The Lost Land of King Arthur

This is the very monstrosity of fable, the grossness of which carries with it its own condemnation. These facts, however, are not insisted upon by Malory, though such claims for Arthur were made by the credulous and less scrupulous writers. Romance has entirely remodelled his character, and has filled in all the gaps in his life-story in that triumphant manner in which Celtic genius manifests its power. The legendary Arthur is made to realise the sublime prophecies of Merlin, and as those prophecies waxed more bold and arrogant in the course of ages the proportions of the hero were magnified to suit them. Merlin had cherished the hope of the coming of a victorious chief under whom the Celts should be united, but the slaughter at Arderydd when the rival tribes fought each other, almost destroyed all such aspirations. Nevertheless the prophet foretold the continuance of discord among the British tribes, until the chief of heroes formed a federation on returning to the world, and his prediction concluded with the haunting words: “Like the dawn he will arise from his mysterious retreat.” Mr. Stuart Glennie calls Merlin a barbarian compound of madman and poet, prophet and bard, but denies that he was a mythic personage or a poetic creation. He was, like Arthur himself, an actual pre-mediæval personage, and, as in the case of Arthur, we have no means of determining his origin, his nationality, or the locale of his wanderings. But if, as Wilson observes in one of his “Border Tales,” tradition is “the fragment which history has left or lost in its progress, and which poetry following in its wake has gathered up as treasures, breathed upon them its influence and embalmed them in the memories of men unto all generations,” we shall extract a residuum of truth from the fanciful fables of which Merlin is the subject.

Myrdin Emrys, the Welsh Merlin, is claimed as a native of Bassalleg, an obscure town in the district which lies between the river Usk and Rhymney. The chief authority for this is Nennius; but according to others the birthplace was Carmarthen, at the spot marked by Merlin’s tree, regarding which the prophecy runs that when the tree tumbles down Carmarthen will be overwhelmed with woe. What we know of Merlin in Malory’s chronicle is that he was King Arthur’s chief adviser, an enchanter who could bring about miraculous events, and to whom was delivered the royal babe upon a ninth wave of the ocean; a prophet who foretold his sovereign’s death, his own fate, and the infidelity of Guinevere; a warrior, the founder of the Round Table, and the wise man who “knew all things.” Wales and Scotland alike claim as their own this most striking of the characters in the Arthurian story. Brittany also holds to the belief that Merlin was the most famous and potent of her sons, and that his influence is still exercised over that region. Matthew Arnold, gazing at the ruins of Carnac, saw from the heights he clambered the lone coast of Brittany, stretching bright and wide, weird and still, in the sunset; and recalling the old tradition, he described how—

“It lay beside the Atlantic waveAs though the wizard Merlin’s willYet charmed it from his forest grave.”

The Scotch Merlin, Merlin Sylvester, or Merlin the Wild, was Merdwynn of the haugh of Drummelziar, a delightful lowland region, where the little sparkling Pausayl burn bickers down between the heather-clad hills until it mixes its waters with the Tweed. He is said to have taken to the woods of Upper Tweeddale in remorse for the death of his nephew, though it is more likely that he lost his reason after the decisive defeat of the Cymry by the Christians of the sixth century. Sir Walter Scott records that in the Scotichronicon, to which work however no historic importance can be ascribed, as it is notoriously a priestly invention, is an account of an interview betwixt St. Kentigern and Merdwynn Wyllt when he was in this distracted and miserable state. The saint endeavoured to convert the recluse to Christianity, for he was a nature-worshipper, as his poems show. From his mode of life he was called Lailoken, and on the saint’s commanding him to explain his situation, he stated that he was doing penance imposed upon him by a voice from heaven for causing a bloody conflict between Lidel and Carwanolow. He continued to dwell in the woods of Caledon, frequenting a fountain on the hills, enjoying the companionship of his sister Gwendydd (“The Dawn”), and ever musing upon his early love Hurmleian (The Gleam), both of whom were frequently mentioned in his poems. His fate was a singular one, and has been confused with that of the Merlin of Arthur. He predicted that he should perish at once by wood, earth, and water, and so it came to pass; for being pursued and stoned by the rustics—others say by the herdsmen of the Lord of Lanark—he fell from a rock into the river Tweed, and was transfixed by a sharp stake—

“Sude perfossus, lapide percussus, et unda,Hæc tria Merlinum fertur inire necem.Sicque ruit, mersusque lignoque prehensus,Et fecit vatem per terna pericular verum.”

The grave of the Scotch Merlin is pointed out at Drummelziar, where it is marked by an aged thorn-tree. On the east side of the churchyard the Pausayl brook falls into the Tweed, and a prophecy ran thus:—“When Tweed and Pausayl join at Merlin’s grave, Scotland and England shall one monarch have.” And we learn accordingly that on the day of the coronation of James VI the Tweed overflowed and joined the Pausayl at the prophet’s grave. The predictions of this Merlin continued for many centuries to impress the Scotch, and he seems to have had a reputation equal to that of Thomas the Rhymer. Geoffrey of Monmouth was the first to introduce a Merlin into the Arthurian romance, and whether that Merlin had for a prototype Merdwynn Wyllt, or whether there was in reality a Merlin of Wales, remains an open question. All that can be said definitely is that similar deeds are ascribed to both, that each occupies a similar place among his contemporaries, that their rhapsodical prophecies partake of the same character, and that their mysterious deaths have points in common. But it is contended that the vates of Vortigern and of Aurelius Ambrosius, the companion and adviser of Uther Pendragon and of Arthur, was Myrdin Emrys, who took his name from Dinas Emrys in the Vale of Waters, whose haunt was the rugged heights of Snowdon, and who knew nothing of the Merlin Caledonius who wandered about the heathery hills of Drummelziar, who was present at the battle of Arderydd in 573, and who lamented in wild songs the defeat of the pagans and the shattering reverse to the Cymric cause. These poems, which bewail the fortunes of this unfortunate race, seem to have found their way into the famous Ancient Books of Wales, thus tending further to confuse the two Merlins, and resulting in the old chroniclers ascribing the acts of both to the Myrdin Emrys of King Arthur’s court. The late Professor Veitch’s poem on Merlin contains some specimens of Merdwynn Wyllt’s verse, and sets forth his faith in nature, tinged a little as it were by the Christianity of the era.

The Merlin of King Arthur was reputed to be a native of Carmarthen among other places, and at three miles’ distance from the town may be seen “Merlin’s Cave,” one of the traditional places of his mysterious entombment. Merlin’s birth formed the subject of one of the apocryphal plays of Shakespeare: the weird magician and worker of enchantment would have been worthy of the masters’ own depiction. In the romances he comes with mystery and awe, and he departs with mystery and shame. “Men say that Merlin was begotten of a devil,” said Sir Uwaine; and the maid Nimuë (Vivien) on whom he was “assotted,” grew weary of him, and fain would have been delivered of him, “for she was afraid of him because he was a devil’s son.” In that wondrously rich drama of 1662, “The Birth of Merlin,” the popular tradition is taken up that the arch-magician was the son of the arch-fiend. The story introduces Aurelius and Vortiger (Vortigern), the two Kings of Britain; Ut(h)er Pendragon, the brother of Aurelius; Ostorius, the Saxon general; and other historic characters of the era. The chief point of the plot is the search for and identification of Merlin’s father; and, that matter settled, the dramatist treats of Merlin’s supernatural skill, his prophecies, and his aid of Vortiger in building the castle which hostile fiends broke down by night as fast as it was built by day. Merlin is represented as born with the beard of an old man, able to talk and walk, and within a few hours of his birth explaining to his mother that he reads a book “to sound the depth of arts, of learning, wisdom, knowledge.”

“I can be but half a man at best,And that is your mortality; the restIn me is spirit. ’Tis not meat nor timeThat gives this growth and bigness. No, my yearsShall be more strange than yet my birth appears.”

He prophesies forthwith, recognises his father, the Devil, at a glance, gives proof of his miraculous powers in many ways; and proceeding to Vortiger’s court baffles the native magicians, and shows the king why his castle cannot be built by reason of the dragons in conflict. He foretells that the victory of the white dragon means the ultimate victory of the Saxons—“the white horror who, now knit together, have driven and shut you up in these wild mountains,” and that the king who won his throne by bloodshed must yield it to Prince Uter. The prediction is verified, and after Vortiger’s death Merlin is sent for to expound “the fiery oracle” in the form of a dragon’s head,

“From out whose mouthTwo flaming lakes of fire stretch east and west,And … from the body of the starSeven smaller blazing streams directly pointOn this affrighted kingdom.”

The portent causes terror, until Merlin, as interpreter, tells of revolutions, the rise and fall of nations, and the changes in Britain’s state which it signifies. Aurelius has been treacherously slain at Winchester by the Saxons, and Prince Uter is to be his avenger. The passage in which Merlin relates what is to come is one of singular dignity and impressiveness. Seven rays are “speaking heralds” to the island. Uter Pendragon is to have a son and a daughter. The latter will be Queen of Ireland, while of the son “thus Fate and Merlin tells”—

“All after times shall fill their chroniclesWith fame of his renown, whose warlike swordShall pass through fertile France and Germany,Nor shall his conquering foot be forced to stand,Till Rome’s imperial wealth hath crowned his fameWith monarch of the west; from whose seven hillsWith conquest, and contributory kingsHe back returns to enlarge the Briton bounds,His heraldry adorned with thirteen crowns.He to the world shall add another worthy,And, as a loadstone, for his prowess drawA train of martial lovers to his court.It shall be then the best of knighthood’s honourAt Winchester to fill his castle hall,And at his Royal table sit and feastIn warlike orders, all their arms round hurledAs if they meant to circumscribe the world.”

This is a noble passage, and sums up the leading points in King Arthur’s history, as related in the Fabliaux, and at the same time serves as evidence of the power of divination and eloquence of Merlin. The matter of the prophecy was obviously taken from Malory, but the dramatist introduced one strange variation in his story. Merlin, indignant that his demoniac father should strive to harm his mother, uses his art and magic spells to enclose the Devil in a rock—an idea suggested, no doubt, by Merlin’s own fate. Furthermore, finding himself called to aid Pendragon against the Saxons, Merlin conducts his mother to a place of retirement called Merlin’s Bower, and tells her that when she dies he will erect a monument—

“Upon the verdant plains of Salisbury—(No king shall have so high a sepulchre)—With pendulous stones that I will hang by art,Where neither lime nor mortar shall be used,A dark enigma to the memory,For none shall have the power to number them.”

Here we become acquainted with the superstition that the megalithic wonders of Stonehenge were Merlin’s workmanship, and that the mysterious structure was his mother’s tomb. Another idea was that it was the burial place of Uther Pendragon and Constantine. The drama, so far as it relates to Merlin and Vortigern, closely follows the popular tradition, though there are several variations of the story of the castle which could not be finished, and its site, as might be expected, is the subject of many contradictory declarations. The allegorical meaning of the story is quite clear. To the heights of Snowdon, it is said, Merlin led King Vortigern, whose castle could not be built for meddlesome goblins. The wizard led the monarch to a vast cave and showed him two dragons, white and red, in furious conflict. “Destroy these,” he said, “and the goblins whom they rule will cease to torment you.” Vortigern slew the dragons of Hate and Conspiracy, and his castle was completed.14

The story of Merlin’s death has again led to much speculation upon the recondite subject of the situation of the tomb in which his “quick” body was placed by the guile of Nimuë, or Vivien, one of the damsels of the lake. Malory distinctly avers that it was in Cornwall that the doting wizard met his fate. He went into that country, after showing Nimuë many wonders, and “so it happed that Merlin showed to her a rock, whereat was a great wonder, and wrought by enchantment, that went under a great stone.” By subtle working the maiden induced the wizard to go under the stone to tell her of the marvels there, and then she “so wrought him” that with all his own crafts he could not emerge again. Some time afterwards Sir Bagdemagus, riding to an adventure, heard Merlin’s doleful cries from under the stone, but he was unable to help him, as the stone was so heavy that a hundred men could not move it. Merlin told the knight that no one could rescue him but the woman who had put him there, and, according to some traditions, he lives to this day in the vault. Spenser, in the Faërie Queene, describes the tomb as—

“A hideous, hollow, cave-like bayUnder a rock that has a little spaceFrom the swift Tyvi, tumbling down apaceAmongst the woody hills of Dynevowr.”

The Tyvi is known to us as the Towy, and Dynevowr is Dynevor Park.

“There the wise Merlin, whilom wont, they say,To make his wonne low underneath the ground,In a deep delve far from view of day,That of no living wight he might be found,When so he counselled with his sprights around.”

Others say that the guileful damsel led her doting lover to Snowdon, and there put forth the charm of woven paces and of waving hands until he lay as dead in a hollow oak. Sometimes an eldritch cry breaks upon the ear of the climber as he nears the summit of Snowdon: it is Merlin lamenting the subtlety of his false love, which doomed him to perpetual shame.

There is the Carmarthen cave, and there is a “Merlin’s Grave” four miles from Caerleon, both of which are shown as Merlin’s resting-place. But ancient bards told another strange tale of the fate of the “boy without a father,” whose blood had once been sought to sprinkle upon the cement for the bricks of Vortigern’s castle. They declared that the enchanter was sent out to sea in a vessel of glass, accompanied by nine bards, or prophets, and neither vessel nor crew was heard of again—which is not surprising. But Lady Charlotte Guest, in her notes to the Mabinogion, boldly transports the scene of Merlin’s doom to the Forest of Brécéliande, in Brittany, one of the favoured haunts of romance and the delight of the Trouvères. Vivien, to whose artifices he succumbed, is said to have been the daughter of one Vavasour, who married a niece of the Duchess of Burgundy, and received as dowry half the Forest of Briogne. It was when Merlin and Vivien were going through Brécéliande hand in hand that they found a bush of white thorn laden with flowers; there they rested, and the magician fell asleep. Then Vivien, having been taught the art of enchantment by Merlin, rose and made a ring nine times with her wimple round the bush; and when the wizard woke it seemed to him that he was enclosed in the strongest tower ever made—a tower without walls and without chains, which he alone had known the secret of making. From this enmeshment Merlin could never escape, and, plead as he would, the damsel would not release him. But it is written that she often regretted what she had done and could not undo, for she had thought the things he had taught her could not be true. This, however, seems to be an interpolation. Sir Gawain, travelling through the forest, saw a “kind of smoke,” and heard Merlin’s wailing voice addressing him out of the obscurity. The wonders of the Forest of Brécéliande were sufficiently believed in of old time that we find the chronicler Wace actually journeying to the spot to find the fairy fountain and Merlin’s tomb. Another variation of the story is that Merlin made himself a sepulchre in the Forest of Arvantes, that Vivien persuaded him to enter it, and then closed the lid in such manner that thereafter it could never be opened. Matthew Arnold, sparing and reticent in speech, as is his wont, describes Merlin’s fate with subdued force and subtle charm, putting the story in the mouth of desolate Iseult, who told her children of the “fairy-haunted land” away the other side of Brittany, beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea; and of

“The deep forest glades of Broce-liand,Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps,Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps.”

Very cunningly and mystically has the poet told of Vivien’s guile as she waved a wimple over the blossom’d thorn-tree and the sleeping dotard, until within “a little plot of magic ground,” a “daisied circle,” Merlin was made prisoner till the judgment day. Celtic mythology, Renan tells us, is nothing more than a transparent naturalism, the love of nature for herself, the vivid impression of her magic, accompanied by the sorrowful feeling that man knows. When face to face with her, he believes that he hears her commune with him concerning his origin and destiny. “The legend of Merlin mirrors this feeling,” he continues. “Seduced by a fairy of the woods, he flies with her and becomes a savage. Arthur’s messengers come upon him as he is singing by a fountain; he is led back again to court, but the charm carries him away. He returns to his forests, and this time for ever.”

“La forêt de Brocelinde,” writes Emile Souvestre, in that fascinating and half-pathetic work, Les Derniers Bretons, “se trouve située dans le commune de Corcoret, arrondissement de Ploërmal. Elle est celebrée dans les romans de la table ronde. C’est là que l’on rencontre la fontaine de Baranton, le Val sans retour, la tombe de Merlin. On sait que ce magicien se trouve encore dans cette forêt, où il est retenu par les enchantements de Viviane à l’ombre d’un bois d’aubépine. Viviane avait essayé sur Merlin le charme qu’elle avait appris de lui-même, sans croire qu’il pût opérer; elle se desespéra quand elle vit qui celui qu’elle adorait était à jamais perdu pour elle.” This statement is not confirmed in the English romance, and is opposed wholly to the sentiment of the story as conceived by Tennyson and other modern writers. “On assure que Messire Gauvain (Gawain) et quelques chevaliers de la table ronde cherchèrent partout Merlin, mais en vain. Gauvain seul l’entendit dans la forêt de Brocelinde, mais ne put le voir.” The district of Brocelinde, or Brécéliande, is rich in antiquities, dolmens and menhirs being found together with other relics of early times and the mysterious workers of the stone age. To add to the scenic attractions of the locality there are ruined castles, the remains of machicolated walls, ancient chateaux, and churches dating back many centuries. It is fitting that here, therefore, romance should maintain one of its strongholds and that traditions of the master-magician should linger.

There is yet one other legend which should be noted. It represents the magician as perpetually roaming about the wood of Calydon lamenting the loss of the chieftains in the battle of Arderydd; while yet another tells of a glass house built for him in Bardsey Island by his companion, the Gleam, in which house of sixty doors and sixty windows he studied the stars, and was attended by one hundred and twenty bards to write down his prophecies. Never was such a confusion of traditions and fancies, never were so many deluding will-o’-the-wisps to lead astray whosoever would strive to investigate the truth of Merlin’s story. That story with its abundance of suggestion makes us think of the apt words of John Addington Symonds, who said that the examination of these mysterious narratives was like opening a sealed jar of precious wine. “Its fragrance spreads abroad through all the palace of the soul, and the noble vintage upon being tasted courses through the blood and brain with the matured elixir of stored-up summers.” One needs some such consolation as this for the vexation of finding seemingly inextricable confusion.

Warrior though he was, and all-powerful by reason of his supernatural gifts, Merlin is yet represented as being a peace-maker and as paying allegiance to a “master.” He ended the great battle between Arthur and the eleven kings, when the horses went in blood up to the fetlocks, and out of three-score thousand men but fifteen thousand were left alive. Of this sanguinary battle of Bedgraine, Merlin gave an account to his master Blaise, or Bleys, journeying to Northumberland specially to do so and to get the master to write down the record; all Arthur’s battles did Blaise chronicle from Merlin’s reports. Attempts have been made to identify Blaise (the Wolf) with St. Lupus, Bishop of Troyes. The more impressive part which Merlin plays in the Arthurian drama is as prophet and necromancer. His sudden comings and goings, his disguises, his solemn warnings, his potent interventions, all these combine to strengthen the idea of unequalled influence and of awesome personality. He figures prominently in the story of Sir Balin le Savage, and it was his hand which wrote the fitting memorial of the two noble brothers. Merlin it was again who counselled the king to marry, and who brought Guinevere to London from Cameliard, darkly predicting at the same time that through the queen Arthur should come to his doom.

An ancient Cornish song, to be found in the original dialect, but in reality a Breton incantation which has come down to us from the far ages out of the abundance of Armoric lore, describes Merlin the Diviner attended by a black dog and searching at early day for

“The red egg of the marine serpent,By the seaside in the hollow of the stone.”

Asked whither he is going he responds:

“I am going to seek in the valleyThe green watercress and the golden grass,And the top branch of the oak,In the wood by the side of the fountain.”

A warning voice bids him turn back and not to seek the forbidden knowledge. The cress, the golden grass, the oak branch, and the red egg of the marine serpent are not for him. “Merlin! Merlin!” cries the voice,

“Retrace thy steps,There is no diviner but God.”

It is like a moral message from Goethe’s Faust.

There is no doubt that Merlin’s death, which is no death, but a blind grovelling and eternal uselessness, was the mark of scorn put upon the magician who might have been prepotent, but who prostituted his powers—a feebleness and a degradation which were intolerable to the sturdy race who prized courage above all other qualities, and were incapable of realising the meaning of defeat or despair. That the counsellor should himself turn fool, and that the man of supernatural gifts should be prone to the weakness of nature, would be obnoxious to the Celtic imagination, and have its sequel in ribald allusion and endless taunts. The disaster which overtakes Merlin is one fitting for the coward or the buffoon, and is a fate altogether foreign to the ancient idea of that which was fitting for the hero, the bard, or the sage. It is noticeable that all the former services of Merlin are forgotten in judging him upon the closing despicable episode in his career and consigning him to timeless indolence and impotence. Shorn of his strength, a prisoner, living but “lost to use and fame,” Mage Merlin in his cave, victim to his own folly and a woman’s wiles, awaits the last doom.

CHAPTER IV

OF TINTAGEL

“There is a place withinThe winding Severne sea,On mids of rock, about whose footeThe tydes turn, keeping play,A tower-y toppèd castle here,Wide blazeth over all,Which Corineus’ ancient broodeTintagel Castle call.”—Camden.“Thou seest dark Cornwall’s rifted shore,Old Arthur’s stern and rugged keep,There, where proud billows dash and roar,His haughty turret guards the deep.“And mark yon bird of sable wing,Talons and beak all red with blood,The spirit of the long-lost kingPassed in that shape from Camlan’s flood.”R. S. Hawker.

Cornwall, the horn-shaped land, far removed from the great centres of progress and industry, the land of giants, of a separate people who until the last century spoke its own language;15 the land of holy wells and saints, of hut circles, dolmens, and earthwork forts, memorials of extreme antiquity; the land of many stone crosses indicating the early influence of Christianity; the land of so-called giants’ quoits, chairs, spoons, punch-bowls, and mounds, sometimes the work of primitive man, sometimes the work of fantastic Nature—this is the land in which romance lingers and in which superstition thrives, the land upon which seems to rest unmoving the shadow of the past. Olden customs survive, the old fashion is not departed from. The quaintness, the simplicity, the quietude, the charm of a bygone age may be found yet in that part which Taylor, the water poet, described as “the compleate and repleate Home of Abundance, noted for high churlish hills, and affable courteous People.”