Merlin: Between Arthur and Viviana

Among all magicians, real and mythical, there is perhaps none as widely known as Merlin.
The last Magus and the most famous druid of Britain, he is remembered not only as King Arthur’s mentor but also as a distinct, deeply ambiguous figure whose complex nature still emerges in later retellings.
It is likely that Merlin supplied the model for the depictions of the great medieval sorcerers.

Merlin is first mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, and his figure was formed by merging the historical madman and magician Myrddin Wyllt (also known as Merlinus Caledonensis) with the image of the war-leader Aurelius Ambrosius. The result was a character Geoffrey called Merlin Ambrosius.

The earliest traces of the Merlin legend in European literary sources appear in the work of Nennius (8th century), who tells how King Vortigern, unable to build a citadel because the materials gathered by day vanished at night, learns from his advisors about a child born without a father. When the child is found, his mother swears she never knew a man. The child’s name is Ambrosius, and his father was a Roman consul. The king gives Ambrosius a city and all the western provinces of Britain.

An early form of the Merlin legend survives in Welsh verse from the 12th–14th centuries. There Merlin is depicted as a warrior (apparently Aurelius), who lost his sanity in battle, acquired the gift of prophecy, fled, and settled in the wild Caledonian forest. In later Arthurian versions, Merlin usually appears as an aged sage and magician, the mentor of King Arthur.

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account of Merlin’s birth runs thus: “And when they were brought before the royal presence, the sovereign received Merlin’s mother with due respect, for he knew she was of noble birth. Then he began to question her, asking by whom she had conceived Merlin. She answered: ‘You have a living soul and I have a living soul, my lord, my king, yet truly I know not by whom I bore him. I know only that once, when I was with my attendants in the bedchamber, there appeared before me a certain one in the likeness of a lovely youth, and, clasping me in his powerful embrace, showered me with kisses. Having stayed with me but a little while, he suddenly vanished, as if he had never been. He visited me in that manner for a long time, and oft did he unite himself with me as if a man of flesh and blood, and left me with a burden in my womb‘. Afterwards, he often spoke with her while invisible. Long afterward, he again appeared to the princess in human form and became the father of her child. One of the king’s wise men declared that the child’s father must have been one of those beings, half-angels, half-men, who dwell between the Earth and the Moon.”

The future great Magus stood before the king majestic, beautiful, and noble. He enchanted the monarch so much that the king could not bring himself to kill him, but explained the matter and asked for counsel. Merlin answered: “Your Majesty, your magicians lack wisdom, and your soothsayers are crude and foolish. They have shown their ignorance and complete unknowing of nature’s secrets: beneath the mound, there is a vast pool that has undermined the foundation. Command that the trenches be deepened, and you will find a lake, at the bottom of which lie two flat stones, hiding sleeping dragons.” This prophecy proved true, and when the dragons were found, they engaged one another in mortal combat.

Legends attribute to Merlin the founding of the Round Table, the building of the fortress city of Camelot, and the famed Stonehenge. According to the tale, Merlin’s power was such that when many kings united against Arthur, it was only by Merlin’s magic that they were defeated.

In Thomas Malory’s The Death of Arthur, Merlin is the mentor of the future king of Britain, Arthur, son of King Uther Pendragon and Lady Igraine, who — according to Malory — was conceived after the death of Igraine’s first husband through Merlin’s magical assistance, when he gave Uther the semblance of Igraine’s spouse. For this reason, the magician took the infant and raised him.

While Arthur was an infant, Merlin, foreseeing attempts by other claimants to murder the boy, forced the royal couple to surrender the child to him. Only Merlin knew where the child lived and how he was being raised.
For sixteen years, Merlin guarded and raised Arthur, shaping him into the future great king.

When Arthur reached the age of sixteen, Merlin advised him to enter the contest for the ancient sword embedded in a stone. According to the legend, he who could draw that sword from the stone was destined to unite all of Britain. Only Arthur could withdraw the sword, and he was proclaimed king. Another famous sword — Excalibur — came to Arthur as a gift from the Lady of the Lake. After Arthur’s death, the sword is returned to the Lady of the Lake.
Her generosity had an ulterior motive.

She sought Merlin’s secrets, hoping to extract magical knowledge from him, and so she seduced him.
Sir Thomas Malory gives the woman who seduced Merlin the name Nimue (Nimueh). Nimue appears in many other episodes of Malory’s book.
And, of course, there was no surer way for the seductress to attract the magician’s attention than to flatter the ambition of his pupil.

The Lancelot-Grail Cycle relates that the Lady of the Lake was called Viviana and that she learned her magic from Merlin when he fell in love with her. Legend has it that one day a beautiful girl with golden eyes appeared at court. Her name was Viviana, and she was sent to ruin the wise Merlin. Enchanted by Viviana’s beauty, Merlin granted her every wish.
The fairy refused to return his feelings until he revealed all his secrets, and when he finally did, she used all her magic to ensnare him and bury him beneath a mound.

Because Merlin could see the future, he knew this would happen — yet he was powerless to prevent it, for he was captive to love’s illusion. As a sage and magus, Merlin couldn’t imagine that his beautiful lover would treacherously extract his secrets in order to become a sorceress herself, even more powerful than he. Once, while Merlin and Viviana walked in a green wood, they sat to rest beneath a tall oak. Merlin laid his head in the maiden’s lap and dozed. Then Viviana began to sing over him the spells he had taught her, and she sent him into eternal sleep.
According to the legend, Merlin sleeps somewhere beneath a mound in eternal slumber, but he may yet awaken.

Merlin — sage and Magus — fell victim to seduction; he did not perish in a magical duel or a knightly battle, but was betrayed by the illusion of love.