The Crystal Cave

THE LEGEND OF MERLIN

Vortigern, King of Britain, wishing to build a fortress in Snowdon, called together masons from many countries, bidding them build a strong tower. But what the stonemasons built each day collapsed each night and was swallowed up by the soil. So Vortigern held council with his wizards, who told him that he must search for a lad who never had a father, and when he had found him should slay him and sprinkle his blood over the foundations, to make the tower hold firm. Vortigern sent messengers into all the provinces to look for such a lad, and eventually they came to the city that was afterwards called Carmarthen. There they saw some lads playing before the gate, and being tired, sat down to watch the game. At last, towards evening, a sudden quarrel sprang up between a couple of youths whose names were Merlin and Dinabutius. During the quarrel Dinabutius was heard to say to Merlin: "What a fool must thou be to think thou art a match for me! Here am I, born of the blood royal, but no one knows what thou art, for never a father hadst thou!" When the messengers heard this they asked the bystanders who Merlin might be, and were told that none knew his father, but that his mother was daughter of the King of South Wales, and that she lived along with the nuns in St. Peter's Church in that same city.

The messengers took Merlin and his mother to King Vortigern. The King received the mother with all the attention due to her birth, and asked her who was the father of the lad. She replied that she did not know. "Once," she said, "when I and my damsels were in our chambers, one appeared to me in the shape of a handsome youth who, embracing me and kissing me, stayed with me some time, but afterwards did as suddenly vanish away. He returned many times to speak to me when I was sitting alone, but never again did I catch sight of him. After he had haunted me in this way for a long time, he lay with me for some while in the shape of a man, and left me heavy with child." The King, amazed at her words, asked Maugantius the soothsayer whether such a thing might be. Maugantius assured him that such things were well known, and that Merlin must have been begotten by one of the "spirits there be betwixt the moon and the earth, which we do call incubus daemons."

Merlin, who had listened to all this, then demanded that he should be allowed to confront the wizards.

"Bid thy wizards come before me, and I will convict them of having devised a lie." The King, struck by the youth's boldness and apparent lack of fear, did as he asked and sent for the wizards. To whom Merlin spoke as follows: "Since ye know not what it is that doth hinder the foundation being laid of this tower, ye have given counsel that the mortar thereof should be slaked with my blood, so that the tower should stand forthwith. Now tell me, what is it that lieth hid beneath the foundation, for somewhat is there that doth not allow it to stand?" But the wizards, afraid of showing ignorance, held their peace. Then said Merlin (whose other name is Ambrosius): "My lord the King, call thy workmen and bid them dig below the tower, and a pool shalt thou find beneath it that doth forbid thy walls to stand." This was done, and the pool uncovered. Merlin then commanded that the pool should be drained by conduits; two stones, he said, would be found at the bottom, where two dragons, red and white, were lying asleep. When the pool was duly drained, and the stones uncovered, the dragons woke and began to fight ferociously, until the red had defeated and killed the white. The King, amazed, asked Merlin the meaning of the sight, and Merlin, raising his eyes to heaven, prophesied the coming of Ambrosius and the death of Vortigern. Next morning, early, Aurelius Ambrosius landed at Totnes in Devon .

After Ambrosius had conquered Vortigern and the Saxons and had been crowned King he brought together master craftsmen from every quarter and asked them to contrive some new kind of building that should stand for ever as a memorial. None of them were able to help him, until Tremorinus, Archbishop of Caerleon, suggested that the King should send for Merlin, Vortigern's prophet, the cleverest man in the kingdom, "whether in foretelling that which shall be, or in devising engines of artifice." Ambrosius forthwith sent out messengers, who found Merlin in the country of Gwent, at the fountain of Galapas where he customarily dwelt. The King received him with honour, and first asked him to foretell the future, but Merlin replied: "Mysteries of such kind be in no wise to be revealed save only in sore need. For if I were to utter them lightly or to make laughter, the spirit that teaches me would be dumb and would forsake me in the hour of need." The King then asked him about the monument, but when Merlin advised him to send for the "Dance of the Giants that is in Killare, a mountain in Ireland," Ambrosius laughed, saying it was impossible to move stones that everyone knew had been set there by giants. Eventually, however, the King was persuaded to send his brother Uther, with fifteen thousand men, to conquer Gilloman, King of Ireland, and bring back the Dance. Uther's army won the day, but when they tried to dismantle the giant circle of Killare and bring down the stones, they could not shift them. When at length they confessed defeat, Merlin put together his own engines, and by means of these laid the stones down easily, and carried them to the ships, and presently brought them to the site near Amesbury where they were to be set up. There Merlin again assembled his engines, and set up the Dance of Killare at Stonehenge exactly as it had stood in Ireland. Shortly after this a great star appeared in the likeness of a dragon, and Merlin, knowing that it betokened Ambrosius' death, wept bitterly, and prophesied that Uther would be King under the sign of the Dragon, and that a son would be born to him "of surpassing mighty dominion, whose power shall extend over all the realms that lie beneath the ray (of the star)..."

The following Easter, at the coronation feast, King Uther fell in love with Ygraine, wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. He lavished attention on her, to the scandal of the court; she made no response, but her husband, in fury, retired from the court without leave, taking his wife and men at arms back to Cornwall.

Uther, in anger, commanded him to return, but Gorlois refused to obey. Then the King, enraged beyond measure, gathered an army and marched into Cornwall, burning the cities and castles. Gorlois had not enough troops to withstand him, so he placed his wife in the castle of Tintagel, the safest refuge, and himself prepared to defend the castle of Dimilioc. Uther immediately laid siege to Dimilioc, holding Gorlois and his troops trapped there, while he cast about for some way of breaking into the castle of Tintagel to ravish Ygraine. After some days he asked advice from one of his familiars called Ulfin. "Do thou therefore give me counsel in what wise I may fulfill my desire," said the King, "for, and I do not, of mine inward sorrow shall I die." Ulfin, telling him what he knew already — that Tintagel was impregnable — suggested that he send for Merlin. Merlin, moved by the King's apparent suffering, promised to help. By his magic arts he changed Uther into the likeness of Gorlois, Ulfin into Jordan, Gorlois' friend, and himself into Brithael, one of Gorlois' captains. The three of them rode to Tintagel, and were admitted by the porter. Ygraine taking Uther to be her husband the Duke, welcomed him, and took him to her bed. So Uther lay with Ygraine that night, "and she had no thought to deny him in aught he might desire." That night, Arthur was conceived.

But in the meantime fighting had broken out at Dimilioc, and Gorlois, venturing out to give battle, was killed. Messengers came to Tintagel to tell Ygraine of her husband's death. When they found "Gorlois," apparently still alive, closeted with Ygraine, they were speechless, but the King then confessed the deception, and a few days later married Ygraine.

Uther Pendragon was to reign fifteen more years. During those years he saw nothing of his son Arthur, who on the night of his birth was carried down to the postern gate of Tintagel and delivered into the hands of Merlin, who cared for the child in secret until the time came for Arthur to inherit the throne of Britain.

Throughout Arthur's long reign Merlin advised and helped him. When Merlin was an old man he fell dotingly in love with a young girl, Vivian, who persuaded him, as the price of her love, to teach her all his magic arts. When he had done so she cast a spell on him which left him bound and sleeping; some say in a cave near a grove of whitethorn trees, some say in a tower of crystal, some say hidden only by the glory of the air around him. He will wake when King Arthur wakes, and come back in the hour of his country's need.