by Mike Ashley
Jane Yolen cleverly took different aspects of Merlin’s life and blended them in a series of stories which made up Merlin’s Booke (1986). Because they are distinct stories she is able to explore various forms of Merlin’s character without being restricted, and though it makes the book uneven as a single read, the individual stories are ever refreshing, and one of them is reprinted here.
Stephen Lawhead’s Merlin (1988), the second volume in his Pendragon Cycle, is set in the same time as Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave, following Merlin’s life from youth to the events of the sword in the stone. Merlin is less scheming, finding himself as much a victim of fate as the world unravels in the violent days before Arthur.
Then there is Nikolai Tolstoy’s The Coming of the King (1988), the most complete book to look at the bard and mystic Myrddin. Tolstoy provides another first-person narrative of Merlin’s life, but this time set in a post-Arthurian world, showing Merlin’s role in uniting the successor kings of Britain in an attempt to protect Britain.
There are plenty of other recent Arthurian series which feature Merlin even if he is not always centre stage. Of special merit are the Guinevere trilogy by Persia Woolley: Child of the Northern Spring (1987), Queen of the Summer Stars (1990) and Legend in Autumn (1991). Merlin’s role is most prominent in the first volume where he is seen as a wise man and seer who somehow gets involved in events mightier than he had reckoned. There is also the Daughter of Tintagel sequence by Fay Sampson which focuses more on Morgan le Fay, but is a detailed interpretation of the clash of magic and power. The influence of Merlyn (as he is here) is evident throughout but especially in the third novel Black Smith’s Telling, though the image remains more romantic than realistic. The series runs Wise Woman’s Telling (1989), White Nun’s Telling (1989), Black Smith’s Telling (1990), Taliesin’s Telling (1991) and the rather idiosyncratic and personalized Herself (1992).
Merlin has also been depicted in films and on television, notably in the film Excalibur (1981), where he was portrayed by Nicol Williamson, the American TV mini-series Merlin (1997) with Sam Neill, and the British TV series Merlin (2008) where Colin Morgan plays him as a young man. Even if you’ve read other books about Merlin I am sure you will discover something new here. Now, for those who have waited patiently, I hope you feel you have learned something about Merlin’s life and world. Let us now hand the centre stage over to him. Merlin . . . your world awaits you.
DREAM READER
JANE YOLEN
Jane Yolen (b. 1939) is an extremely prolific writer of fantasy fiction for both adults and young readers. I still regard her early book for children, The Magic Three of Soldatia (1974), as one of her best, though several other offerings, such as Sister Light, Sister Dark (1988) and Briar Rose (1992), are equally memorable. Jane Yolen has won several awards including a Special World Fantasy Award in 1987 for her contribution to the field. She has written several Arthurian stories including the young Merlin trilogy Passager (1996), Holsby (1996) and Merlin (1997). The following, which sets us on the road by taking us to Merlin’s childhood, comes from Merlin’s Booke (1986).
Once upon a time – which is how stories about magic and wizardry are supposed to begin – on a fall morning a boy stood longingly in front of a barrow piled high with apples. It was in the town of Gwethern, the day of the market fair.
The boy was almost a man and he did not complain about his empty stomach. His back still hurt from the flogging he had received just a week past, but he did not complain about that either. He had been beaten and sent away for lying. He was always being sent away from place to place for lying. The problem was, he never lied. He simply saw truth differently from other folk. On the slant.
His name was Merrillin but he called himself Hawk, another kind of lie because he was nothing at all like a hawk, being cowering and small from his many beatings and lack of steady food. Still he dreamed of becoming a hawk, fiercely independent and no man’s prey, and the naming was his first small step toward what seemed an unobtainable goal.
But that was the other thing about Merrillin the Hawk. Not only did he see the truth slantwise, but he dreamed. And his dreams, in strange, uncounted ways, seemed to come true.
So Merrillin stood in front of the barrow on a late fall day and told himself a lie; that the apple would fall into his hand of its own accord as if the barrow were a tree letting loose its fruit. He even reached over and touched the apple he wanted, a rosy round one that promised to be full of sweet juices and crisp meat. And just in case, he touched a second apple as well, one that was slightly wormy and a bit yellow with age.
“You boy,” came a shout from behind the barrow, and a face as yellow and sunken as the second apple, with veins as large as worm runnels across the nose, popped into view.
Merrillin stepped back, startled.
A stick came down on his hand, sharp and painful as a firebrand. “If you do not mean to buy, you cannot touch.”
“How do you know he does not mean to buy?” asked a voice from behind Merrillin.
It took all his concentration not to turn. He feared the man behind him might have a stick as well, though his voice seemed devoid of the kind of anger that always preceded a beating.
“A rag of cloth hung on bones, that’s all he is,” said the cart man, wiping a dirty rag across his mouth. “No one in Gwethern has seen him before. He’s no mother’s son, by the dirt on him. So where would such a one find coins to pay, cheeky beggar?”
There was a short bark of laughter from the man behind. “Cheeky beggar is it?”
Merrillin dared a glance at the shadow the man cast at his feet. The shadow was cloaked. That was a good sign, for he would be a stranger to Gwethern. No one here affected such dress. Courage flooded through him and he almost turned around when the man’s hand touched his mouth.
“You are right, he is a cheeky beggar. And that is where he keeps his coin – in his cheek.” The cloaked man laughed again, the same sharp, yipping sound, drawing an appreciative echo from the crowd that was just starting to gather. Entertainment was rare in Gwethern. “Open your mouth, boy, and give the man his coin.”
Merrillin was so surprised, his mouth dropped open on its own, and a coin fell from his lips into the cloaked man’s hand.
“Here,” the man said, his hand now on Merrillin’s shoulder. He flipped the coin into the air, it turned twice over before the cart man grabbed it out of the air, bit it, grunted, and shoved it into his purse.
The cloaked man’s hand left Merrillin’s shoulder and picked up the yellowing apple, dropping it neatly into Merrillin’s hand. Then his voice whispered into the boy’s ear. “If you wish to repay me, look for the green wagon, the castle on wheels.”
When Merrillin turned to stutter out his thanks, the man had vanished into the crowd. That was just as well, though, since it was hardly thanks Merrillin was thinking of. Rather he wanted to tell the cloaked man that he had done only what was expected and that another lie had come true for Merrillin, on the slant.
After eating every bit of the apple, his first meal in two days, and setting the little green worm that had been in it on a stone, Merrillin looked for the wagon. It was not hard to find.
Parked under a chestnut tree whose leaves were spotted with brown and gold, the wagon was as green as Mab’s gown, as green as the first early shoots of spring. It was indeed a castle on wheels, for the top of the wagon was vaulted over. There were three windows, four walls, and a door as well. Two docile drab-colored mules were hitched to it and were nibbling on a few brown blades of grass beneath the tree. Along the wagon’s sides was writing, but as Merrillin could not read, he could only guess at it. There were pictures, too: a tall, amber-eyed mage with a conical hat was dancing across a starry night, a dark-haired princess in rainbow robes played on a harp with thirteen strings. Merrillin could not read – but he could count. He walked toward the wagon.
“So, boy, have you come to pay what you owe?” asked a soft voice, followed by the trill of a mistle
thrush.
At first Merrillin could not see who was speaking, but then something moved at one of the windows, a pale moon of a face. It was right where the face of the painted princess should have been. Until it moved, Merrillin had thought it part of the painting. With a bang, the window was slammed shut and then he saw the painted face on the glass. It resembled the other face only slightly.
A woman stepped through the door and stared at him. He thought her the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Her long dark hair was unbound and fell to her waist. She wore a dress of scarlet wool and jewels in her ears. A yellow purse hung from a braided belt and jangled as she moved, as if it were covered with tiny bells. As he watched, she bound up her hair with a single swift motion into a net of scarlet linen.
She smiled. “Ding-dang-dong, cat’s got your tongue, then?” When he didn’t answer, she laughed and sat down on the top step of the wagon. Then she reached back behind her and pulled out a harp exactly like the one painted on the wagon’s side. Strumming, she began to sing:
“A boy with eyes a somber blue
Will never ever come to rue,
A boy with . . .”
“Are you singing about me?” asked Merrillin.
“Do you think I am singing about you?” the woman asked and then hummed another line.
“If not now, you will some day,” Merrillin said.
“I believe you,” said the woman, but she was busy tuning her harp at the same time. It was as if Merrillin did not really exist for her except as an audience.
“Most people do not,” Merrillin said, walking over. He put his hand on the top step, next to her bare foot. “Believe me, I mean. But I never tell lies.”
She looked up at that and stared at him as if really seeing him for the first time. “People who never tell lies are a wonder. All people lie sometime.” She strummed a discordant chord.
Merrillin looked at the ground. “I am not all people.”
She began picking a quick, bright tune, singing:
“If you never ever lie
You are a better soul than I . . .”
Then she stood and held up the harp behind her. It disappeared into the wagon. “But you did not answer my question, boy.”
“What question?”
“Have you come to pay what you owe?”
Puzzled Merrillin said: “I did not answer because I did not know you were talking to me. I owe nothing to you.”
“Ah, but you owe it me,” came a lower voice from inside the wagon where it was dark. A man emerged and even though he was not wearing the cloak, Merrillin knew him at once. The voice was the same, gentle and ironic. He was the mage on the wagon’s side; the slate gray hair was the same – and the amber eyes.
“I do not owe you either, sir.”
“What of the apple, boy?”
Merrillin started to cringe, thought better of it, and looked straightaway into the man’s eyes. “The apple was meant to come to me, sir.”
“Then why came you to the wagon?” asked the woman, smoothing her hands across the red dress. “If not to pay.”
“As the apple was meant to come into my hands, so I was meant to come into yours.”
The woman laughed. “Only you hoped the mage would not eat you up and put your little green worm on a rock for some passing scavenger.”
Merrillin’s mouth dropped open. “How did you know?”
“Bards know everything,” she said.
“And tell everything as well,” said the mage. He clapped her on the shoulder and she went, laughing, through the door.
Merrillin nodded to himself. “It was the window,” he whispered.
“Of course it was the window,” said the mage. “And if you wish to talk to yourself, make it sotto voce, under the breath. A whisper is no guarantee of secrets.”
“Sotto voce,” Merrillin said.
“The soldiers brought the phrase, but it rides the market roads now,” said the mage.
“Sotto voce,” Merrillin said again, punctuating his memory.
“I like you, boy,” said the mage. “I collect oddities.”
“Did you collect the bard, sir?”
Looking quickly over his shoulder, the mage said, “Her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I did.”
“How is she an oddity?” asked Merrillin. “I think she is –” he took a gulp, “—wonderful.”
“That she is; quite, quite wonderful, my Viviane, and she well knows it,” the mage replied. “She has a range of four octaves and can mimic any bird or beast I name.” He paused. “And a few I cannot.”
“Viviane,” whispered Merrillin. Then he said the name without making a sound.
The mage laughed heartily. “You are an oddity, too, boy. I thought so at the first when you walked into the market fair with nothing to sell and no purse with which to buy. I asked, and no one knew you. Yet you stood in front of the barrow as if you owned the apples. When the stick fell, you did not protest; when the coin dropped from your lips, you said not a word. But I could feel your anger and surprise and – something more. You are an oddity. I sniffed it out with my nose from the first and my nose—” he tapped it with his forefinger, managing to look both wise and ominous at once “—my nose, like you, never lies. Do you think yourself odd?”
Merrillin closed his eyes for a moment, a gesture the mage would come to know well. When he opened them again, his eyes were no longer the somber blue that Viviane had sung about but were the blue of a bleached out winter sky. “I have dreams,” he said.
The mage held his breath, his wisdom being as often in silence as in words.
“I dreamed of a wizard and a woman who lived in a castle green as early spring grass. Hawks flew about the turrets and a bear squatted on the throne. I do not know what it all means, but now that I have seen the green wagon, I am sure you are the wizard and the woman, Viviane.”
“Do you dream often?” asked the mage, slowly coming down the steps of the wagon and sitting on the lowest stair.
Merrillin nodded.
“And do your dreams often come true?” he asked. Then he added, quickly, “No, you do not have to answer that.”
Merrillin nodded again.
“Always?”
Merrillin closed his eyes, then opened them.
“Tell me,” said the mage.
“I dare not. When I tell, I am called a liar or hit. Or both. I do not think I want to be hit anymore.”
The mage laughed again, this time with his head back. When he finished, he narrowed his eyes and looked at the boy. “I have never hit anyone in my life. And telling lies is an essential part of magic. You lie with your hands like this.” And so saying, he reached behind Merrillin’s ear and pulled out a bouquet of meadowsweet, wintergreen, and a single blue aster. “You see, my hands told the lie that flowers grow in the dirt behind your ear. And your eyes took it in.”
Merrillin laughed, a funny crackling sound, as if he were not much used to laughter.
“But do not let Viviane know you tell lies,” said the mage, leaning forward and whispering. “She is as practiced in her anger as she is on the harp. I may never swat a liar, but she is the very devil when her temper’s aroused.”
“I will not,” said Merrillin solemnly. They shook hands on it, only when Merrillin drew away his grasp, he had a small copper coin in his palm.
“Buy yourself a meat pie, boy,” said the mage. “And then come along with us. I think you will be a very fine addition to our collection.”
“Thank you, sir,” gasped Merrillin.
“Not sir. My name is Ambrosius, because of my amber eyes. Did you notice them? Ambrosius the Wandering Mage. And what is your name? I cannot keep calling you ‘boy’.”
“My name is Merrillin but . . .” he hesitated and looked down.
“I will not hit you and you may keep the coin whatever you say,” Ambrosius said.
“But I would like to be called Hawk.”
“Hawk, is it?” The
mage laughed again. “Perhaps you will grow into that name, but it seems to me that you are mighty small and a bit thin for a hawk.”
A strange sharp cackling sound came from the interior of the wagon, a high ki-ki-ki-ki.
The mage looked in and back. “Viviane says you are a hawk, but a small one – the merlin. And that is, quite happily, close to your Christian name as well. Will it suit?”
“Merlin,” whispered Merrillin, his hand clutched tightly around the coin. Then he looked up, his eyes gone the blue of the aster. “That was the hawk in my dream, Ambrosius. That was the sound he made. A merlin. It has to be my true name.”
“Good. Then it is settled,” said the mage standing. “Fly off to your pie, Hawk Merlin, and then fly quickly back to me. We go tomorrow to Carmarthen. There’s to be a great holy day fair. Viviane will sing. I will do my magic. And you – well, we shall have to figure out what you can do. But it will be something quite worthy, I am sure. I tell you, young Merlin, there are fortunes to be made on the road if you can sing in four voices and pluck flowers out of the air.”
The road was a gentle winding path through valleys and alongside streams. The trees were still gold in most places, but on the far ridges the forests were already bare.
As the wagon bounced along, Viviane sang songs about Robin of the Wood in a high, sweet voice and the Battle of the Trees in a voice deep as thunder. And in a middle voice she sang a lusty ballad about a bold warrior that made Merlin’s cheeks turn pink and hot.