Merlin

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Then, lowering the sword, point first to the floor, she folded her hands over the hilt, slowly knelt, and bowed her head.

  I do not know what she prayed. No one does. But whatever the words, there could have been few more heartfelt prayers uttered in that church before or since.

  I see her still, kneeling there in the ring of kings. Her blue cloak is folded upon her shoulder; her torc glints at her slender throat; her long fingers are interlaced around the golden hilt; the great jewel touches her fair brow. The light falling around her enfolds her in a holy embrace.

  If the kings were embarrassed by her words, they were mortified by her example. Heartless indeed was the man among them who could look upon that innocent sight and not feel remorse and shame. Guilt made them dumb.

  At last, her prayer finished, she rose and, holding the sword before her, began walking slowly around the ring.

  “Lords of Britain,” she called, her voice loud and sure, “this sword belongs to the one who has never sought to advance himself over any other, the one in whom the vision of our realm burns most brightly, whose wisdom has been valued by high and low alike, whose strength as a leader and prowess in battle is sung in timber halls and wattle huts from one end of this worlds-realm to the other…”

  Ygerna had stopped before me.

  “My lords, I give it now into his hand. Let those among you who would take it wrest it from him!”

  So saying, she put the sword into my hand and held it there with both of hers. “There,” she whispered, “let them try to undo that.”

  “Why?” My voice was harsh with astonishment.

  “You would never have spoken for yourself.”

  She turned to the assembly and called, “Who will join me in swearing fealty to our High King?”

  Ygerna knelt down and stretched her hands forth to touch my feet in the age-old gesture. The lords looked on, but no one made a move to join her.

  Time slid away, and it began to appear as if Ygerna’s noble gesture would be reviled. Standing or seated, they stubbornly held their places. The silence turned stone-hard with defiance.

  Poor Ygerna, made to look a fool by their haughty refusal to acknowledge me. I could have wept for the beautiful futility of it.

  But then, just as it seemed as if she must withdraw, across the floor someone stirred. I looked up. Lot rose slowly to his feet. He stood for a moment and then walked to me, his eyes on mine as he came. “I will swear fealty,” he announced, his voice echoing full in the vaulted room. He sank to his knees beside Ygerna.

  Lot’s example amazed the kings even more than Ygerna’s. They stared in disbelief—as I did myself. However, two against all the rest is not enough to make a man High King.

  But Custennin had stepped forward, too. “I will swear him fealty,” he called in a loud voice. And the next voice to break silence was Tewdrig’s. Both men knelt before me, and were joined by their chieftains. Eldof of Eboracum and Rhain of Gwynedd came next with their advisors, and all swore fealty and knelt. Ceredigawn and his men did likewise.

  Had it been another time, or another man, it might have gone differently. Though I believe that what happened that bright morning was ordained from the beginning.

  Dunaut and Morcant, and their contentious ilk, were strong. They would never bring themselves to bend the knee to me, and I knew it. As it was, the kings were divided in their support of me, and more were against me than for me.

  I could not be High King. And no, no, I did not desire it. Nevertheless, I had the support of good men. Now, at least, I had leave to act.

  “Lords and Kings of Britain,” I said, taking up the sword. “Many among you have proclaimed me High King—”

  “Many others have not!” cried Dunaut. “Everyone knows you have not lifted so much as a knifeblade in years.”

  I ignored him. “—And though I could persist in furthering my claim, I will not.”

  This stunned nearly everyone, and emboldened Dunaut, who called, “I say we must choose one who is not afraid to raise the sword in battle.”

  I did not let this go unchallenged. “Do you think me afraid? Does anyone think Myrddin Emrys afraid to use this weapon as it was intended? If that is what you believe, step forth and we will put your faith to the test!”

  No one was foolish enough to accept my challenge.

  “So, it is as I thought,” I told them; “you believe otherwise. You know it is not for fear that I have refrained from taking up the sword, but because I learned the lessons of war long ago: that a man can kill only so many enemies—so many Saecsens, so many Picti, so many Irish.

  “And then there are more Saecsens, more Picti, more Irish, and I tell you that though rivers run red with the blood of the foeman and skies blacken with the smoke of their burning corpses they cannot all be killed.”

  I felt a stirring in my blood. Words began to burn in my breast.

  “This sword is Britain,” I declared, lofting it. “My claim is no less worthy than any other lord’s, and better than some. Yet, I am not the man to hold it. He who holds this sword will hold Britain, and he must hold it in a firm and unfaltering grasp.

  “Therefore, from this day I will put away the sword, that I may serve and strengthen him who must wield it.

  “But I tell you the truth, this sword will not be won by vanity. It will not be gained by arrogance or stiff-necked pride. And it will not be won by one man advancing himself over the bodies of his friends.

  “The imperial Sword of Britain will be won by the one king among you who will bend his back to lift other men; it will be gained by the king who puts off pride and arrogance, who puts off vanity and puffed-up ambition, and takes to himself the humility of the lowest stablehand; it will be earned by the man who is master of himself and servant of all.”

  These words were not my own; the bard’s awen was on me now and, like a fountain pouring forth its gifts unbidden, my tongue gave utterance of its own volition. I spoke and my voice rang out like sounding iron, like a harp struck by an unseen hand.

  “Bear witness, all you kings, these are the marks of the man who will make this sword his own:

  “He will be a man such as other men will die for; he will love justice, uphold righteousness, do mercy. To the haughty he will be bold, but tender to the meek and downcast. He will be a king such as has never been in this worlds-realm: the least man in his camp shall be a lord, and his chieftains shall be kings of great renown. Chief Dragon of Britain, he shall stand head and shoulders above the rulers of this world in kindness no less than in valor; in compassion no less than in prowess. For he will carry the True Light of God in his heart.

  “From his eyes will fly fiery embers; each finger on his hand will be as a strong steel band, and his sword-arm as judgment’s lightning. All men alive in the Island of the Mighty will bow the knee to him. Bards will feast on his deeds, become drunk on his virtue, and sing out unending praises, so the knowledge of his reign will reach all lands.

  “As long as Earth and sky endure, his glory will be in the mouths of men who love honor and peace and goodness. As long as this world lasts, his name will live, and as long as eternity his spirit will endure.

  “I, Myrddin Emrys, prophesy this.”

  For the space of a dozen heartbeats no one dared speak against me. But the moment passed; the awen moved on. A shout snapped the silence.

  “Empty words!” cried Dunaut. “I demand a sign!”

  Coledac and others too joined in: “How will we know this king? There must be a sign.”

  I suppose it was only the grasping of drowning men after straws. But it angered me. I could not abide them even a moment longer. Seeing nothing, knowing nothing but the blood-red cast of rage, I fled the church, the sword still in my hand. They all ran after me, their voices bleating in my ears. I did not listen and I did not turn back.

  There in the yard before the doorway, where the masons were at work on the arch, lay the enormous keystone. Taking the hilt in my fist, I raised the sword ove
r my head.

  “No!” screamed Dunaut wildly. “Stop him!”

  But no one could stop me. I thrust the Sword of Britain down toward that unyielding stone…

  The astonishment on their faces made me look as well. The sword had not broken: it stood upright, quivering, buried nearly to the hilt and stuck fast in the stone.

  EPILOGUE

  Some claim a hand appeared to grasp the naked blade and guide it into the stone; others say a flash of light blinded them for a moment and that when they looked the sword stood in the stone. However it was, all agree the sharp stench of burning stone filled the air and stung their eyes.

  “You ask for a sign,” I shouted. “Here it is: whosoever raises the sword from this stone shall be the trueborn king of all Britain. Until that day the land will endure such strife as never known in the Island of the Mighty to this time, and Britain shall have no king.”

  So saying, I turned at once and made my way through the shock-silenced crowd. No one called after me this time. I returned to Gradlon’s house and gathered my things while Pelleas saddled the horses.

  A short time later Pelleas and I rode alone through the narrow streets of Londinium. We reached the gate, passed beneath the wall, and turned onto the road.

  The day was far gone; the sun burned yellow-gold in a fading sky. We paused on a hilltop to see our shadows stretched long behind us, reaching back toward the city. But it was not in me to turn back. No, let them do what they would; the future, our salvation, lay elsewhere.

  So, setting my face to the west, I rode out in search of Arthur.

  E-Book Extra

  Stephen R. Lawhead on…

  The writing process

  Book-writing is a three-ring circus (complete with clowns and animals). At any given time there is 1: The Book Just Written, which is being edited, typeset, proofed, published, and needs to be promoted. While this is going on I am trying to write 2: The Book of the Moment: the one I'm working on pretty much nine-to-five, five days a week. It takes about ten months of writing and two months of re-writing from first word to last. Meanwhile, I'm beginning to think ahead to 3: The Next Book. I work up a proposal for the new project several months before finishing the current one so that by the time I'm ready to begin writing, the idea is set and the publisher is on board.

  The actual writing, then, takes about a year—but it takes roughly three years from concept to printed copies.

  This is a far cry from the romantic vision of the writer, locked away in his garret with nothing but a typewriter, a bottle of whiskey, and an overflowing ashtray, with his editor—and creditors—banging at the door, demanding that he slip a few pages of his deathless prose underneath the door…but it works for me.

  His Writing Influences

  When I was a teenager, I was reading Ian Fleming, Robert Heinlein, Mark Twain, and (under duress) Thomas Hardy. My wife says the influence of the James Bond books is marked. Charles Dickens, Walter Scott, Jules Verne, Stevenson, and Dumas are my literary heroes. I've had great enjoyment and drawn great inspiration from the Norwegian author Mika Waltari (The Egyptian, The Etruscan, The Roman, The Wanderer, and others). Martin Cruz Smith is the living novelist I most enjoy for solid entertainment. Lawrence Block's columns in The Writer and his book Telling Lies for Fun and Profit were greatly encouraging and instructive in the early days. I am irresistibly drawn to historical heretics because they give me new ideas on what might have been; Julian Jayne's masterpiece, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind is a book I come back to every now and then. Really.

  The sequence of the Pendragon Cycle

  To get a chronological reading of the Pendragon Cycle, first read Taliesin. Then read Merlin. Next, read the first two parts of Arthur, followed by Pendragon and Grail in order. Finally, read the last part of Arthur, and, if you're keen to complete the marathon, finish with Avalon, which recapitulates the themes in a modern setting.

  Names

  The names I used in the Pendragon books came from various sources, mostly ancient texts of one sort or another, including the Mabinogion. Some are names which continue, with slight alterations, in Welsh, Scottish, and Irish, today; others are names which are no longer in common use, but could be revived.

  My surname is Scottish, deriving from a placename which can be found in the Border country of Scotland where a “law” is a hill, and those who dwelled at the foremost part of the hill lived at the “head”. There is a tiny village in the Borders bearing the name Lawhead, and I visited it once to see Lawhead Farm, Lawhead Croft, and even a Law-Head Cottage. I'd never seen the name hyphenated before and asked the woman living there what it meant. She told me it meant the sign painter got carried away in a fit of creativity and took it on himself to add the hyphen.

  Lancelot’s absence from the Pendragon Cycle

  Lancelot has not been left out, I have simply returned to him his Celtic name Llenlleawg. You will also find Galahad (Gwalchavad) and all the other lads. However, my treatment of Lancelot will not track with Mallory's late medieval, largely French, re-telling of the Arthurian myths; rather, it is consistent with earlier and, to my mind, more authentic Celtic myth and history. All this guff about courtly love is a perverted concoction of late medieval French romance which has no real part in the legends of Britain.

  The Atlantis/Britain connection

  In the late 1800's, the intrepid Professor Rhys traveled around Britain and her islands for many years gathering legends and tales from the last of the Celtic speakers who were dying out. He collected, organized, and analyzed these stories and the results were presented in Celtic Folklore, a two volume edition published by Oxford University Press in 1901. Professor Rhys was the first person I ever encountered who suggested that Llyonesse (an old name for the extreme southwest portion of Britain) and Atlantis shared a connection, and that many of the legends involving Fair Folk derived from this connection. Enchanted with this notion, I wove it into the Pendragon Cycle in order to explain some of the puzzles and questions surrounding the myths of Taliesin, Merlin, and Arthur. Thus, although it is not widely known, the Atlantis/Britain connection is well documented, at least in terms of folklore.

  Geography

  All the places mentioned in The Pendragon Cycle really exist, or once did. The difficulty in finding them on the present-day map is due to the fact that I’ve employed the ancient place names in use in fifth and sixth century Britain. Some of these, oddly enough, can still be found pretty much intact in Wales, but most have changed. Caer Lial, for example, is near modern-day Carlisle in Scotland; and Caer Myrdden is Carmarthen in southern Wales. In those two names you can see the ancient word still peeking through, as it were. Ynys Avallach is a little more challenging—it is Glastonbury; but Glastonbury is one of those places that has worn a number of names over the years. For most of the names in the book a little detective work will soon yield the modern name.

  I visit virtually every place in virtually every book, trying to imagine what that place would have been like during the period I'm writing about.

  Whether or not the Vandals invaded Britain

  After living in North Africa and troubling Rome for a considerable time—having migrated there from their homelands in what is now southeastern Europe—the Romans grew tired of the harassment and decided to put an end to it by invading Carthage, which the Vandals had made their capital. The invasion went ahead, and the Vandals fought; but when the battle turned against them, they climbed into their ships and sailed right out of recorded history. What happened to them after that remains a matter of historical debate, but it is not too great a stretch to believe they sailed north, arriving first in Ireland and then Britain. I suspect the invasion is recorded in Arthurian tradition as an animal tale: Arthur and his warrior band fighting a giant wild Boar, first in Ireland and then in Britain, which appeared and devastated the land. My book, Pendragon, details the account of this obscure event as it may have happened.

  Merlin’s breakdown
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br />   In the story, Merlin is driven insane with grief and rage; all hope gone, he flees into the forest and hides from a world he can no longer trust or love. There he spews out his demented, yet curiously moving, rants to the earth and stars, awaiting the day of his release and redemption. While some readers can find this extremely upsetting, I think it was essential to the story, and helped increase the emotional depth and richness of the tale. Also, there were good historical reasons for putting Merlin through this harrowing time; many of the old legends speak of him as a madman and mystical forest dweller. This was a way to incorporate those legends into my tale.

  Religion

  When Christianity came to the British Isles, possibly as early as 54 AD, it was welcomed and embraced in an extraordinary way. Many viewed the new faith as the fulfillment of what they already believed. In several ancient legends, Arthur is spoken of as a true Christian king. It has been my attempt to put flesh onto these bones, to speculate how this aspect of the tales might have played a part in the legends, as well as how it all might have looked to someone alive then. In other words, to try to put back in what so many others leave out.

  Whether or not Arthur existed

  While it is true that the historic record is sketchy, there are scores of tantalizing clues and traces—a fragment of verse here, a place name there—but little that academic historians will accept as definitive proof of his existence.

  All the same, that is slowly beginning to change as more is learned about the so-called “Dark Ages” and the time of Arthur. Every now and then there is word that someone in Wales or Scotland has uncovered a gravestone, a provocative ruin, or some other possible clue that promises to solve the puzzle…. Some believe, as I do, that if the search were to be moved from the southwest of England to the Borders of Scotland it might bear more fruit.

  On another level, though, I ask myself what person or series of events has created such an enduring story? Is it likely to be based on nothing? I believe that, once all the layers of legend are stripped away, there remains a kernel of truth. In other words, Arthur—or someone so much like him that it may just as well be him—did exist and did rise to the defense of his land when all hope seemed lost, and that act was so momentous it lives on in the Arthurian myths.