlin remained at the court of King Vortigern, then the ruler of Britain Uther Pendragon and his son Arthur. But this is another legend.
… In a gloomy castle on a rocky promontory, the beautiful Igraine was waiting for her old husband Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. And she did not know that King Uther desires her so passionately that he is ready to do anything. He turned to Merlin, and he, using his ability to change the appearance of people, temporarily gave the king the appearance of Gorlois. Fate has woven its threads so that while Uther performed feats in bed, the Duke of Cornwall died in battle.
And then the magician went to say goodbye to the body of the old duke, resting in the deserted hall of the fortress. He was saddened: it was not for Uther's gold that he had gone into this deception. The wizard knew, seeing the future, that the fruit of criminal love, Arthur, would become a mighty king who would unite Britain and give her peace.
Much will remain after Arthur: the glory of England, the proud national spirit, the noble laws of chivalry, the legends that will become a support in difficult times.
While Arthur was a baby, Merlin, anticipating the attempts of other pretenders to the throne to kill the boy, forced the royal couple to give the child to him. Where he lived and was brought up, knew only the magician. When King Uther was dying, the magician turned to him in front of all the lords, so that he recognized and proclaimed his son Arthur the new king.
So Uther did. Then Merlin made a huge sword, Excalibur, and imprisoned it with the power of his magic inside a large stone, on which was inscribed: "Whoever draws this sword from the stone is by birth the king over all Britain." When people made sure that, except for Arthur, no one could do this, both rich and poor recognized him as their ruler.
In the legend, everything is always simple, but in fact, Merlin had to work hard to take into account the interests of the most powerful lords from among the obstinate nobility and make them loyal servants or at least allies of Arthur. He loves him with all his soul, is connected with him by fate, but he understands perfectly well that under his constant tutelage, the young man cannot become a powerful king. And therefore appears at court at those moments when it is especially necessary.
Once King Arthur said to Merlin: "My barons do not give me rest, they demand that I take a wife for myself." “That's right,” the wizard answered. - You should get married. Is there not such a woman to be dearer to you than others? " “Yes,” said King Arthur. “Guinevere is the dearest to me, daughter of King Laudegrance, who rules the country of Cameliard, and he has a round table in his house, and he got it from my father.”
Merlin warned the king that he should not marry Guinevere, and also predicted that Lancelot, the best of Arthur's knights, would love her. But the king did not obey, he married, although later everything happened exactly as Merlin predicted: the king's wife and his knight fell in love with each other. However, their love was to burn for a long time only in hearts and dreams.
The period of Arthur's gracious and peaceful rule lasted 12 years. It was the time of the magnificent heyday of the knightly spirit. The king gathered the bravest and most devoted knights in his castle and seated them around the famous round table.
It was Merlin who taught the knights sitting at this table not to commit murder, not to do evil, avoid betrayal, lies and dishonor, bestow mercy on the one who asks, and, above all, show respect and patronage to women. And from here, from the castle of Camelot, knights went to fight dragons, giants and cunning dwarfs.
But trouble lay in wait for Merlin, too: he fell madly in love with a certain Viviana. The British researcher E. Butler writes 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 and bewitched him hopelessly; in order to maintain her power over him, she fished out of him the secret of a magic tomb, carved into the rock, lured him there and locked him there forever, so that the prophet was alive, but completely cut off from the world."
Anticipating this turn of events, Merlin revealed to Arthur that he did not have much time left on the ground: he would be buried alive. The sorcerer begged the king to take care of Excalibur more than an eye, for he could be kidnapped by a woman whom Arthur would trust.
And so it all happened. Arthur had a mother's sister - the fairy Morgan, who decided to exterminate the king. Morgana 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 from her brother, Mordred, whom she dreamed of placing on the British throne.
The Morgan fairy stole Excalibur from Arthur, replacing him with an indistinguishable copy. She gave the magic sword to a certain Sir Accolon, knocking him into a duel with the king, but Arthur, despite this, defeated the impostor. Moreover, upon learning of Morgana's role in the conspiracy, he forgave her. And in vain, since the witch did not rest on this.
And then the brave knight Lancelot appears on the scene again. For a long time he restrained his feelings for the wife of the king Guinevere, but what could be, that was inevitable - Merlin's prediction came true: the knight and the queen became lovers. Mordred exposed them and forced Arthur to condemn his wife to public burning. 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. Legends tell about the subsequent fate of Lancelot and Guinevere in different ways: in them and the death of both in the bloody war with the knights of Arthur; the death of Lancelot and the imprisonment of the queen in a monastery.
Legends also say that before his death, Lancelot understood: with his hands the forces of darkness played their part - the end of the world in Britain came, the end of the Brotherhood of the Round Table, honor and love, the time of betrayal and blood had come. His consciousness becomes cloudy, and he loses his memory, and when he is reborn to life, he is no longer a brilliant knight, but a dirty, tattered preacher, holding a cross in his hand instead of a sword.
But with regard to Mordred, all the authors are unanimous: 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.
This is how the story of Merlin and King Arthur ends and does not end, for somewhere the great wizard imprisoned by Viviana is still alive. One of the legends says that, along 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 again when Britain needs me" …