41 Facts About Merlin

Merlin is a mythical figure prominently featured in the legend of King Arthur and best known as a magician, with several other main roles.

The familiar depiction of Merlin, based on an amalgamation of historical and legendary figures, was introduced by the 12th-century Catholic cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth and then built on by the French poet Robert de Boron and prose successors in the 13th century.

Merlin's rendering of the character became immediately popular, especially in Wales.

Merlin's traditional biography casts him as an often-mad cambion, born of a mortal woman and an incubus, from whom he inherits his supernatural powers and abilities.

Merlin matures to an ascendant sagehood and engineers the birth of Arthur through magic and intrigue.

The name Merlin is derived from the Welsh name of the legendary bard that Geoffrey of Monmouth Latinised to in his works.

The character of Merlin is a mythical figure that was constructed through the fusion of oral traditions of Welsh origin and successive rewritings of the legend during the Middle Ages.

Merlin reverts to his wild form at certain times of the year.

Merlin has the ability to thwart the traditional cycle of the ages of life and the passage of time: from the moment he is born, he appears older, capable of reasoning and talking like a wise man.

The most important mythical trait that characterizes Merlin is his power of metamorphosis: being a protean, he can at will take the form of an animal, in particular a deer, an appearance of a wild man, or even the aspect of guardian of the woods, half-man half-animal.

Merlin has the power to transform others: thus, thanks to him, King Uter takes on the appearance of his vassal, the Duke of Tintagel, and can thus confound and seduce his wife Ygerne.

Geoffrey's composite Merlin is based mostly on the North Brythonic poet and seer Myrddin Wyllt, that is Myrddin the Wild, appearing in 12th-century poems such as "Afallennau Myrddin" or "Yr Oianau".

Merlin roamed the Caledonian Forest until he was cured of his madness by Kentigern, known as Saint Mungo.

Usually, the name of Merlin's mother is not stated, but it is given as Adhan in the oldest version of the Prose Brut, the text naming his grandfather as King Conaan.

Merlin is born all hairy and already able to speak like an adult, as well as possessing supernatural knowledge that he uses to save his mother.

Merlin based it on stories of the original 6th-century Myrddin, set long after his time frame for the life of Merlin Ambrosius.

Merlin spends a part of his life as a madman in the woods and marries a woman named Guendoloena.

Nikolai Tolstoy makes a similar argument based on the fact that early references to Merlin describe him as possessing characteristics which modern scholarship would recognize as druidical, the inference being that those characteristics were not invented by the early chroniclers but belonged to a real person.

Merlin was originally part of a cycle of Robert's poems telling the story of the Grail over the centuries.

The narrative of Merlin is largely based on Geoffrey's familiar tale of Vortigern's Tower, Uther's war against the Saxons, and Arthur's conception.

The prose version of Robert's poem was then continued in the 13th-century Merlin Continuation, telling of King Arthur's early wars and Merlin's role in them.

The Post-Vulgate Cycle has Merlin warn Arthur of how the birth of his other son will bring great misfortune and ruin to his kingdom, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Merlin is relatively rarely condemned as demonic by other characters such as King Lot, instead he is presented as an ambiguous trickster.

The earliest English verse romance concerning Merlin is Of Arthour and of Merlin of the late 13th century, which drew from the chronicles and the Vulgate Cycle.

The earliest Merlin work written in Germany was Caesarius of Heisterbach's Latin theological text Dialogus Miraculorum.

The works dealing with Merlin's prophecies did not end with Geoffrey's Prophetiae.

Particularly in Britain, Merlin remained as much as a prophet as a magician up to and including the 16th century, when political content in the style of Agrippa d'Aubigne continued to be written using Merlin's name to guarantee their authenticity.

For instance, John of Cornwall's 12th-century Latin poem Prophecy of Merlin contains a selection of 'updated' prophecies from Geoffrey's Prophetae that come with the author's interpretations relating them to his contemporary Cornish and English political affairs.

The influential Propheties de Merlin was written in French but obviously by an Italian in Venice on the bidding of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and to propagate on his behalf.

Prophecies attributed to Merlin have been previously used by the 14th-century Welsh hero Owain Glyndwr in his fight against the English rule.

The vagueness of Merlin's prophecies enabled British monarchs and historians to continue using them even in the early modern period.

Merlin is called a fairy like Morgan and described as a Lady of the Lake, or the "chief Lady of the Lake" in the case of Malory's Nimue.

Common themes in most of them include Merlin actually having the prior prophetic knowledge of her plot against him but lacking either ability or will to counteract it in any way, along with her using one of his own spells to get rid of him.

Merlin only allows Tristan's half-brother Meliadus the Younger to access it and record his prophecies.

One notably alternate version that has a happier ending for Merlin is the Premiers Faits section of the Livre du Graal, where Niniane peacefully confines him in Broceliande with walls of air, visible only as a mist to others but as a beautiful yet unbreakable crystal tower to him, where they then spend almost every night together as lovers.

Unrelated to the legend of the Lady of the Lake, other purported sites of Merlin's burial include a cave deep inside Merlin's Hill, outside Carmarthen.

The 15th-century Scotichronicon tells that Merlin himself underwent a triple-death, at the hands of some shepherds of the under-king Meldred: stoned and beaten by the shepherds, he falls over a cliff and is impaled on a stake, his head falls forward into the water, and he drowns.

Since the Romantic period, Merlin has been typically depicted as a wise old man with a long white beard, creating a modern wizard archetype reflected in many fantasy characters, such as JR R Tolkien's Gandalf or JK Rowling's Dumbledore, who use some of his other traits.

For instance, Merlin appears in the teachings of the Montana-based New Age religious-survivalist group Church Universal and Triumphant as one of their "ascended masters".

Diverging from his traditional role in medieval romances, Merlin is sometimes portrayed as a villain.

Merlin was one of eight British magical figures who were commemorated on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail in 2011, and one of the three Arthurian figures commemorated on the gold and silver British pound coins issued by the Royal Mint in 2023.