Merlin

Merlin, after Robert de Boron

About this translation

Robert de Boron's Merlin tells how the devils plotted a prophet of their own, how Merlin was born and turned to God's side, and how he served three kings until Arthur drew the sword from the stone and was crowned. Robert told it in French verse early in the thirteenth century, between his Joseph, which tells how the cup of the Last Supper was carried west, and a Perceval that survives only in prose. Only 504 lines of his Merlin survive, but the whole story survives in prose. This is that prose in plain modern English, translated from the Old French text Gaston Paris and Jacob Ulrich printed in 1886 from the Huth manuscript, which is published beside it. It ends with Arthur crowned; the Huth manuscript goes on into a sequel found in no other French copy, which this book leaves out. Each bracketed page number in the English opens the same page of the French, and each one there opens the scan of the printed book. The glossary explains the people, places and old words; press any underlined name to see its entry.

Read in: UK English

Source. Robert de Boron. Merlin. London, British Library, Additional MS 38117 (the Huth manuscript), ff. 18v–74r. In Merlin, roman en prose du XIIIe siècle, publié avec la mise en prose du poème de Merlin de Robert de Boron d'après le manuscrit appartenant à M. Alfred H. Huth, edited by Gaston Paris and Jacob Ulrich, 1:1–146. Société des anciens textes français. Paris: Firmin Didot, 1886. University of Toronto copy, scanned by the Internet Archive; read beside the Bibliothèque nationale de France's copy and the New York Public Library's. Every page of the Toronto copy this book cites is also saved beside it, with a link to where it was found, in case the Internet Archive goes down.

Why this book

Before God wrote rules, gods were how we tried to control the chaos of reality. As humans we personify whatever happens to us: the storm rages because it's angry, and a bribe might cool it down. Each village had its own gods, and when villages fought, the winner's gods rose while the loser's gods fell. A beaten kingdom, the people of Judah after Babylon burned Jerusalem, decided their god hadn't lost; their god was punishing them for breaking the deal. Defeat made that god stronger and portable. A contract strangers could carry anywhere, not tied to nature.

The Britons wrote Arthur into the contract of that old storm God, Yahweh, and Arthurian legend is how you watch it happen. In the old Welsh stories, Arthur hunts a magic pig with giants and kills a witch, and Merlin is a wild prophet in the woods, about as close to a druid as the sources get. A century later, English and French Christians make Merlin a devil's son baptized to work for God, and send Arthur's knights hunting for the cup from the Last Supper, where the best knight is basically a saint. Same king, now working for the church. Get ready for a lot of Jesus talk.

The contract came with a second clause: obey it, and you can take from those under a different contract. Arthur's legend runs on that clause. In the ninth-century History of the Britons, Arthur carries an image of the Virgin Mary into his eighth battle and drives off the Saxons "through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ." In Robert de Boron's Merlin, Merlin tells two British brothers the Saxons "don't believe in the Trinity," so whoever dies fighting them, "doesn't need to fear death much." Then God picks the next king with a sword driven through an anvil, its letters saying whoever pulls it out rules "by the election of Jesus Christ." God could have picked a king with a book or a plow and went with a sword.

I'm translating these stories to witness them building this new contract from the old one. It grew out of the church into law and money because in God we trust. We can rely on strangers because a court or a bank stands behind them, so we stopped needing the people next door. That's why so many of us live in buildings full of neighbors we've never met, and stories like these are how we got here.

Part 1: The devils ruin a family, and one fathers a child with the last daughter left

Christ empties hell, and the devils meet to plan

[Paris–Ulrich 1:1] The story says that Satan was furious when our Lord came into hell and led Adam and Eve out,¹² with as many of the others as he chose. When the devils heard, they were stunned. They gathered and said, "Who's this man who has beaten us, broken down our walls, dragged out everything we'd hidden, and done whatever he likes? We never thought anyone could be born from a woman and not be ours. But this one is free of us, and he does all he can to destroy and torment us. How could he come into the world without any of the earthly pleasure that belongs to us, and still do this to us?"

Then one of the devils answered, "Friends, what ruined us is the very thing we thought would serve us best.³

[Paris–Ulrich 1:2] "Remember how the prophets said the Son of God would come to earth to save the sinners descended from Adam and Eve? So we captured the ones who said he'd come and free them from hell. They kept saying it until it happened. He's freed everyone we held, and we can't take anything back. He's carried off all who believe he was born to a woman, so completely that we never got a single one of them. We never saw it coming."

"Don't you know," said another, "that he has them baptized in water in his name? They come up out of it in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and after that we can't have them the way we used to. We've lost them all to this baptism, and we've got no power over them unless what they do brings them back to us.

Priests can forgive any sinner, and the devils fear losing everyone

"That's how he's broken us. There's more: he's left ministers on earth who'll save them, however much of our work they've done, if they're willing to repent, give it up and do what those priests tell them. That's how they've all slipped away from us.

"It was a powerful spirit that came down to rescue humanity. He agreed to be born to a woman, without our knowing anything about it and with none of the pleasure of any man, and to suffer the torments of this world. When we got to him, we tested him every way we knew, and when we found nothing of ours in him, he chose to die to save people. He must love them deeply, to go through so much to win them and take them from us.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:3] "We have to find a way to get people to do our work so that they can't repent of it, or speak to the ones who'd give them the pardon he bought with his death."

Then they all said together, "We've lost everything, since he can forgive sins right up to the end: if he finds a man doing his work, that man is saved.⁴ Even someone who's done our work all his life is gone from us if he's sorry for it. So none of them are ours."

The devils plan to father a prophet who'll serve them

Then they talked it over: "The ones who spoke about his coming to earth are the ones who've hurt us most and brought this disaster on us. The more they told of it and the more we tormented them, the faster, it seems to me, he hurried to come and help them, rescue them and free them from the torments we put them through.

"But how could we get a man of our own who'd talk to people and tell them what we know, what we can do and what we've been up to? We have the power to know everything that's been said and done in the past. If we had a man with that gift, able to tell these things and live among other people on earth, he'd be a big help to us. He could teach the way the prophets did when they were with us, though we thought what they said would never happen. He'd tell of things near and far, and many would trust him."

"Whoever could make such a man would do very well," they all said, "because people would believe him."

Then one said, "I don't have the power to conceive or make a woman pregnant. If I did, I could manage it, because I know one who does and says whatever I want."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:4] Another said, "One of us can easily take the shape of a man and father a child. But he'll have to do it as secretly as he can."

So the devils agreed to father a man who'd lead the rest astray. They're great fools to think our Lord doesn't know what they were plotting. So one of them set out to make a man who'd have his memory and his mind, to trick humanity and Jesus Christ. You can be sure he's mad to think he can fool the one who's lord over him and over everything. With that settled, they ended their meeting.

The one who'd said he had power over the woman wasted no time. He went to her and partly won her over, so she gave him everything both she and her husband had.

A devil kills a rich man's animals, and the man gives him everything

She was the wife of a rich man who owned large herds and plenty of other wealth. They had a son and three daughters. The devil got straight to work. He went to the fields where the man's sheep grazed and killed some of them.

Another day he came to the woman and asked how he could trick her husband. She said the best way was to make him angry by taking what was his. "Take his things," she said, "and he'll rage like a madman."

So the devil turned on the man's herds and killed a large part of them. When the shepherds saw their master's animals dying out in the fields, they were alarmed and went to tell him.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:5] When the rich man heard, he was stunned. "Is this true?"

"Yes, sir," they said.

He flew into a rage, baffled at the losses. "Do you know what's killing my sheep?" he asked.

They said they didn't know what was wrong with them, and that was all for that day.

When the devil saw how little it took to anger the man, he thought that if he did him real harm, the angrier the man got, the further he'd fall into his power. So he came back and killed his animals and two fine horses, all in one night. When the man saw his goods ruined, he lost his temper, and in his rage he said a very foolish thing: he gave the devil all he owned and whatever remained.

The devil kills the rich man's family and seduces a daughter

When the demon knew he'd been given this gift, he was delighted, and went at the man hard to do him more harm, until he'd left him none of his animals. The man grew angrier still, and in his great anger he shut himself away from people. Seeing that, the devil knew he could bend him however he liked.

Then he went to the man's very handsome son and strangled him in his bed, and in the morning the boy was found dead. When the man saw he'd lost his child, he gave up hope and strayed so far from his faith that he couldn't find his way back. The devil was delighted.

Then he went to the man's wife, the one he'd done all this through. He made her climb onto a chest in her cellar and put a rope around her neck. She stepped off it and hanged herself, and was found dead.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:6] When the rich man saw he'd lost his wife and his son, his grief made him ill, and he died. That's what the devil does to those he can get under his control.

Pleased with what he'd done, he thought about how to trap the three daughters the man had left. He knew he couldn't unless he gave them what they wanted. There was a young man in the town who did much of his dirty work, and the devil led him to the girls to court one of them. He worked on her with what he did and said until he'd seduced her, and the demon was delighted.

He doesn't care to keep what he's done secret. He wants it known openly to everyone, to shame people sooner. So by his scheming he spread the news until it was common knowledge.

In those days a woman caught having sex outside marriage, unless she was a prostitute, was punished by law. The devil, who's always bringing about the downfall of his own, made sure word got around, even to the men of the town who sat as judges.

The young man ran away, and the woman was arrested and brought before the court. When they saw her, they felt sorry for her, out of respect for her father. "Look how quickly things have gone badly for such a man," they said. "Not long ago he was one of the most respected men in this town."

The judges bury the daughter alive, and a holy man comforts her sisters

The judges talked among themselves about what to do with her and how to punish her, and they all agreed to bury her alive one night, to spare her family the shame; and so they did.⁵ That's how the devil brings disgrace and misery on those who do his work.

In that country there was a holy man who was a good confessor.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:7] He heard about this strange affair and came to the two sisters who were left, the older and the younger. He comforted them and asked how it had all happened to their father, their mother, their brother and the girl they'd lost.

"Sir, we don't know," they said, "except that we think God hates us, and that's why he lets us suffer this."

"You're wrong to say that," said the holy man. "God has no hatred for anyone, but it pains him when a sinner despises himself. I know the devil was behind all this. Your sister, who died so shamefully: did you know what she was doing?"

"Sir, we knew nothing about it," they said.

"Keep away from evil," he told them, "because it leads men and women to a bad end."

He taught them well, if only they'd been willing to hear it. The older sister understood him and was very pleased by what he said. He instructed her in the faith, and she took great care to learn it, to listen to his teaching and to live by it in what she did and said.

Then the holy man said, "If you truly believe what I tell you, great good will come to you from it. You'll be my friend and my daughter in God, and however great your need, if you take my advice, I'll advise you with our Lord's help. Don't lose heart," he said, "because our Lord will help you if you stay faithful to him. Come to me often; I won't be living far from here."

The devil sends a woman to tempt the younger sister

So the holy man guided them both and set them on the right path. The older sister trusted him completely and loved the advice he gave her.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:8] When the devil found out, it upset him, and he was afraid he'd lose them, so he thought about how to trick them. A woman who had often done his dirty work had a house nearby. He sent her to the two girls. She drew the younger sister aside; she didn't dare try the older one, seeing how modestly she behaved. She asked about her way of life, and how the other one lived.

"She loves me very much and is very kind to me," the girl said. "But my sister is so upset over everything that's happened to us that she's cheerful with no one, me included. A holy man who talks to her about God all day long has converted her and won her over, so she does nothing but what he wants."

"My dear," the woman said, "it's a shame about that lovely body of yours, because you'll never be happy while you're living with your sister. Oh, my girl, if you knew the pleasure other women have, you'd think nothing of everything you own. We're so content with the people we love that with only a piece of bread we're better off than you'd be with all there is in the world. What's a woman's life worth without a man's love?

"My friend," she said, "I'm telling you this for your own good: nothing good will come to you while you stay with her. Here's why. Your sister is older than you, so she'll have a man before you do if she can, because she won't let you go first. Once she's had her pleasure, she won't care about you at all. So your lovely body, born to such bad luck, will go to waste."

"How would I dare do what you tell me?" the girl said. "My sister died a shameful death in secret for doing such things."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:9] The woman answered, "She went about it too shamelessly and foolishly, and was badly advised. But if you trust me, you won't be blamed for anything you do, and you'll have all the pleasure of your body."

"I don't know how I could do it," she said, "and I wouldn't dare talk about it, because of my sister."

The younger sister runs off with men, and the holy man teaches her sister

When the devil heard this, he was delighted, knowing she'd be his, and led his agent away. Once she'd gone, the young woman kept thinking over what she'd said. When he found her so eager to give in that she talked about it to herself, he stirred her up all he could, until at night she'd look at her lovely body and say, "That decent woman was right when she told me I've lost the happiness this world can give." Then one day she sent for her neighbor and said, "You told me the truth the other day, when you said my sister didn't care about me."

"I told you so, my friend," the woman said. "She'll think of you even less once she's happy herself. We were born for nothing but to enjoy a man."

"I'd love it," she said, "if I didn't think they'd kill me."

"They'll do it if you go about it as foolishly as your sister did," she said. "But I'll teach you how to do it."

"Then tell me," said the girl.

The woman said, "Sleep with any man who wants you. Leave the house, say you can't stand living with her, and then do as you like with your body, and the law will never say a word about it. That way you'll be out of danger, and when you've lived this life as long as you like, a decent man will be very glad to have you, for your great inheritance.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:10] "If you do as I say, you'll have all the pleasure this world can give."

The girl promised to do as she said. So she ran away from her sister and, on that woman's advice, slept with any man who wanted her, and the devil was delighted to have caught the second one too.

When the older one learned that the younger had gone off like that, she went to the holy man, terrified. Seeing how upset she was, he felt sorry for her. "My friend," he said, "cross yourself and put yourself in God's hands, because I can see you're frightened."

"Sir, I have good reason to be," she said, "because I've lost my sister." She told him all she knew of how the younger one had gone, and that she'd truly been sleeping with every man.

When the holy man heard this, it shook him too. "My child," he said, "the devil is still around you, and he'll never rest until he's fooled you all, unless God protects you."

"Sir, for God's sake," she said, "how can I keep safe from him? There's nothing in the world I'm more afraid of than him tricking me."

"If you trust what I tell you," the holy man said, "he won't get the better of you."

"Sir, I'll accept whatever you tell me."

"Then do you believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," he said, "and that these three powers are one God? And that our Lord came to earth to save the sinners who'd trust in baptism and the other commandments of the Church, and in the ministers he left here to rescue those who'd have faith in his name and put them on the right path?"

"I believe it just as you've told it," she said, "and won't stop as long as I live, just as I hold that he's lord and king of the whole world. May he protect me so the devil can't trick me."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:11] The holy man said, "My daughter, if that's your faith, nothing evil can harm you, no demon and not Satan himself. Please, don't let yourself fall into a rage. Honestly, there's nowhere on earth he'd rather live than in a man or woman full of anger. So guard against all wrongdoing, and against any trouble that comes your way.

"Whenever you're angry, my dear friend, come to me and tell me exactly how it happened. Confess your guilt to our Lord, and every time you lie down and get up, bless yourself in the name of the cross where God's body hung to redeem sinners, men and women, from hell, and in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, so that no demon can trick you.

"If you do as I've told you, you'll have nothing to fear from the devil. Make sure there's always a lamp wherever you sleep, because he hates light above everything and won't go anywhere near it."

So the holy man taught her, and she was very afraid of being tricked.

The older sister goes to bed angry, and a devil gets her pregnant

Then the girl went home, firm in her faith and very humble before God. Decent men and women came to her again and again and said, "Young woman, your sisters' wicked lives must frighten you. Think carefully now, and don't be discouraged. You're very rich, with a large inheritance, and any respectable man would be glad to know you were living well; he'd be happy to marry you."

"May our Lord protect me as he knows I need," she said.

So the young woman spent a long time in peace and led a very good life. No one could ever lead her astray, and the devil knew of no wrong she did.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:12] That drove him wild. He realized he couldn't trick her and couldn't see how to drag her into sin, until it occurred to him that he could never make her forget what the holy man had told her unless he made her angry,⁶ since she didn't care at all for what he offered and he couldn't make it please her.

So the devil took the younger girl and brought her to her sister's house one Saturday evening, to provoke her and see whether he could catch her out.

She got there late at night with a gang of thugs, and they all came in. When the good young woman saw her, she was furious. "Sister," she said, "you shouldn't come in here as long as you want to live that kind of life. You'll give me a bad name, and I don't need that."

At this the other flew into a rage too, because she'd said it would bring shame on her. She said her sister did worse than she ever had, accused her of having an affair with the holy man, and said that if people knew, she'd be burned.

When the older one heard that, she was very angry and told her to get out of her house.

"It was my father's as much as yours," the other said.

When the young woman saw the girl wouldn't go, she took her by the shoulders and tried to push her out. The younger one hit back, and the thugs who'd come with her grabbed her sister and beat her savagely until she started to break free. When they'd beaten her all they wanted, she went into her room and shut the door. She had no one with her but her servant and her maid, and it was because of them that the thugs stopped.

Alone, she lay down on her bed fully dressed and cried bitterly, her heart full of rage at the way her sister had treated her, and in that misery she fell asleep.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:13] When the devil knew that in her great anger she'd forgotten everything the holy man had told her, he was delighted. "Now I can do whatever I want with this one," he said. "She's fallen out of the grace of her Lord and her master, and we can put our man in her."

The devil who had the power to have sex with a woman was ready at once. He came to her as she lay asleep, and she conceived. The moment she did, she woke, remembered the holy man who'd advised her, and crossed herself. "Holy Mary," she said, "what's happened to me? I'm worse off than when I got into this bed. Glorious mother of Jesus Christ, protect my soul and my body, and defend them from the devil's torment."

Then she got up and began to look for whoever had done this to her, thinking she'd find him.

She finds her door still shut and knows the devil has tricked her

She went to the door of her room and found it shut and locked tight. She searched everywhere again, but there was nothing. Then she knew the devil had tricked her completely.

She began to mourn and call on our Lord: "Lord God, in your mercy, please don't let me be shamed in this world, or sin in any way that costs me my soul."

The night passed and day came. As soon as it was light, the devil took the younger one away, now she'd done what he'd brought her there for. When she and the thugs had gone, the older sister left her room, furious and in tears, called her servant and told him to bring her two women, and he did at once.

Part 2: Merlin is born, his mother is tried, and Vortigern takes the throne

The older sister confesses, and the holy man can hardly believe her

[Paris–Ulrich 1:14] The story says that once they'd come, the young woman set out to see her confessor.

When she arrived and the holy man saw her, he said, "My daughter, you're in trouble, I think; I can see you're terribly frightened."

"Sir," she said, "something has happened to me that no woman ever went through. I've come for your advice, for God's sake. You've told me no one can sin so badly that they won't be forgiven, if they truly confess, repent and do what the confessor tells them. Sir, I've sinned, and believe me, the devil has tricked me."

Then she told him how her sister had come to her house, how she'd gotten angry with her, how the girl and her thugs had beaten her, and how she'd gone into her room in a rage and shut the door tight.

"In my great anger I forgot to cross myself. Sir, everything you'd told me to do went out of my head. I lay down on my bed fully dressed, and still furious I fell asleep. When I woke, I found myself shamed and my virginity gone. I searched my room, tried the door and it was shut, and there was no living thing there. I never saw or knew who had done this to me. Sir, that's how it happened, and I was tricked. So please, for God's sake: even if my body is punished, don't let me lose my soul."

The holy man listened closely and was amazed, because he'd never heard of anything like it. "My friend," he said, "you're possessed by the devil, and he still lives in you. How can I hear your confession or give you penance for this? I really think you're lying. No woman ever lost her virginity in that way, without knowing who took it, or even seeing him. And you want me to believe this was done to you in your sleep!"

"I swear to God," she said, "I'm telling the truth, and you'll find it's so."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:15] "You sinned badly when you broke the obedience I'd asked of you," he said, "and for that I'll give you a penance for the rest of your life, if you're willing to do it as I give it."

The holy man gives her a penance and absolves her

"Sir," the young woman said, "you'll never ask anything of me I won't do."

"I hope so," he said. "Are you telling me you've come to God and to the ministers of the Church for guidance? That's true confession and repentance: to do and say, as far as you can, what God commands."

"Sir, just as you've said it," she said, "I'll stick to it with all my strength, God willing."

"I trust in God," he said, "that if what you've told me is true, you'll have nothing to fear."

"Sir," she said, "I swear to God I'm telling the truth."

"You've promised me you'll keep the penance and give up the sin," said the holy man.

"Yes, sir," she said.

"Then you've given up all lust," he said, "and I forbid it for the rest of your life, except what comes in sleep, which no one can guard against. Do you want this, and can you stay away from it?"

"Sir, yes," she said, "if you'll vouch for me to God that I won't be damned for this sin,⁷ since he put you on earth by his command."

She accepted the penance he gave her very willingly, in tears, like someone truly sorry. The holy man made the sign of the cross over her and absolved her, and brought her back into the faith of Jesus Christ as far as he could.

Then he wondered how what she'd told him could be true, and when he'd thought it through, he knew the devil had tricked her. He called her over, had her drink water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and sprinkled some on her.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:16] He said, "Be careful not to forget what I've told you. Whenever you need me, come to me, and cross yourself and put yourself in God's hands at once; and for your penance I give you all the good you'll do."

Her pregnancy shows, and she can't name the father

So the young woman went home and lived a very good life.

When the devil saw he'd lost her, and that he knew no more of what she did or said than if she'd never existed, he was furious.

She stayed home, living that way, until what she carried could no longer be hidden: she grew big and filled out, and the other women noticed. They looked her over around the waist. "My dear," they said, "you're clearly pregnant."

"Yes, it's true," she said.

"God!" they said. "Who did this to you?"

"I swear on my life," she said, "I don't know."

"Have men had you so many times that you can't say who?"

"May God let me die in labor," she said, "if, to my knowledge or in my sight, any man ever slept with me so that this could come of it."⁸

Those who heard this crossed themselves. "That can't be," they said. "It never happened to you or to anyone. Maybe you secretly love the man who did it and don't want to name him. But you'll be a great loss, because as soon as the judges know, you'll have to die."

When she heard that, she was terrified. "I swear on my soul," she said, "I never saw or knew the one who did this to me."

The judges arrest her, and the holy man has her kept in a tower

[Paris–Ulrich 1:17] Then the women left, taking her for a fool, and said what a pity it was about so rich an inheritance and such fine buildings, since she'd lost it all. When she heard this, she was badly shaken, and went back to her confessor and told him what they'd said.

The holy man saw that she was carrying a living child, and he was astonished. He asked whether she'd kept the penance he'd given her.

"Yes," she said.

"Did this sin ever happen to you more than once?"

"No, sir, honestly," she said. "Never before or since."

At that he was baffled. He wrote down the night and the hour as she'd told them, and said, "Rest easy. When this heir inside you is born, I'll know whether you told me the truth or lied. I have faith in God that if it's as you've told me, you'll never be in danger of death. You may well be afraid: when the judges hear of it, they'll arrest you to get your fine buildings, and say they're punishing you by law. When they've taken you, send for me, and I'll come and advise you if I can, and God will help you if you're what you say; he won't forget you."

Then he said, "Go home, rest easy and live a good life, because a good life leads to a good death."

So that night the young woman went home and lived quietly and simply, until the judges came into the country, heard the news of the lady who'd conceived in that way, and sent to her house for her, to bring her before them.

When she was taken, she called for the holy man who'd advised her, and he came as fast as he could. He was shown in, and found they'd already brought her before the court.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:18] The judges put the case to the young woman and her confessor: she said she didn't know who'd made her pregnant. "Sir," they asked him, "do you believe anyone could conceive without a man?"

"I won't tell you all I know," the holy man said. "But I'll tell you this much, if you'll take my advice: you shouldn't punish her while she's expecting. It's neither reasonable nor right. The child hasn't deserved death; he's never sinned, and he's done no wrong in his mother's sin. If you punished her, you'd know you'd killed an innocent."

"Sir, we'll take your advice," said the judges.

"Then," said the holy man, "keep her well guarded in a tower, so she can't do anything foolish. Put two women in with her to help her give birth when the time comes, so that none of them can get out. Watch her until she has her child, and let her nurse it until it can eat on its own and ask for what it needs. Then, if nothing else turns up, do with her as you like. Give them what they need. Do all this on my advice; if you want to do otherwise, I can do no more."

"What you say seems reasonable to us," the judges said.

They did everything just as the holy man had laid it out: they put her in a stone house, had every door shut tight on both sides, and put two decent women in with her, the most respectable they could find, and high up they left a window to pass them what they needed.

When that was done, the holy man spoke to her from outside: "When you've had the child, have it baptized as soon as you can. When they bring you out and want to burn you, send for me."

Merlin is born and baptized

[Paris–Ulrich 1:19] So she stayed a long time in the tower, and the judges had arranged for everything the women with her needed and sent it in. They lived there as you've heard, and she had a child when the Lord God chose. When he was born, he had, as he was bound to, the mind and the power of the devil who had fathered him.

But the demon had been a fool, because our Lord had redeemed her with his death and pardoned the sin for her true repentance,⁹ and he had only fooled her by trickery. As soon as she knew she'd been tricked, she asked for mercy as she should, and put herself in the care and under the authority of the Church and of God, and kept the commandments her confessor had given her.

So God didn't want the devil to lose what he was owed there, what he'd gone to all that trouble for: he wanted the child to have the devil's skill, his power to know everything said and done in the past, and the boy had all of it.

Our Lord, who sees everything, chose that the sin should do her no harm at all, because of the mother's repentance and the sincere confession he knew was in her heart, since it hadn't happened by her will or wish, and because of baptism, in which she'd been washed at the font; and he gave the child the gift of knowing the future.¹⁰

So from the devil he knew what had been said and done in the past. As for what lay ahead, our Lord wanted him to know that too, on God's side, to weigh against the other gift.¹¹ Now he can turn whichever way he likes: if he wants, he can give the devil his due, and our Lord his.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:20] The demon formed nothing in him but the body. It's our Lord who puts in the spirit, to see and hear and understand, giving each of us intelligence and memory as he pleases, and he gave this child more than others, because he'd need it badly. Then we'll see which side he takes.

When the women picked him up and looked at him, every one of them was frightened, because he was covered in hair, more than they'd ever seen on a child, and they showed him to his mother.

When she saw him, she crossed herself. "He frightens me," she said.

"Us too," said the women. "We can hardly hold him."

"Lower him down from the window," she said, "and have him baptized."¹²

"What do you want him named?" they asked.

"After my father," she said, "whose name was Merlin."

The child grows fast, and his mother cries over the death she faces

After the baptism, Merlin was given back to his mother to nurse. At nine months he looked a year old.

When he was twice that age, the women said to her, "We'd like to get out of here and go back to our friends. We've been shut in here a long time, and we can't stay forever."

"Honestly, there's nothing I can do about it," she said.

Then she cried and begged them, for God's sake, to put up with it a little longer.

She went to a window with her child in her arms and sobbed. "My son," she said, "I'll die because of you, and I haven't deserved it. No one knows the truth of who fathered you, and no one will believe anything I say. So I'm going to be put to death."

Baby Merlin promises his mother she won't die, but the judges summon her

[Paris–Ulrich 1:21] As she cried over the torment she expected, the child looked at her and said, "Mom, don't lose heart. You'll never die for anything that's happened to you because of me."

When she heard him speak like that, she nearly fainted. She was so frightened that she let go of him, and he fell to the floor. The women at the window jumped up, thinking she meant to strangle him. "What are you doing to your baby?" they said. "Do you want to kill him?"

"No," she said, bewildered. "But he told me something so astonishing that my arms and my heart gave out."

"What did he tell you?" they asked.

"He told me," she said, "that I'll never be put to death because of him."

"He'll say something else yet," they said.

Then they took him among them and listened, to see if he'd talk again. But he gave no sign and didn't say a word, until, a long time later, his mother said to the two women, "Threaten me, and you'll soon see whether he speaks." Then she took him in her arms, because she wanted them to hear him, and began to cry.

At once they said, "What a loss your beautiful body will be, burned for a creature like this. It would have been far better if he'd never been born."

"You're lying," the child said. "My mom put you up to it."

When they heard him speak like that, they were terrified. "This isn't a baby," they said, "it's a devil, who knows what we've done and said." They talked to him and tried hard to get him talking, but all he'd say was, "Leave me alone. You're more foolish and sinful than my mom."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:22] At that they were astonished. "This can't be kept quiet," they said. "We'll tell the people below." The two women went to the window and told everyone what the child had said. When the crowd learned of it, they said it was high time to punish the mother.

So they had letters drawn up summoning her to face justice in forty days. When they reached her and the day of her execution was set, she was very frightened, and sent for the holy man who'd advised her.

Time went on, until there were only seven days left before she was to be burned. When she remembered the day, she didn't know what to do; she was terrified and began to cry.

The child was going around the tower, and when he saw his mother crying, he laughed, full of joy.

"You don't care what your mother's going through," the women told him, "when she's to be burned this week because of you. Damn the day you were born, unless God makes it right, since she'll suffer so much for you!"

"Mom, they're lying," the child said. "As long as I live, no one will dare kill you or lay a hand on you or put you to death by law, except God."

Mother and child go before the judges, and she swears no man touched her

When she and the two women heard him speak like that, they were very glad. "A child who can say such things," they said, "will grow up a very good and wise man, God willing."

Time went on until the appointed day. When it came, the women were brought out, and Merlin's mother carried him in her arms in front of the judges. They took her two companions aside and asked them whether it was true that the boy could talk like that.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:23] They told them everything they'd heard him say. At that the court was astonished, and said it would take plenty of talking to save her from death.

Then they came back, and by now the holy man who'd advised the young woman had arrived.

One of the judges said to her, "Is there anything else you need to do? Get ready now, because you must suffer this death."

"Sir, please," she said, "I'd like to speak with my confessor."

He let her, so she went into a room, and the child stayed outside. Many people tried to get him talking, but he wasn't interested.

Then she talked with the holy man, crying miserably. When she'd said all she wanted, he asked her, "Is it true, then, that your son talks the way people say?"

"Yes, sir," she said, and told him what she'd heard him say.

"Something remarkable will come of this," he said.

Then he and the young woman came out of the room together; she found her child outside, took him in her arms and went straight to the judges.

When they saw her, they said, "Will you tell us who this boy's father is? Don't try to hide it."

"I can see the law has handed me over to death," she said. "May God never have pity or mercy on me if I ever saw or knew the father, or ever slept with a man so that he could have fathered a child with me."

"We don't think this can be true," the judges said, "and we'll ask the other women whether what you want us to believe is possible, because no one ever heard of anything like it."

The child Merlin speaks for his mother at her trial

Then they drew aside and asked a number of the town's wives about her claim.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:24] One of them said, "All of you here: did it ever happen to any of you, or to anyone you've heard of, that a woman conceived or had a child without sleeping with a man?"

They said it was impossible.

The judges came back to Merlin's mother and told her what the women had said. "Now justice must be done."

Then Merlin leaped forward, furious at this and at what was being said about her. "That won't happen so fast," he said. "If every man and woman who'd committed adultery were brought to trial, more than two thirds of the people here would be burned, the women too, whose way of life I know as well as they do. If I chose to speak, I'd make them all confess.

"Plenty here have done worse than my mom, I promise you, because she's not guilty of what she's charged with. If she is, this holy man has taken it on himself. If you don't believe me, ask him."

The judges called him over and asked whether what Merlin had told them was true. He told them everything, exactly as Merlin's mother had said it to him, and they wanted to know if it had really happened to her.

"I told her she had nothing to fear, in the eyes of God or the world, from anyone who'd treat her fairly," the holy man said. "She's told you herself how she was tricked. This child is extraordinary: she conceived him without the pleasure of a man and doesn't know who fathered him. She confessed it and repented, and I gave her her penance."

Then Merlin said to him, "You have in writing the hour and the night I was conceived, so you can tell when I was born and at what time, and from that you can learn plenty about what my mom did."

"That's true," he said. "But I can't tell where your wisdom comes from, because you know more than all of us."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:25] Then the two women from the tower were called. Before the court they gave the child's dates, when he was fathered, how long she carried him and when he was born, from the holy man's writing, and found it was as he'd said.

"That won't clear her," said one of the judges, "unless she says who your father is."

The child grew angry. "I know my father better than you know yours," he said, "and the woman who raised you knows better who your father is than mine knows who fathered me."

That angered the judge. "If you can say anything against my mom," he told Merlin, "I'll do what's right about it."

"I can certainly say this against her," Merlin answered: "if you punished her, she'd deserve death more than mine does. If I make you hear it from her own mouth, then let my mom go free, because she's not guilty of what she's charged with. As for how I was fathered, everything she says is true."

When the judge heard Merlin say that, he was furious. "Merlin," he said, "you'll have saved her from burning if it's so. But I'm warning you: if you can't say enough against her for me to believe you and leave yours in peace, you'll be burned with her."

Merlin and the judge set a day, and the judge sends for his mother

So a day was set between Merlin and the judge, fifteen days off, and he sent for his own mother and had the child and the young woman closely guarded, staying with the guards himself the whole time.

People often tried to get the boy to talk about the women and everyone else, but in all that time they couldn't get a word out of him.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:26] On the fifteenth day the judge's mother arrived, and Merlin and the young woman were brought out of prison to face the people. Then the judge said, "Merlin, here she is, the one you're to speak against. Now say what you want to say to her."

"You're not nearly as wise as you think," the child said. "Take her into a house in private, with your closest advisers, and I'll call on my mom's: God almighty and her confessor."

Those who heard this were so astonished they could hardly answer, but the judge knew he was speaking wisely.

The child asked all the others, "If I can win my mom's freedom from this man, will all of you clear her?"

"If she gets free of him," they said, "no one will ever charge her with anything."

So Merlin and the judge went into a room together. He brought his mother and two other men, the most respected of his friends, and the child had the young woman's confessor with him. When they were all there, he said to Merlin, "Now you can say what you want to her, to clear your mother."

"I don't want to defend her against what's right," said Merlin, "but I want what's right in the eyes of the Lord God, and what's right for her. She hasn't deserved the torment you want to give her, believe me. If you trust me, you'll clear my mom and stop asking about yours."

"You won't get off that easily," the judge said. "You'll have to say more."

"You've given us your word," said Merlin, "that if I can defend her, you'll let her go?"

"Yes," he said.

"You want to burn my mom," said Merlin, "because I was born of her and she doesn't know who fathered me. But if I wanted, she could tell you who my father is more surely than you can name yours. Your own mother knows better who your father is than mine knows who my father is."¹³

Then the judge said, "Mom, aren't I your son by your lawful husband?"

Merlin questions the judge's mother about who fathered her son

[Paris–Ulrich 1:27] She answered, "Yes, of course, dear."

"You'll have to tell the truth," said Merlin, "unless he lets us both go. If he'd do that without another word, I'd say nothing."

"I'll do no such thing," the judge said.

"Then you'll gain this much," said Merlin: "you'll find out who your father is from your own mother."

When those in the room heard it, they crossed themselves and were amazed at what Merlin said. Then he said to her, "You must tell him truly whose son he is."

"Devil! Satan!" she cried. "Haven't I told him?"

"You know for certain," Merlin said, "that he's not the child of the man he thinks."

She was frightened. "Then who's his father?" she said.

"You know he's your priest's son," he said. "Here's the proof. The first time you went to bed with him, you told him you were afraid of getting pregnant, and he told you you'd never conceive by him, and that he'd write down every time you were together, because he worried you might sleep with another man; things weren't good between your husband and you then. When this one was conceived, it wasn't long before you told him you were in trouble because you were carrying his child. If it's true as I've said, admit it. If you won't, I'll tell you something else."

The judge was furious. "Is he right?" he asked his mother.

"Son," she said, terrified, "do you believe what this devil says?"

"If you won't own up," said Merlin, "I'll tell you another thing that you know well and that's true."

The lady said nothing. Then Merlin said, "I know everything that was done and said.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:28] "When you found you were pregnant, you had your priest smooth things over for you with the man you'd married, because you wanted to hide whose the child was. He worked on your husband until he'd brought about peace between you and got the two of you back together, and that's how you made him think the baby was his. Plenty of other people think so too, and this man here really believes your husband fathered him.

"You've lived this way ever since, and you still do. The night before you set out to come here, you slept together, and in the morning he went a long way with you. When he left you, he told you in private, laughing, 'My dear, make sure you do and say whatever my son wants.' Because he knew the boy was his, from his own record."

When the lady heard Merlin say this and saw he was telling the truth, she sat down in great distress, and realized she'd have to confess.

The judge looked at her and said, "Mom, whoever my father is, I'm your son, and I'll treat you as one should. But be honest: is this child telling the truth?"

"Have mercy, for God's sake!" she said. "I can't hide it from you. It's all just as he's said."

When he heard it, he said, "This boy was right: he knows who his father is better than I know mine. It isn't fair for me to punish his mother when I spare my own."

Then the judge said, "Merlin, please, for God's sake, so that I can clear you both in front of the people, tell me who your father is."

"I'll tell you," said Merlin, "more out of friendship than because you can make me. I want you to know I'm the son of a devil who tricked my mom. Demons of this kind are called Ekupedes, and they live in the air. This one gave me the mind to know what's been said and done in the past, which is how I know all about the life yours has led. Our Lord wanted me to have this memory because of the goodness and true repentance of the woman who had me.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:29] "Because of the commandments of the Church, which I believe, he's given me so much power that I know some of the future, and you'll see it from what I'm about to tell you."

Then Merlin took him aside and said, "Your mother will go and tell the man who fathered you what I've told her. When he hears you'll know the truth, he'll be so afraid of you that he'll run, and the devil, whose servant he's always been, will lead him to a river, and there he'll drown himself. That's how you'll know I can see what lies ahead."

"Merlin," the judge said, "if what you've told me is true, I'll never doubt you again."

So they ended their meeting and went out to the people, and he said, "This child has truly saved his mother from burning. Everyone who sees him should know they'll never see anyone wiser, and never have."

"Thank God she's been spared from death," they all said.

The judge tests Merlin's warning, and Merlin tells Blaise what he is

The story says that Merlin stayed with the court. The judge sent his mother home, and two men with her, to find out whether what Merlin had told him about her and the priest was true. As soon as she got home, she spoke with her lover in private and told him the astonishing thing she'd heard.

When he learned of it, he was so frightened he couldn't say a word to her, sure that the moment the judge saw him, he'd kill him. So he left the town in despair, came to a river, and told himself it was better to drown than be killed or put to a shameful death. The devil, who'd always had him in his service, drove him on until he jumped into the water and went under. Those who'd gone with the lady saw it.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:30] That's why the story says no one should keep away from people: Satan comes sooner to someone alone than to many together.

So those who'd seen it came back to the judge and told him everything. The man had drowned on the third day after they'd arrived.

When he heard it, he was astonished, and went and told Merlin. Merlin laughed and said, "Now you can see whether I tell you the truth. Please, tell Blaise just what I told you."

Blaise was his mother's confessor, and the judge told him the astonishing story of the priest just as it happened.

Then Merlin, the young woman and Blaise left together, and the others went home another way. Blaise was a very good cleric, and very sharp.

When he heard Merlin speak so well and shrewdly at such an age, since he was no more than two and a half, he wondered where such wisdom could have come from, so he went to great lengths to try him out every way he could, until Merlin said to him, "Don't test me. The more you do, the more amazed you'll be. But do what I ask and believe some of what I tell you, and I'll teach you how to have the love of Jesus Christ."

Blaise said to Merlin, "I've heard you say, and I accept it, that you were conceived by the devil, and I'm very afraid you'll trick me."

Merlin said, "It's the way of every wicked heart to notice the bad more than the good in everything.

"You heard me say I was the son of a demon, but you also know I said God had given me intelligence and knowledge of the future. So if you were wise, you'd ask yourself which side I'll take. I'll tell you this: God let me know these things because the devils have lost me, but I've kept their skill and their cunning.¹⁴

[Paris–Ulrich 1:31] "I hold on to as much of it as I should, but not for their good. The demons were fools to conceive me in my mom: they put me in a vessel that was never going to be theirs, and her goodness has done them great harm. Had they made me in my grandmother, I'd have had no power to know God, and I'd have belonged to them. She was the one who brought on everything my mom suffered over her father, and the other troubles you've heard her tell of.

"But believe what I teach you about the faith of Jesus Christ. I'll tell you things no one but God could. Make a book of them. Many people will hear it and be better for it and keep from sin, and you'll do a great act of charity by making it."

Blaise agrees to write Merlin's book of Joseph and the Grail

Blaise answered, "I'll be glad to write it. But I call on you, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, of the kind lady who carried God in her body, of all his angels, archangels and apostles, and of everything that's God's, never to trick me or lead me astray, or do anything that wouldn't please our Lord."

"May every creature you've named turn God against me," Merlin answered, "if I do anything to you that goes against his will."

"Then tell me whatever good you want," said Blaise, "and from now on I'll do it."

"Then go and find ink and plenty of parchment," said Merlin, "because I have much to tell you for your book."

When Blaise had it all ready, Merlin told him of the love between Jesus Christ and Joseph of Arimathea, exactly as it had been, of Alain and his company and what became of them, and of how Joseph gave up the vessel and then died.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:32] He told how, after all this, the devils met because they'd lost the power over people they used to have, how the prophets had hurt them, and how for that reason they'd agreed to make a man. "You've heard from my mom and from others how hard they worked at it and what tricks they tried," he said. "Their own stupidity cost them me."

So Merlin laid out this work and had Blaise write it down. Blaise was amazed at what he heard, but it all seemed good to him, and he was happy to listen.

Merlin tells Blaise he'll be sent for from the west

While Blaise was busy with it, Merlin said to him, "Because of what you're doing, I'll have to suffer badly."

Blaise asked how.

"I'll be sent for from the west," said Merlin. "The men who come for me will have sworn to their lord to kill me and bring him my blood. But as soon as they see me and hear me speak, they won't want to anymore. When I go with them, you'll go to the lands where the people who have this Holy Grail live, and from then on people will tell of your work and your book, and everyone will be glad to hear it. But it won't carry authority, because you aren't one of the apostles and can't be. They never put anything in writing about our Lord that they hadn't witnessed themselves, and you put nothing in it that didn't come to you from me.

Merlin says Blaise's book will join the books of the Grail keepers

"Just as I'm hidden, and always will be, from those I don't choose to show myself to, so all you write will stay secret, and few will ever do any good by it. You'll take it with you when I leave with the men who come for me.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:33] "Joseph's book will be there, and the one about the lineages I've mentioned, with yours and mine.¹⁵ Your work will be finished, and you'll take your rightful place in their company. Then your writing will be joined to his, and the labor you and I put in will be fully proved. They may take pity on us for it, if they choose, and pray to our Lord for us. When the two are put together, they'll make one fine volume, one and the same, except that I can't tell the private words between Joseph and Jesus Christ, and it isn't right that I should."

England hadn't yet had a Christian ruler, and of those who held the throne before, I'll say only what matters to this tale.

Vortigern, steward to King Constans, won't fight for the young King Moine

The story says there was a king in England called Constans. He reigned a long time and had three sons: Moine, Pendragon and Uther. He also had a steward, Vortigern, who was very wise and clever and a good knight by the standards of those days. Constans died, and the people asked who should be crowned in his place. Most agreed on Moine.

Once Moine was on the throne, war broke out, with Vortigern still his steward. The Saxons attacked King Moine, and those who held the law of Rome came many times to fight the Christians.¹⁶ Vortigern, who ran the land, did just as he liked. The young ruler wasn't as wise or brave as he needed to be. Vortigern had drawn much of the country and the people's hearts to himself, and knew they thought highly of him.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:34] He grew proud, and seeing that no one else could do what he did, he said he'd have nothing more to do with the king's war, and stood back. When the Saxons heard that Vortigern had left the fighting, they gathered and came against the Christians with a great army.

King Moine went to Vortigern and said, "My friend, help defend the land, because I and all my people are at your command."

"Sire, let the others go and fight," Vortigern answered, "because I can't help you anymore. There are people in your kingdom who hate me for serving you. Now I want them to have this battle, since I'll never take part in it again."

When King Moine and those with him saw they'd get nothing else from Vortigern, they turned away and marched against the Saxons, who fought them and beat them. Afterward the king's men went off saying they'd lost everything, and that it would never have happened if Vortigern had been there.

That's how things stood. The boy couldn't rule a land as well as he should, and didn't have the people's hearts, so most of them came to hate him. This lasted a long time, until King Moine was thought so worthless that they said they wouldn't put up with him any longer. So they went to Vortigern and said, "Sire, we're without a king or a lord, because the one we have is good for nothing. For God's sake, we beg you, take the crown and govern us. There's no man in this country who could hold it as well as you, or has as much right to."

"If he were dead," Vortigern answered, "and you and the others wanted me as king, I'd be glad to. But as long as he lives, I can't."

They heard Vortigern's answer and drew their own conclusion. Then they said goodbye to him and went away.

Twelve barons kill King Moine to make Vortigern king

When they got back to their own country, they sent for their friends, and once everyone had come, they all talked together.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:35] Those who'd been to Vortigern told how they'd spoken with him. When the others heard it, they said, "The best thing to do is kill him. Once he's dead, Vortigern will be king, and he'll know he owes it to us and that we did away with King Moine for him, so he'll do whatever we want. That way we can be his masters forever."

Then they settled among themselves which of them would do it, and chose twelve, who went to where King Moine was, while the rest stayed in the town to help them if anyone tried to harm them. The killers found him and fell on him with knives and swords. It was quickly done, because he was only a boy. When it was over, hardly a soul spoke of it. Then they came to Vortigern and said, "Vortigern, now you'll be king, because we've killed King Moine."

Vortigern rebukes the murderers and is made king, and the princes flee east

When Vortigern heard they'd murdered their lord, he was furious. "You've done a great wrong in killing him," he said. "I advise you to run from the respected men of the land, because they'll put you to death if they can catch you. I'm very sorry you came here."

So they went back, and that was how King Moine died. After that the people of the realm assembled, and once together, they discussed who should be their king. Vortigern, as I've told you, had won over the people and the land, so they all agreed he should rule. At that meeting were two men of standing who had charge of Constans's two other sons, Pendragon and Uther.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:36] They were brothers of King Moine, who was dead. When the two heard Vortigern was to be crowned, they were fairly sure he'd had King Moine killed. They talked it over and said, "As soon as he's king, he'll have these two boys we're guarding put to death. We loved their father very much, because he did us so much good, and it's through him that we still have what we have. We'd be worthless now if we let them be lost. We know very well that once Vortigern rules, he'll get rid of them, because he knows the kingdom ought to be theirs, and he'll do it before they're old enough to claim their land."

So the two men agreed to take the boys to foreign countries in the east, where their ancestors had come from. That way they'd keep them out of Vortigern's reach. So they did. I won't tell you any more about them until the tale itself brings me back to them. But this much anyone can learn from it: whoever does good to a decent man never loses by it.

Part 3: Vortigern sends for Merlin, who stays to serve Pendragon and Uther

Vortigern kills Moine's murderers, marries a Saxon and sees his tower fall

The story says that Vortigern was chosen king, as I've told you. When he'd been crowned and was lord of the land, the men who'd killed King Moine came to him. Vortigern gave no sign he'd ever seen them before. They burst in on him and began to throw it in his face that he owed his throne to them and that they'd murdered King Moine. When Vortigern heard them say they'd done away with their lord, he had them all arrested. "You've condemned yourselves," he said, "because you had no right to do it.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:37] "You'd do the same to me if you could. But I'll know very well how to guard against it."

When they heard this, they were terrified. "Sire," they said, "we thought we did it for your good, and that you'd love us more for it."

"I'll show you how men like you should be loved," said Vortigern.

Then he had all twelve taken and tied each to a horse, and had them torn apart until little of them was left in one piece. They'd had many relatives, who came to Vortigern once they were dead. "Vortigern," they said, "you've shamed us badly, killing our families and friends like this, by a death as foul as that. We'll never serve you willingly again."

When Vortigern heard them threaten him, he was outraged, and answered that if they said any more about it, he'd do the same to them. They took his words just as badly, and replied angrily, like men who hardly feared him: "King, make all the threats you like. But this much we tell you: as long as we have a single friend, you'll never be without a war. From now on we're your enemies, because you aren't our lord, and you don't hold the land rightfully. You can be sure of this: you'll die the same death you've put our relatives to."

They said no more, and left. When Vortigern understood they meant to see him dead, he was furious. So a great feud began between Vortigern and the families of those he'd had killed. They raised men and invaded the land. Vortigern held it a long time after that and fought them many times, until at last he drove them out. Once they were gone, he became so cruel to his people that they couldn't bear him, and they all rebelled against him. When Vortigern saw it, he was terrified they'd drive him out of the land.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:38] So he sent messengers for the Saxons and said he'd make peace with them. They were delighted to hear Vortigern wanted it. Among them was one named Hengist, fiercer than the rest, who'd served Vortigern a long time, until Vortigern got the upper hand in his war. When it was over, Hengist spoke to him and told him his people hated him. Hengist worked at it until he'd brought about Vortigern's marriage to one of his daughters.

Let everyone who hears this story know that she was the first to say garsoil in England. I shouldn't tell you more of Hengist or his affairs now.¹⁷ But the Christians were deeply upset when Vortigern married her, and many of them said again and again that he'd given up much of his faith for his wife, who didn't hold the law of Jesus Christ.

After that Vortigern learned he wasn't loved by all his men. He knew Constans's sons had gone to foreign lands and would return as soon as they could, and was sure that the moment they did, it would be to do him harm. So he decided to build a tower so high and strong that he'd have no one to fear. When they'd built it twenty feet or so above the ground, it all fell down. It went the same way a second time and a third, as the histories tell the story.¹⁸

Vortigern summons wise men to learn why his tower falls

When Vortigern saw his tower wouldn't stand, he was furious, and swore he'd never be happy until he knew why it kept collapsing.¹⁹ He sent for all the wise men in his land, and they came. Once they'd all arrived, he told them the whole strange story of his tower, how it fell every time and nothing they built would last.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:39] He asked them all for advice. When the respected men heard of such a thing and saw the work lying in ruins, they were amazed. "Sire," they said, "no one but a man of learning can know this, it seems to us. Such people know many things through their studies that other people don't. If you want to know, you can only find out from them."

"I think you're right," said Vortigern.

So he sent for all the wise clerks in his land,²⁰ and when they'd all come, he showed them the strange thing. "What Vortigern has told us is truly astonishing," they said to one another.

Then he took the wisest of them aside. "Could you advise me why my tower falls?" he said. "Nothing I do will make it hold or last. I'd like to ask you all to work at finding out for me, because I've been told I can only learn it through you."

When the clerks heard his request, they said, "Sire, we know nothing about it, but there are some here who could find it out if they'd try, by an art called astronomy."²¹

"You know them better than I do," Vortigern answered, "so work out among yourselves who they are. Those who know it shouldn't hold back, but come forward and speak boldly. As long as they tell me why it falls, they'll never ask me for anything they won't have."

Seven clerks who study the stars are chosen to explain the tower

Then the clerks went aside to talk, and asked one another whether any of them knew this art. Two came forward. "We know enough of it, we think, to find out such a thing," they said. "There are others here who know it too."

"Go and fetch your fellows, whoever can learn anything of it," said the men of standing. They searched until there were seven.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:40] Every one of them thought himself the master of the rest. They were brought before Vortigern, and he asked whether they thought they could tell him why his tower fell. They said yes, if any man could know it. He promised that if they told him, he'd give them whatever they wanted. With that, he and the clerks left the meeting.

The seven stayed and worked hard to find out why it kept falling and how it could be made to stand. They were very skilled in that art and put great effort into it. But the harder they tried, the less they learned. They could find only one thing, and what they saw had nothing to do with the tower, as it seemed to them, and it frightened them badly.

In the end Vortigern pressed them and had them brought to him. "Why won't you tell me what you owe me?" he said.

"Sire," said the clerks, "what you ask of us is a very great thing. You'll have to give us another eleven days."

"Take them," he said. "But see to it, as you value your lives, that you can tell me when the time is up."

"We certainly will," they answered.

Then they went off to talk it over. "What do you make of this?" they asked one another.

"We know nothing," they said. So it was with each of them, and none would tell the others what he knew. Then one of them, the wisest of them all, said, "Let's do this properly. Each of you, tell me in private, without the others, what you know. I won't name anyone unless all of you agree."

They all answered that they'd be glad to.

The wisest clerk learns all seven have seen a fatherless child will kill them

[Paris–Ulrich 1:41] Then the one who'd spoken took each of the others aside and asked each in turn what he thought. Each told him the same: they knew nothing about the tower, but they saw something else, just as strange: a child of seven, conceived and born of a woman with no earthly father.²² All of them said this.

When he'd heard them all, he said, "Come to me together."

They did, and when they'd all come, he said, "You've all said one thing, and you've kept one thing from me."

"Then tell us what we've told you and what we've hidden," they said.

"You say you know nothing of the tower or how it could stand," he told them. "But you've seen a child of seven, conceived and born of a woman with no earthly father. That's all any of you told me. I'll tell you this much, and I want you to believe me: there isn't one of you who hasn't seen that this child will kill him. I know it myself, as surely as any of you. That's what you've kept back. But since we're this close to our deaths, we have to work out what to do."

The clerks agree to say the tower needs the fatherless child's blood

Then the wisest of them said, "If you'll trust me, we'll save our lives. You know whether I've told you the truth."

They said he had. "Now for God's sake, we beg you, find a way to keep us alive."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:42] "Anyone who couldn't would be a fool," he answered. "Do you know what we'll do? We'll all agree on one story, and say the tower can't stand and never will unless the blood of this fatherless child is put in the mortar of its foundations. Whoever gets it into the walls will see them hold and stay sound forever.

"Let each of us say it on his own, so Vortigern doesn't notice we've worked this out together. That way we can save ourselves from death and from the one we've seen we're to die by. Let's be sure he forbids anyone to bring the child into his sight: whoever looks for him must kill him where they find him and carry his blood to the king."

So the clerks settled what they'd say. Then they came before Vortigern. "Sire," they said, "we won't give you our advice all together, but each on his own, so you'll know which of us tells you best."

In this way they made it look as if none of them knew what the rest had found. So each told his story to Vortigern and the five men who advised him. When they'd heard this strange thing, they were astonished, and said it might well be true, if a man really could be born without a father. Vortigern thought his clerks very wise. "You've each told me this on your own," he said. "Now tell it to us openly, all together."

He repeated to them exactly what they'd said. Then they all said, "Sire, if it isn't true, do with us as you please."

Vortigern asked them whether it was possible for anyone to be born without a father.

"We'd never heard of it before this one," they answered. "But this much we can tell you: this one has none."

Vortigern said he'd have them well guarded while he sent for the boy's blood.

"Sire, we're glad of it," they said then, "as long as you neither hear nor see the child. Order him put to death and have it brought to you.

Vortigern's messengers find the boy Merlin, and he tells them who he is

[Paris–Ulrich 1:43] "That way, as we've told you, your tower will stand, if it's ever going to."

Vortigern had all his clerks put in a strong house and gave them all they needed. He chose his messengers and sent them out everywhere, two by two; there were twelve of them. He made them swear on the relics that whoever could find the child would kill him, bring back the blood, and not come home until they'd found him. That's how, as you've heard, Vortigern sent for Merlin.

The messengers set out two by two and searched many lands and countries, until two of them ran into two others, and once they'd met, they agreed to ride together for a good while. So the four rode on, until one day they happened to be crossing a large field outside a town, where a group of children were playing ball.

Merlin, who knew everything, was among them and saw King Vortigern's men looking for him. So he went up beside one of the richest boys, because he was sure that one would look down on him; he raised his stick and hit him on the leg. The child began to cry, insult Merlin and call him a son without a father.

When the men who'd come for Merlin heard this, all four went over to the boy, who was still crying, and asked him, "Who hit you?"

"That one's mother never knew who fathered him," he said. "He's never had one."

At that, Merlin came over to the messengers laughing. "I'm the one you're looking for," he said, "the one you've sworn to kill and whose blood you're to bring to King Vortigern."

Merlin offers to explain the tower if the messengers spare him

[Paris–Ulrich 1:44] When they heard Merlin speak like this, they were astonished and stood there dumbfounded. "Who told you that?" they asked.²³

"I knew it the moment you swore it," he answered.

"Will you come with us? We'll take you," they said.

"I'd be afraid you'd kill me," said Merlin. He was sure they had no wish to, but he said it to make them think harder. "If you promise you won't do me any harm, I'll go with you and tell the king why his tower can't stand, and why you came to get my blood."

When they heard what Merlin said, they were all at a loss, and said to one another, "This child tells us amazing things. We'd be committing a great sin if we killed him."

"I'd rather break my oath," each of them said.

Then Merlin said to the messengers, "You'll come and stay with me where my mom is, because I couldn't go with you without permission from her and from the holy man who's with her."

"We'll be glad to go wherever you like," they said.

So Merlin took them to a convent, where he'd had his mother become a nun,²⁴ and told the people there to make King Vortigern's messengers welcome. They dismounted, and Merlin brought them before Blaise. "Here are the men I said would come to kill me," he said. Then he turned to them. "I want you to tell this holy man the truth about whatever I ask you, without fail. Believe me: if you don't, I'll know it."

"We'll never lie to you," they answered. "But you tell him yourself, since you can speak better than any of us, and we'll hear if you say anything false."²⁵

[Paris–Ulrich 1:45] Then Merlin said to Blaise, "Now listen carefully to what we'll tell you." To the messengers he said, "You serve a king called Vortigern, who's building a tower that won't stand, but keeps falling down. He sent for clerks to find out whether they knew the reason, and they said they'd show him how to make it hold. They read the stars, but found nothing about why it fell; what they did learn was that I'd been born, and they thought I could do them great harm. So they got together and agreed to have me killed by telling him the tower would stand if it had some of my blood in it, since I have no father.

"When Vortigern heard this, he thought it amazing, and believed they spoke the truth. They urged him to have me searched for until I was found, and to forbid his men to bring me to him: the moment they caught me, they were to kill me and carry my blood back to be put in the mortar of the tower. That, they said, was how it would hold.

"So Vortigern chose twelve messengers and made them all swear to do just that as soon as they found me. They set out two by two, and these four met and came upon the place where I was. Because I knew very well they were looking for me, I made myself known to them through a boy I hit so that he'd say what I was. That's how they found me, as you've heard. Now ask them if I'm telling the truth."

Blaise asked them, and they said it was so. They told him that everything Merlin had said about the king and the clerks was just how it happened. Blaise crossed himself. "If this child lives to grow up," he said, "he'll be very wise. It would have been a great loss if you'd killed him."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:46] "Sir," the messengers said, "we'd rather break our oath and let the king take everything we own. Merlin himself, who knows everything else, knows very well whether we mean to."

"That's true," said Blaise. "I'll put it to him right now, in front of you." He called Merlin, who'd gone off so they could talk among themselves, and told him all they'd said.

"They've told the truth," Merlin said.

Blaise asked him whether they wanted to kill him. Merlin laughed. "Not yet."

"You're right," the messengers said. "Merlin, my friend, will you come with us?"

"Yes," he said, "if you promise to take me to the king and to let no harm come to me until I've spoken to him. I know that once I have, I'll have nothing to fear."

Merlin sends Blaise to Northumberland to write his book

So the messengers promised Merlin what he'd asked. Then Blaise said, "Merlin, I can see you mean to leave me. Tell me what you want me to do with this work you've had me begin."

"I'll tell you," Merlin answered. "You can see that God has given me so much sense and memory that the one who thought he'd made me for himself has lost me, that our Lord has chosen me to serve him, and that no one but me can do what I do. You can see too that I have to go with these men to the king. Once I'm there, no one on earth but God will be trusted more than I am. You'll come to that land as well, to finish what you've begun. But you won't come with me; you'll go on your own and look for a country called Northumberland. It's full of great forests and very wild, with parts no one has ever set foot in.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:47] "You'll live there, and I'll visit you often and tell you everything you need for this work you're doing. You'll have to work hard at it, and you'll be well rewarded. Do you know how?²⁶ All your life you'll have your heart's desire, and after it the perfect joy that lasts forever. People will tell your work for as long as this world lasts, and be glad to hear it.

"Do you know where this grace will come from? From our Lord's gift to Joseph of Arimathea, who was given the body taken down from the cross. Once you've worked hard for Joseph, for his forebears and for the heirs of his line, and done enough good to deserve their company, I'll show you where they are, and you'll see the glorious reward Joseph had for the body of Jesus Christ that was given to him.

"So you can be sure my wisdom comes from God: all through the kingdom I'm going to, I'll set its best men struggling for one who's to come from the line God loves so much.²⁷ These great trials won't come until the fourth king, and he'll be called Arthur.²⁸

"So go where I've told you. I'll come often and bring you everything I want put in your book. It'll be loved and prized by many people who'll never have seen it. When you've finished it, take it to the company of those people who have the glorious reward I told you about. I'll have you write some part of the life of every good person in the lands I'm going to. No life was ever heard with more pleasure than the life of this Arthur will be, and of the people of his time. When you've done all this and told their lives, you'll have earned everything that belongs to those in the company of the vessel called the Grail.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:48] "Because of what you've written about me and about them, and what you'll write, once you've gone and died your book will be known forever as the Book of the Grail, and people will love to hear it, since nearly everything it tells will be worth something."

Merlin calls Blaise master, and Blaise promises to obey

So Merlin taught Blaise what he was to do. He called him master because Blaise had been his mother's. When the holy man heard Merlin talk this way, he was very happy. "Merlin," he said, "you'll never tell me to do anything I won't do."

So Merlin settled his journey with Blaise.²⁹ Then he spoke to the messengers who'd come looking for him. "Come with me, and listen to what I tell my mom and how she lets me go." They went with him to her.

"People have come for me from far away," Merlin told her, "and if you'll let me, I want to go with them. I have to serve Jesus Christ with what he's given me. I can only do that in the land these men want to take me to. Blaise, our master, is going away too, so you'll have to say goodbye to us both."

"My son," his mother said, "I put you in God's hands. I'm not wise enough to hold you back. But if you'd allow it, I'd very much like Blaise to stay."

"That can't be," said Merlin.

Merlin leaves his mother and rides with the messengers

So Merlin said goodbye to her and went off with the king's men, and Blaise set out the other way for Northumberland, as Merlin had told him. Merlin and the messengers rode on together until one day they passed through a town on market day. Beyond it they came upon a peasant who'd bought a big pair of shoes and was carrying off leather to mend them, because he wanted to go on a pilgrimage.

Merlin laughs at a peasant with shoe leather

[Paris–Ulrich 1:49] When Merlin saw the man, he laughed, and the messengers taking him asked why.

"Because of the one you see there," said Merlin. "Ask him what he's going to do with the leather he's carrying, and he'll say he wants to mend his shoes with it. Follow him, and I tell you he'll be dead before he gets home."

The messengers were amazed. "We'd like to see whether that can be true," they said.

So they went to the man and asked what he meant to do with his shoes and the leather. He told them he was going on a pilgrimage and wanted to patch them first. When they heard him say just what Merlin had said, they were astonished. "This man looks perfectly healthy to us," they said. "Two of us will follow him, and the rest of you go on and wait for us where you stop for the night. It would be good to know how this turns out."

So two of the messengers went after the peasant, and before he'd gone a mile and a half they saw him fall dead in the middle of the road with his shoes in his arms. When they'd had a good look at him, they turned back, caught up with their companions and told them what had happened.

When the others heard it, they said, "The clerks were real fools to think we'd kill a child as good and wise as this one!" Others said they'd rather have come to great harm themselves than have him die by their hands. They'd said this among themselves, not thinking Merlin knew. But when they came back to him, he thanked them warmly for what they'd said.

"What did we say?" they asked.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:50] Merlin repeated their words just as they'd spoken them, and when they heard him, they said, "We can't say anything he doesn't know."

Merlin laughs at a child's funeral

They rode on day after day until they reached Vortigern's lands. One day, as they passed through a town, people were carrying a child to be buried, and a crowd of men and women followed the body, mourning loudly. When Merlin saw the mourners, and the priests and clerks singing as they hurried it to its grave, he stopped and began to laugh.

The messengers asked him why he was laughing.

"Do you see that man there who's so upset?" said Merlin. "Do you see that priest chanting in front of the others? He's the one who should be mourning the way that man is."

"Why?" asked the messengers.

"Do you want to know?"

"Yes."

"I'm happy to tell you," said Merlin. "The dead boy is the priest's son. The husband, who's no relation to him, mourns, while his real father sings. That seems a very strange thing to me."

"How can we find out?" they asked.

"Go to the man's wife and ask her why he's crying and so upset. She'll say it's for the child who's died. Then tell her, 'We know as well as you do whose son he is. He isn't your husband's but that priest's, who knows it. He even told you when the boy was conceived.'"

The messengers check Merlin's words and bring him to Vortigern

When the messengers had heard what Merlin said, they went to the woman and told her.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:51] She was terrified. "For God's sake, have mercy," she said. "I know I can't hide it from you, so I'll tell you the whole truth. It's just as you've said. But please don't tell my husband, because he'd kill me if he knew."

When they heard this, the two came back and told their companions, and they agreed among themselves that the world had never had a better seer. Merlin and the messengers rode on together until they were a day's ride from where Vortigern was.³⁰ Then they said, "Merlin, you ought to advise us. We can tell him we've found you, but we're afraid that since we haven't killed you, he'll hold it against us."

At this, Merlin knew they wished him well. "Do as I say and you'll never be blamed," he said. "Go to Vortigern and say you've found me. Give him the truth you've had from me, and say I'll show him why his tower can't stand, on condition that he does to the clerks who meant to have me killed what they wanted done to me. When you've told him that, do whatever he orders without fear."

The messengers left and went to Vortigern, who was very glad to see them. "How did it go?" he asked.

"Sire, as well as we could manage," they answered. Then they took him aside and told him the whole story as it happened: how they'd come upon Merlin, and that if he hadn't wished it, they'd never have found him. "He's coming to you very willingly."

"Which Merlin do you mean?" said the king. "Weren't you to look for the fatherless child, and bring me his blood?"

[Paris–Ulrich 1:52] "Sire," they answered, "this Merlin we mean is the one born without a father. Apart from God, he's the wisest man and the best seer who ever lived in this world. He told us how you'd made us swear to kill him, exactly as you did. He also said your clerks don't know why your tower falls. But he'll show you so plainly that you'll see it with your own eyes. He's told us plenty of other strange things too. He sent us to find out whether you want to talk to him. If you'd rather, we'll kill him where he is: two of our companions are with him, guarding him."

When Vortigern heard them, he said, "If you'll vouch for Merlin with your lives that he'll show you and me why my tower falls, I don't want him killed now."

"We'll stand by him," they said.

"Then go and get him," said Vortigern, "because I very much want to talk to him."

The messengers went back, and the king himself with them. When Merlin saw two of them coming, he laughed. "You've staked your lives on me," he said.

"That's true," they answered. "We'd rather risk dying than kill you, and we had to do one or the other."

"God willing, I'll keep you safe from that," said Merlin.

So Merlin and the messengers rode out together to meet Vortigern. When Merlin saw him, he greeted him. "Vortigern, speak with me in private." He drew aside and called over the two who'd brought him.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:53] When they were alone, Merlin said to the king, "Sire, you sent for me because of your tower that won't stay up, and ordered those who came for me to kill me wherever they found me, on the advice of the clerks who said it needed my blood in the mortar. But they lied to you. If they'd said it would stand by my wisdom, they'd have told the truth. Promise me they'll suffer what they wanted done to me, and I'll show you why your tower falls and teach you how to make it hold, if you're willing."

"If you do what you say," Vortigern answered, "I'll do with the clerks whatever you want."

"If I lie by even one word," Merlin told him, "never believe me again. Come, send for them, and I'll ask them the reason it falls. You'll hear that they can't give you one."

Merlin shames the clerks and tells Vortigern what lies under the tower

The story says the king then brought Merlin to the tower that kept falling. The clerks were summoned and came in, and Merlin had one of the messengers who'd come with him ask them, "Why do you say it can't stand?"

"We know nothing about why it falls," they answered, "but we've told the king how it'll hold."

"You've told me something very strange," said Vortigern. "You had me look for a child born without a father, and I don't know how one can be found."

Merlin turned to the clerks. "You're making a fool of Vortigern, sending him to look for such a thing, when you know among yourselves that this boy will be your death. That's why you made him believe that if he had him killed and his blood put in the mortar of the tower, it would stand. That's how you thought you could do away with the one you were to die by."

When the clerks heard the boy telling the truth, which they'd thought no one knew, they were terrified, sure now that they were doomed. Merlin said to the king, "Sire, now you can see these men wanted me killed on account of your tower. But they made you believe it because they'd learned from the stars that I'd be the end of them.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:54] "Ask them. They'll never dare lie to you."

The king asked them if he was telling the truth. "Certainly, sire, he is," they answered. "But we don't know who tells him these things. We beg you, as our lord, to spare us long enough to see whether he's right about this tower."

"You've no need to fear dying until you see it," said Merlin. The clerks thanked him.

Then Merlin said to Vortigern, "Do you want to know why it falls, and what brings it down? If you'll do as I say, I'll show you. Do you know what's under it? A great pool of water, and beneath that, two dragons that can't see a thing, one white and the other red. They lie under two big stones, each well aware of the other, and they're very large and strong.

"When the weight of the building presses the earth and the pool down hard on them, they turn with such force that all the water churns, making such a din that whatever stands above them has to fall.³¹ That's how these two bring it down.

"Have someone look, and if you don't find it as I've told you, have me killed. If you do, let the men who vouched for me off, and put the blame on the clerks, who knew nothing of all this."

"If that's so," Vortigern answered, "you're the wisest man in the world. Then show me how to have the earth taken away."

"You'll have it carried far off by horses and carts, and by men on their backs," said Merlin.

The king set the workmen to it at once, and the people of the land thought it sheer madness, though they didn't dare say so for fear of Vortigern. Merlin had the clerks closely guarded. So the digging began, and went on until they reached the water.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:55] Once they'd uncovered it, they let the king know. He came happily to see the strange sight, bringing Merlin with him, and it looked very large to him. He called two of his advisers. "This man who knew it was under the tower is very wise," he said, "and he says there are two dragons beneath it as well. Whatever it costs, I'll do all he tells me until I find them."

Then the king called Merlin. "Merlin, you told the truth about the water, but I don't know whether you're right about the two dragons."

"You won't know until you see them," Merlin told him.

"Merlin, how can we drain it?" asked Vortigern.

"You'll run it all off into the fields through good ditches," said Merlin.

The water is drained, and Merlin says how the dragons will fight

So Vortigern ordered them dug, and the water ran out. Then Merlin said to him, "As soon as the dragons down there sense each other, they'll fight until they kill each other. Now send for all the men of standing in the land to watch them. It'll mean something great."

Vortigern said he'd be very glad to, and he summoned the nobles, the clerks and the laymen from all over his kingdom. When they'd all come, he told them all the amazing things Merlin had told him, and how the two dragons were to fight. "That'll be good to see," they said to one another, asking the king whether Merlin had said which would win. He answered that he hadn't yet. Then the workmen ran the water off through the fields, and when it was out, two great slabs of rock lay on the bottom.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:56] At the sight, Merlin turned to Vortigern. "Do you see those two stones?"

"Yes," he answered.

"The dragons are under them."

"How do we get them out?"

"Easily. They won't stir until they sense each other, and then they'll fight until one of them has to die."

"Merlin, will you tell me which will win?" asked Vortigern.

"There's great meaning in their battle and in its outcome," said Merlin, "and you'll know whatever I can tell you of it. I'm willing to tell you that much in private, with a handful of these men of standing listening."

The dragons fight, and Vortigern builds his tower

So Vortigern called the four most respected, the ones he trusted most, and told them what Merlin had said. They advised him to question Merlin away from the crowd and to have him say it before seeing the fight. Vortigern said they were right. "I agree. Afterward he could make us believe whatever he liked."

Then he called Merlin. "Merlin, tell me which of the two dragons will be beaten."

"Are these four men really your advisers?" asked Merlin.

"Yes," they answered.

"Then I'll tell you in front of them. I want you to know that the white will kill the red. But it'll have a very hard time first, and that victory will mean something great. I won't say any more until after the battle."

Then the people gathered there, and the workmen went to the two stones, dug them free and hauled them out. They found the two dragons, so big, fierce and hideous that everyone was terrified and drew back. They saw that the red was bigger, uglier and stronger than the white, and Vortigern was sure the big one would beat the other.³²

[Paris–Ulrich 1:57] Then Merlin said, "Vortigern, now the men who vouched for me should be let off."

"So they will," Vortigern answered.

Then they brought the two beasts so close together that they sensed each other, and the moment they did, they turned and went at each other with teeth and claws. You never heard of two animals fighting so savagely as these two dragons fought all night and all day and the next day until noon, so that everyone there was sure the bigger one would kill the other. At last fire burst from the white's mouth and nostrils and burned the red. Once it was dead, the winner drew back, lay down,³³ and died three days later.

Everyone who'd watched said no one had ever seen anything like it. "Vortigern," said Merlin, "now you can make your tower however you like. You'll never build it so high that it falls again."

Then Vortigern set the workmen to it and made it as big and strong as he could. Many times he asked Merlin what the two dragons meant, and how the white could have won when the red had the better of it for so long.

"These are all signs of things that have happened and things still to happen," Merlin answered. "But if you assure me you'll do me no harm for telling you the truth, and let no one else hurt me, I'll tell you everything they mean, in front of all the most respected men among your advisers."

Vortigern said he'd give him any promise he wanted.

"Then send for them," said Merlin, "and have the clerks come who read the stars over this tower and tried to have me killed."

Vortigern did so at once.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:58] When they'd all come, Merlin turned to the seven. "You're great fools to meddle in this kind of work when you're not as good or honest as you ought to be. Because you're foolish and wicked, you fail at what you set out to do and look for it by the power of the other art.³⁴ In the elements you saw nothing of what Vortigern had asked you, since you aren't the kind who could see it. But you did see that I'd been born. The one who showed me to you, and told you, and made you think you'd die by me, did it out of grief at having lost me, and he'd have liked you to have me killed.

"But I have a lord who'll guard me from the devils' tricks, if he's willing, and I'll make liars of them all, because I'll never do anything to make you die, if you promise to do what I want of you."

Merlin spares the clerks if they give up reading the stars

When the clerks heard that their deaths were put off, they were very happy. "Merlin," they said, "you'll never ask anything of us that we won't do, if we can. We can see well enough that you're the wisest man alive."

"Then you've promised me you'll never meddle in that art again," Merlin answered. "Because you've practiced it, I order you to confess it, and to put yourselves under such penance that your souls aren't damned. If you promise to do what I've said, I'll let you go."

The clerks thanked him and promised to do it and to keep to what he'd told them. That was how Merlin set them free, and everyone who saw how well he'd proved himself toward them was very grateful to him.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:59] Then Vortigern and his advisers came to Merlin. "Merlin," Vortigern said, "you must tell me what the two dragons mean. You've told the truth about everything else, and I take you for the wisest man in the world. So I'm asking you, tell me their meaning."

"Vortigern," Merlin told him, "the red one stands for you, and the white for the sons of Constans."

Vortigern was ashamed when he heard it. Merlin noticed and said, "Vortigern, if you like, I'll say no more. Don't hold it against me."

"There's no one here who isn't one of my advisers," said Vortigern. "I want you to tell me what it means in full, and spare me nothing."

"I've told you the red dragon stands for you, and I'll tell you why. You know very well the sons of Constans were left small children when their father died. You know too that if you'd been the man you ought to have been, you'd have guarded, advised and defended them against everyone in the world. You know you made your fortune from their land and their people, and won the love of the people of their kingdom by it.

"When you knew they loved you, you drew back from their affairs, sure they'd feel the lack of you. When they came to you and said King Moine wasn't fit to rule and you should be king, you gave them a wicked answer: that you couldn't be while Moine lived. That was how you disguised what you meant. The ones you said it to understood that you wanted him dead, and so they killed him. When they'd done it, only two children were left, and they fled for fear of you. You became king and still have what was theirs.

"When King Moine's murderers came to you, you had them executed to make it look as if his death troubled you. But that was no honest show, since you took their lands and still hold them.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:60] "You've built this tower to protect yourself from your enemies. But it can't save you when you won't help yourself."

Vortigern asks Merlin how he'll die

Vortigern heard and understood that Merlin spoke the truth. "I can see you're the wisest man in the world," he said. "Now I ask and beg you to advise me against these things, and to tell me, if you will, how I'm going to die."

"If I didn't tell you that, I wouldn't be telling you what the two dragons mean," said Merlin. "But I'll tell you. The red one, so big and fierce, stands for you and your wicked heart, and its great strength is your power. The other means the inheritance of the children who fled from you. Their long fight is about their land, which you've held so long. When you saw the white burn the red, that meant they'll do the same to you. Don't think the tower you've built can keep you from dying that way."

When Vortigern heard Merlin say this, he was furious and in tears. "Where are they now?" he asked.

"They're at sea. They've raised a great army and loaded their ships, and they're coming to punish you. They say, and it's true, that you had their brother killed, and they'll kill you the same way. You can be sure that three months from today they'll land at the port of Winchester."

Vortigern was devastated to hear this news and to know these people were coming. "Can it be otherwise?" he asked Merlin.

"You can't escape dying by the fire of the sons of Constans," Merlin answered, "just as you saw the white dragon burn the red."

Merlin goes to Blaise, and Constans's sons land at Winchester

[Paris–Ulrich 1:61] So Merlin told Vortigern the princes would land at the port of Winchester three months from that day. Vortigern summoned his people for the date Merlin had given, to meet them at the shore. When they'd all gathered, none of them knew why he'd sent for them, except those who'd been at that meeting.

Merlin wasn't there. As soon as he'd explained why the tower fell and what the two dragons meant, he said goodbye to the king, telling Vortigern he'd done what he'd set out to do. So Merlin went to Blaise in Northumberland and told him all this. Blaise wrote it down, and it's from his book that we still know it. Merlin stayed there a long time, until the sons of Constans came looking for him.

Vortigern waited at the port with a great army for the day Merlin had named. On that very day, at the end of the three months, the people of Winchester spotted a great fleet out at sea, which the princes were bringing. Seeing it, Vortigern ordered his men to arm and defend the harbor. The vessels headed in. When those on the beach caught sight of the royal banners, they were astonished, and by then the ships carrying Constans's heirs had touched shore. Those waiting there called out to those at sea, "Whose fleet is this?"

"It belongs to Pendragon and his brother Uther, the two sons of Constans," came the answer. "They're coming home to their land, which Vortigern has held so long, false traitor that he is. He had Moine killed, and they've come to punish him."

When the people on the beach heard that these were their own lord's children, they could see the princes had the stronger force, and that fighting them could go badly. They told Vortigern so.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:62] When Vortigern saw that most of his people were leaving him and had already gone over to Pendragon, he was afraid. He told the men who couldn't desert him, the ones Hengist the Saxon had sent him, to stock the castle well,³⁵ and they did it as best they could.

The ships came in, and once they'd landed, the knights stepped out fully armed, with all the rest of the people after them. They made for Vortigern's walls. Many of the people who saw their rightful lords coming went out to meet them and received them as their own. Those on Vortigern's side shut themselves in and held out all they could, while the men outside attacked hard. They kept on until Pendragon set the place on fire. The flames caught and destroyed a great part of it, and Vortigern burned to death in them.

Pendragon is made king, besieges Hengist and hears of Merlin

The story says that this was how the sons of Constans took the castle. They let the whole kingdom know they were back, and when the people heard it, they were overjoyed and all came out to meet them and received them as their lords. So the two brothers returned to their realm and made Pendragon king. He ruled them well and loyally.

The Saxons Vortigern had settled in the land held on to their castles, which were very strong, and made war on Pendragon and the Christians without end. They fought so long, losing and winning many times, that at last Pendragon laid siege to Hengist's own fort. He sat there half a year or more, until he called his advisers together to discuss how to take it.

Among them were five of the men who'd been there when Merlin spoke to Vortigern about the dragons, the children and his death. They took Pendragon and his brother Uther aside and repeated the amazing things Merlin had told them: that he was the best seer ever born, and that if he were willing, he could tell them whether this fortress would fall.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:63] When Pendragon heard this, he asked, "And how would we find this man?"

"We don't know in what country," they said, "but we know for certain we've spoken with him, and that he's in this land."

"Then he'll be found," said Pendragon, "if he's here."

Merlin, disguised as a woodcutter, tells Pendragon's messengers where to find him

So Pendragon sent messengers all over the kingdom to look for Merlin. Merlin knew of it, and as soon as he'd talked with Blaise, he made his way as fast as he could to a town where he was sure the king's men were staying. He came in as a woodcutter, an ax on his shoulder, wearing big leggings and a tunic in rags. His hair was a shaggy tangle, and with his long beard he looked like a wild man.

That was how he walked into a house where they were lodging. They stared at him in amazement, and one said to another, "That one looks like a bad sort."

Merlin went up to them. "You're doing a poor job of your lord's business," he said. "He ordered you to look for the seer named Merlin."

When they heard this, they said to one another, "What devil told this peasant that?"

"If I'd been sent to find him, as you were," he answered, "I'd have found him long before you will."

At that they all gathered around him and asked whether he knew this Merlin.

"I know where he stays," he replied, "and he knows very well you're looking for him. But you won't find him unless he wants you to. He did tell me to say you're wasting your time searching, and that even if you found him, he wouldn't go with you. Tell those who told the king the seer was in this country that they spoke the truth.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:64] "When you go back, tell your lord he won't take the castle until Hengist is dead. You should know too that of the men who claimed they knew Merlin, only five are with the army,³⁶ and when you get back only three will be left. Tell him and his advisers this: if they came to this country and searched this forest, they'd find Merlin. But unless the king himself comes, they'll never get anyone to bring him."

The messengers report back, and the woodcutter's words are put to the test

The messengers had understood what Merlin told them. He turned away, and in that moment they lost sight of him. They crossed themselves. "We've been talking to a devil," they said. "What do we do about what he told us?"

They discussed it. "We'll go back and tell our lord, and the ones who sent us here, about this strange thing. We'll find out whether two of them have died."

So they went back and rode until they reached the king. When he saw them, he said, "Have you found Merlin?"

"My lord," they said, "we'll tell you something that happened to us. Send for your advisers and the men who told you about this seer."

Pendragon sent for them. When they'd come, they drew aside to talk in private, and the messengers told them the strange thing that had happened and everything the peasant had said, including the two he'd said would be dead before they got back to the army. They asked after those two and were told they'd certainly died.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:65] When they heard that, they were baffled. Who could it be, this hideous man the messengers described? They didn't know Merlin could take any shape or look but his own, yet they were sure no one but him could have done it. "My lord," they told the king, "we believe it was Merlin himself who spoke to them. No one else could have predicted our companions' deaths, or Hengist's."

Then they asked the messengers what town they'd found him in. "In Northumberland," they said, "where he turned up at our lodging."

Pendragon searches Northumberland, and his knight finds an ugly man herding animals

Then the three men said they were sure it had been Merlin, and that he'd said the king himself should go. So Pendragon said he'd leave the siege to his brother Uther and go to Northumberland to search the forests the man had named. He made ready for the journey and went, taking with him the men he thought knew Merlin. When he arrived, he asked for news of Merlin, but found no one who could give him any. Hearing that, he said he'd look in the forest himself, and rode through the woods searching.

It happened that one of his knights came upon a great herd of animals, and a very ugly, misshapen fellow watching over them. The rider asked who he was, and he said he was from Northumberland, the servant of a rich man. "Could you give me news of someone named Merlin?"

"No," said the herder, "but last night I saw a stranger who told me the king would come looking for him in these forests. Do you know anything about that?"

The rider said it was true that Pendragon was searching for him. "Could you tell us more, and show us the way?"

"I'd tell the king something I wouldn't tell you," he said.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:66] "Then come along," the knight said. "I'll take you to where he is."

"Then I'd be keeping my animals badly," the herder said. "Besides, I've no use for him; he needs me. But I'd tell him how to find the one he's looking for."

"I'll bring him to you," said the rider.

A man brings Pendragon word from Merlin about Hengist

He left and searched until he found Pendragon, and told him what he'd come across. "Take me there," said Pendragon. So he led him back to the spot. "Here's the king," he told the herder. "I've brought him. Now tell him what you said you'd tell him."

"I know you're looking for Merlin," he told Pendragon, "but you can't find him this way unless he wants you to. Go to one of your good towns near here, and he'll come to you when he knows you're waiting for him."

"How do I know you're telling me the truth?" asked the king.

"If you don't believe me, don't do it. It's foolish to follow bad advice."

"So you admit what you say is no good?"

"Not at all. You're the one saying it. I promise you: I'll advise you better than you could ever help me."

So Pendragon went to one of his towns, as near the forest as he could. While he was staying there, a respected man came to his lodging one day, well turned out, well dressed and in good shoes, and asked a knight to take him to the king. Brought to him, he said, "My lord, Merlin sends you his greetings. He tells you it was he you found in the woods herding the animals. The proof is that he said he'd come to you, and he has. But you don't have great need of him yet."

"I've always had use for him," Pendragon answered. "I've never wanted so much to see anyone."

"Since you say so, he sends you some news through me."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:67] Pendragon asked what it was.

"Hengist is dead," the man said, "and your brother Uther killed him."

Pendragon was amazed. "Can this be true?"

"He told me to say nothing more. But you'd be foolish to accept it before you've put it to the test. Send to find out, and then believe it."

"You're right," said Pendragon. He chose two messengers, had them mount the two best horses he had, and ordered them to ride as fast as they could and learn whether Hengist was dead. They set off at a gallop, and on the way they met Uther's own riders, coming to report Hengist's death.

The messengers confirm Hengist's death, and another stranger comes to the king

When the two parties came together, they told each other their news and turned back as one. By then the man who'd brought Merlin's message had gone. All of them stood before Pendragon and told him in private how Uther had killed Hengist. He told them to keep it to themselves, and no more was said, but he wondered how Merlin could have known.

So Pendragon stayed on in the town to see whether Merlin would come, thinking that as soon as he did, he'd ask him how Hengist had died, since hardly anyone knew of it. Then one day, returning from church, he was met by a very handsome, well-dressed man who looked every bit a gentleman. He greeted the king and said, "My lord, what are you waiting for in this town?"

"For Merlin to come and speak to me," said Pendragon.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:68] "You aren't wise enough," came the reply, "to know him when he talks to you. Call the men you've brought who are supposed to know Merlin, and ask them whether I could be this Merlin."

Pendragon was astonished. He had them called and said, "We're waiting for Merlin, but as far as I know, none of you knows him by sight. If you do, say so."

"If we saw him," they answered, "we couldn't fail to know him."

"Can anyone who doesn't know himself know someone else?" said the gentleman.

"We don't say we know everything about him, but we'll know him if we see him."

"You don't really know a man unless you know what he's made of," the stranger answered, "and I'll show you that now."

Then he took the king alone into a room to talk in private. "My lord, I want to be close to you and to your brother Uther. The truth is, I'm the Merlin you came to find. But these people who think they know me know nothing of what I am, and I'll prove it right now. Go out and bring me the ones who say they know me well. The moment they see me, they'll say they've found me, but if I wished, they'd never know me."

Merlin shows Pendragon's men his old shape and tells how Uther killed Hengist

Pendragon was delighted. "Merlin, I'll do whatever you want." He hurried out into the hall and brought the men back. By the time they came in, Merlin had taken the shape they'd first seen him in. Seeing him, they said to the king, "My lord, we can tell you for certain this is Merlin."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:69] "They're telling you the truth," Merlin said to him. "Now tell me what you want."

"Merlin," said Pendragon, "I'd very much like you to tell me whether I've met you since I came here to look for you."

"My lord, I'm the one you spoke to in the woods, who was herding the animals, and I'm the one who told you Hengist was dead."

When Pendragon and his companions heard this, they were amazed. "You know Merlin poorly," he said, "if he came right up to you and you couldn't tell it was him."

"We never saw him do anything like it before," they said. "But, my lord, we do believe he can do what no other man could."

Then the king asked, "Merlin, how did you know of Hengist's death?"

"When you came here, I knew Hengist meant to murder your brother. I went to Uther and told him, and thanks to God and to him, he took my word and was on his guard. I told him how strong and bold Hengist was, since he was to come all alone to Uther's tent to kill him. When I'd told him this, he didn't believe me.³⁷ But he did this much: he kept watch that night by himself, telling no one, and armed himself without anyone knowing.

"So Uther stood guard that night until Hengist came. When Hengist got there, he went in and searched for your brother where he expected to find him. He wasn't there, so Hengist tried to get out. Uther met him at the door, fought him and soon finished him, since Hengist was unarmed. He'd come only to kill Uther in his sleep and slip away fast if he had to."

When the king heard this remarkable story, he asked, "Merlin, what did you look like when you spoke to my brother? I can't see how he believed you."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:70] "I took the shape of a gray-haired old man and drew him aside, and told him plainly that unless he was on his guard that night, he'd die."

"Did you tell him you were Merlin?" asked the king.³⁸

"Your brother still doesn't know who told him, and he won't until you tell him. That's why I had your men tell you that you wouldn't take the castle until Hengist was dead."

"Merlin, my dear friend," said Pendragon, "will you come with me? I have great need of you and your help."

"The sooner I came, the angrier your men would be to see you put your faith in me. But if you know what's best for you and you're wise, you won't let them stop you from trusting me to handle your affairs and spare you trouble."

"Merlin, you've already done and said so much for me that if it's true you saved my brother from death, as you say, I should never doubt or mistrust you again."

"Go and ask Uther who told him what I've told you. If he can't say, never believe anything I tell you. Remember this: when I speak to him, I'll take the shape I had when I warned him about Hengist, and I'll want you to recognize me."

"Merlin, for God's sake, will you let me know it when my brother is talking with you?"

"Of course you'll know," Merlin answered, "but whatever you do, tell no one. If I ever caught you telling anyone, I'd never trust you again, and the loss would be greater for you than for me."

"If I ever break my word to you once, never believe me again," said the king.³⁹

"My lord, I'll test you, I promise you, in many ways."

"I'm happy with that."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:71] "I want you to know," said Merlin,⁴⁰ "that I'll visit your brother on the eleventh day after you've talked with him."⁴¹

Merlin goes to Blaise, and Pendragon tells Uther about him

The story says that this was how Merlin came to know King Pendragon. He said goodbye and went to his master Blaise and told him all of it again, and Blaise wrote it down, and it's through him that we know it. Pendragon traveled on, day after day, until he reached Uther, who was delighted to see him. As soon as they'd greeted each other, Pendragon took his brother aside, told him of Hengist's death as Merlin had told it, and asked whether it was true.

"I don't know who told you," said Uther, "but God help me, you've told me something I thought no one knew but God and a very old gentleman who told it to me in private. I didn't think anyone could have found out. For God's sake, tell me who told you this. I'm astonished you know it."

"I know it well," said Pendragon, "but please, tell me who the gentleman was who saved you from death. From what I've learned, if it weren't for him, Hengist would have killed you."

"My lord, I swear I don't know who he was. But he seemed a wise, decent man, and because of that I trusted him, since he told me nothing I shouldn't believe. It took great daring for someone to try to murder me in our army and in my tent."⁴²

"Would you know the man again if you saw him?" asked Pendragon.

"I think I'd know him well."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:72] "Then let me tell you, he'll come to you eleven days from today. But for my sake, do this: stay near me all that day until it's over, so I can see who talks to you."

So the two brothers agreed to be together that day. Merlin knew all this, and he wanted to win their friendship and be good, easy company for them. He told Blaise how they'd spoken of him and how the king meant to test him.

"What are you going to do about it?" Blaise asked.

"They're young men, and lively," Merlin answered, "and there's no better way to their hearts than by doing and saying some of what they like, and by giving them pleasure and good laughs. I know a lady Uther loves. I'll go to him and bring him a letter from her, which you'll write for me, worded so that he'll believe what I tell him. That way, on the eleventh day, they'll both see me and never know me. The next day, when I make myself known to the two of them together, they'll be all the more grateful."

Blaise did as Merlin said. On that day Merlin came in the shape of a serving boy of Uther's sweetheart. He went to where Uther stood with his brother and said, "Sir, my lady sends you her greetings and this letter."

Uther took it, overjoyed, sure she'd sent it, and had a clerk read it to him. It said he should believe whatever the boy told him, and Merlin told him what Uther most liked to hear. So Uther spent that day beside his brother. He made a fuss of his visitor and was happy all day at the good news from his lady. Toward evening Pendragon wondered what had become of Merlin, who'd promised to come that day to speak to Uther.

Merlin tricks Uther in one disguise after another

[Paris–Ulrich 1:73] Pendragon and Uther together waited until the day was over. Once night had fallen, the brothers drew aside to talk. Merlin, for his part, went off and took the shape he'd worn when he spoke to Uther.⁴³ He came to Uther's lodging and asked for him, and was told he was with the king. So he sent someone to fetch him. In front of Pendragon, the man told Uther that a very handsome gentleman was asking for him at his tent.

"I think it's Merlin," said Pendragon,⁴⁴ and told Uther to go and get him.

Uther agreed. "My lord, you'll have him here."

Pendragon asked him to say whether this was the man who'd saved him from death, and Uther said he certainly would. So Uther went back and found the gentleman who'd rescued him. He knew him at once, welcomed him warmly and talked with him of many things. "Sir, I owe you my life. But I'm astonished that my lord has told me everything you told me, and what I did after you left me. He said you were coming today, and asked and ordered me, if you came, to let him know. Just now he told me that if it was you, I should go and get him. But I'm baffled how he knew what you'd told me."

"He couldn't have known unless someone told him," said Merlin. "Fetch him, and ask him in front of me who it was."

So Uther went for the king, telling the guards outside to let no one in. As soon as Uther was out, Merlin became the boy who'd brought the letter.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:74] When Uther and Pendragon came expecting to find the gentleman inside, they found someone else entirely. "My lord, this is uncanny," Uther said. "I left the man I told you about right here a moment ago, and now there's only this servant. Stay here, and I'll ask these people whether they saw him leave or this young man come in."

So Uther went out, and the king burst out laughing. Uther asked the guards, "Did anyone get in after I left to fetch my brother?"

"No," they said.

Uther came back to Pendragon. "I don't know what this can be." Then he turned to the boy. "When did you come in here?"

"I was here when you set off, and when you talked to the man."

Uther crossed himself. "God help me," he said to Pendragon, "I'm under a spell. Nothing like this ever happened to anyone."

Hearing him talk like this, the king laughed, knowing in his heart it was Merlin doing all this. "Dear brother," he said, "I didn't think you'd lie to me."

"I'm so bewildered I don't know what to say."

"Who's this young man?" asked Pendragon.

"He's the servant who brought me the letter in front of you."

"Do you know him?"

"Yes, well."

"Uther, do you think he could be the gentleman you came to fetch me for?"

"That couldn't be."

"Then let's go outside, you and I together. If he wants us to find him, we'll manage it."

They stepped out of the tent and stood there a while. Then Pendragon told one of his knights, "Go and see who's in there." He went in, found the gentleman sitting on a bed, and came back and told them.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:75] When Uther heard it, he was astounded. "God help us! Now I've seen what I never thought anyone could. My lord, this is the man who saved me from death, without a doubt."

At that the king was overjoyed and told the gentleman he was very welcome. "Sir," he said, "do you want me to tell my brother who you are?"

"I'd like him to know," said Merlin.

Pendragon teases Uther about the boy who brought his letters

Then Pendragon said to Uther, "You understand very little of what the man can do.⁴⁵ Where's the boy who brought you the letter?"

"He was here just now, my lord. What do you want with him?"

Pendragon and Merlin began to laugh. Merlin took the king aside, told him what he'd said to Uther about his sweetheart, and asked him to repeat it in front of Uther. So Pendragon called Uther over, laughing. "Dear brother, what's become of that servant of yours?"

Uther was astonished. "Why remind me of him, my lord?"

"For the good news he carried from the lady you have in mind. I'll tell you what I know of it in front of this gentleman."

"Go ahead," Uther answered. He agreed because he didn't think anyone knew it but the one who'd told him.

The king repeated exactly what the servant had said. Uther was amazed to hear it. "Tell me how you know this."

"I will, if this gentleman here wishes it."

"My lord, what has he got to do with it?"

"I can't do it unless he tells me to."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:76] At that, Uther was more amazed than ever and began to look hard at him. "Sir, please tell my brother to say it as he knows it, and who told him."

Merlin told Uther he was willing for the king to say it.

Pendragon tells Uther the boy was Merlin, and Merlin proves it

Then Pendragon said, "Uther, you don't know who the man is. But I want you to know he's the wisest and most respected man in the world, the one whose advice and help we need most. Believe me: he has such power, as I'll tell you, that the boy who brought you that letter was he and no one else. He's the one who told you your sweetheart's private words."

When Uther heard this, he was dumbfounded. "My lord, how could I accept that? It would be the most amazing thing in the world if it were true."

"You truly can believe it," said Pendragon.

"I couldn't, unless I saw it some other way than by your word."

So the king asked Merlin to give him some proof. "I'll give him plenty," said Merlin. "My lord, step outside a moment, and I'll take a boy's shape for him."

When he'd taken it, he called Uther. "Sir, I'd like to go now; give whatever orders you wish."

Uther said goodbye to him. Then Pendragon came back to his brother and asked him privately, "What do you think of this young man? You'd hardly believe it was he who spoke to you just now."

"I'm so stunned I don't know what to say to you."

"Be quite sure that he's the one who kept Hengist from killing you, and the one I went to find in Northumberland. He has such power that he knows everything that's been done and said in the past, and a great part of the future.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:77] "So we should ask him earnestly to stay close to us, and handle all our affairs through him."

"My lord," Uther answered, "if he were willing, such a man would serve us well."

The brothers beg Merlin to stay, and he agrees

Then both brothers begged Merlin, for God's sake, and because they'd trust him in anything he wished, to stay with them.

"You should both know that I know every hidden thing I want to know," Merlin replied. "And you, my lord," he said to the king, "don't you know I've told you the truth about everything you've asked me?"

"I've never caught you in a single lie," said Pendragon.

"And you, Uther, haven't I been honest with you about your sweetheart, things you thought no one could know?"

"You've told me so much that I'll never doubt you again," said Uther. "Because I know how respected and wise you are, I'd like you to stay with us."

"I'll be with you, and happily. But I want the two of you, between yourselves, to know my nature in private. You should know that I'm forced at times to keep away from people. Still, wherever I am, I'll think of your affairs more than anyone else's, and whenever I learn you're in trouble, I'll come to help you all I can. But if you want me with you, I ask one thing: don't mind it when I leave. Every time I come back, welcome me warmly in front of everyone, and decent men will think more of me for it. The wicked, who have no love for you, will hate me, but once they see you favor me, they won't dare show it.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:78] "Remember too: for a long while I won't change my looks, except when I'm alone with the two of you. Soon I'll come to your lodging. Those who've seen me before will run to tell you I've come. The moment you hear it, act delighted. They'll tell you I'm a very fine seer, and you can safely ask me whatever your advisers suggest, and I'll advise you on all of it."

Part 4: The brothers fight the Saxons at Salisbury, and Merlin gives Uther the stones and the Round Table

Merlin advises peace with the Saxons still in the land

The story says that Merlin said goodbye to Pendragon and Uther to take on a look the people of the land would know him by. Leaving them, he called on the men who'd once advised Vortigern. When they saw him, they were overjoyed and ran at once to tell Pendragon he'd come. The news delighted him, and he went out to greet Merlin. "Merlin," said his friends, "here's the king coming to meet you." Pendragon made a great fuss of him and took him to his lodging.

As soon as Merlin was inside, the king's advisers drew Pendragon aside. "My lord, here's Merlin, the best seer there is. Ask him to tell you how you'll take that castle and how the war between you and the Saxons will end. If he's willing, he'll tell you." Pendragon said he'd be very glad to. They left it there for the moment, since he wanted to treat Merlin with great respect.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:79] Three days later, his entire court gathered, and the king put to Merlin what his advisers had said. "Merlin, my dear friend, I've heard you're very wise. Please tell me how I can take that castle, and whether I can drive out these Saxons who are in this land."

"Now you can test my wisdom," Merlin said. "I want you to know that ever since they lost Hengist, they've wanted nothing but to leave the country and flee. Find this out tomorrow through your messengers: send them in to ask for a truce. Then they'll offer to leave you the land that was your father's, and you'll have them escorted out and give them your ships to go in."

"Merlin, you've spoken well," said Pendragon. "But first I'll sound them out another way: I'll have them asked for a truce, just to hear what they say."

So he sent Ursin, one of the men who advised him, with two others. They rode until they came to the castle. The Saxons saw them coming and went out to meet them. "What do these knights want?"

"We ask a truce of three months on the king's behalf," said Ursin.

"We'll talk it over," said the Saxons. They drew aside and said among themselves, "We're all hard hit by Hengist's death, and we don't have the food to stay in here as long as the truce asks. Let's tell him to go away and leave us the castle, and we'll hold it from him and pay him tribute every year: ten each of knights, young women, falcons and greyhounds, and a hundred horses."

That was their decision, and they agreed to it. They gave the messengers their answer just as they'd settled it, and the envoys rode back and told the king, Merlin and the other barons. When Pendragon heard it, he asked Merlin what he should do.

Merlin answered that he should have nothing to do with it, as great harm would still come of it to the land and the country. "But tell them now, without waiting any longer, that they must come out of the castle, since they've nothing to eat and will do it willingly, and that they'll never have a truce unless they do.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:80] "Give them boats and ships to sail away in. If they won't, then every one of them you take, put to a cruel death. I promise you that when you let them go with their lives, they'll never have been so glad, because they all think they're going to die."

The Saxons sail away, and a jealous baron hears he'll break his neck

In the morning Pendragon did just as Merlin had laid it out, sending his messengers with this demand. When those in the castle heard it and learned they could leave with their lives, they'd never been so happy, since they'd seen no way to recover after losing Hengist. So it was announced through the whole land, and the king had them escorted to the port and gave them ships, and they sailed away. As you've heard, that was how Merlin knew the Saxons' hearts, how Pendragon sent them away on his advice, and how the Saxons left the kingdom.

So Merlin rose to rule over the king's advisers, and did so a long time,⁴⁶ until one day he spoke to Pendragon of some great matter, and one of the barons, who took it badly, came to the king. "My lord, you're far too impressed by this man you believe. But all the sense he has comes from the devil. If you like, I'll test him so that you see it openly."⁴⁷

"I'm willing for you to try," the king answered, "so long as you don't anger him."

"My lord, I'll say nothing and do nothing that ought to trouble him." So Pendragon agreed, and the baron was delighted to have his permission. In the eyes of the world he was very wise, but he was full of malice, a powerful man, very rich and with plenty of family. One day he came upon Merlin at court, made a fuss of him and showed him a friendly face, and in Pendragon's presence called him aside to talk in private.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:81] Only five were there, and the baron said to the king, "My lord, here's one of the wisest men in the world. I've heard he told Vortigern he'd die by your fire, and so he did. So for God's sake, all of you, as you know I'm ill, ask him to tell you, if he knows, how my life will end, since I'm sure he can say if he wants to."

The king and the others all asked Merlin. He'd heard every word and knew well the envy and wicked heart behind them. "My lord," he told Pendragon, "you want me to tell you of his death. I'll tell you. On the day he dies, he'll fall from his horse and break his neck. That's how he'll leave this life."

The baron comes back in disguise and hears that he'll hang

When the baron heard this, he said to the king, "My lord, you hear what he's told me, and God protect me from it." Then he took Pendragon aside. "Remember what Merlin has said, and I'll come to him again another way and test him."

So he went home to his own country and put on different clothes. Once he'd changed, he came back as fast as he could and pretended to be ill. He secretly asked the king to bring Merlin with him, so that Merlin wouldn't know who it was. Pendragon sent back that he'd be glad to go, and that Merlin would never learn it from him.

Then Pendragon came to Merlin. "Merlin, let's go, you and I, to see a sick man in a town nearby."

Merlin laughed. "My lord, no king should go so alone that he doesn't have at least twenty men with him."

So Pendragon called those he wanted with him, and they went to see the man. When the royal party got there, the sick man had his wife ready, and she threw herself at the king's feet.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:82] "My lord, for God's sake, have your seer tell me whether my husband will get well."

The king put on a very innocent face and looked at Merlin. "Merlin, could you tell what this woman asks? She wants to know about him."

"My lord," said Merlin, "I want you to know that this illness won't be the end of the man lying here."

The sick man made a show of struggling to speak and asked Merlin, "Sir, then what's going to kill me?"

"On the day you die, you'll be found hanged."

At that, Merlin turned away from him as if he were angry, and left Pendragon in the house. He did it because he wanted the sick man to talk to the king alone. Seeing his chance, the man said to him, "My lord, now you can see whether this fellow is false and lies in what he's told me, since he's given me two deaths that can't agree with each other. I'll test him once more in front of you. I'll go to an abbey and pretend to be sick there, and send the abbot to fetch you.

"He'll say I'm one of his monks, that I'm very ill and he's afraid I'll die, and he'll ask you to bring your seer. I tell you, this is the last time I'll put him to the test." The king agreed.

The baron poses as a sick monk in an abbey to test Merlin again

So Pendragon left him and went back. The baron made for an abbey and did just as he'd said he would, and had the abbot send for Pendragon, who came and brought Merlin. Once there, he heard Mass, and the head of the house approached him with a good fifteen monks and begged him to come and see their brother who was sick, and to bring his seer. Pendragon asked Merlin whether he'd come along.

Then Merlin called Pendragon and Uther before an altar.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:83] "The better I get to know you, the more foolish I find you," he said to them both. "Do you think I don't know what death this fool who's testing me will die? God help me, I know it well, and I'll tell you. You'll wonder still more at what I'll tell you than at the other two things I've already told him."⁴⁸

"Merlin," said the king, "can it be true that a man could die that way?"

"My lord, if he doesn't, never believe me in anything, because I know his end well. When you've seen his, you can ask me about your own. I tell Uther this much: I'll see him king before I leave his company."

Merlin tells the fake monk he'll drown as well

So Pendragon and Uther together, with Merlin, came to where they were to be taken. "My lord," the abbot said, "for God's sake, have your seer tell me whether the monk who lies there can ever get well."

The king asked him. Merlin, as if angry, answered, "Sir, he can get up perfectly well if he wants to. There's nothing wrong with him, and he's testing me for nothing. He'll die the two deaths I've told him of, and I'll tell him a third, stranger than either: after breaking his neck and hanging, he'll drown. All three of these will happen to him, so let him stop pretending, because I know his whole heart and everything his wicked mind is thinking."

The man sat up in bed. "My lord," he said to the king, "now you can see how foolish he is, and that he doesn't know what he's saying. How could he possibly be telling the truth? He says that on the day I die I'll break my neck and hang and drown, all of it on that one day. I promise you, this couldn't happen to me or to anyone. See now whether you're wise to believe such a man and make him master of yourself and your advisers."

"I'll never trust him," said Pendragon, "until I know for certain if it's true."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:84] The baron was furious to learn that, as long as he lived, Merlin would go on advising the king. So things stood, and word of what Merlin had said about the man's death spread everywhere, and everyone waited to see it come about.

The baron rides out and comes to a river with a wooden bridge

A long time after, it happened one day that the respected baron who was to die this way was riding with a large company and came to a river with a wooden bridge over it. His horse stumbled and went down on its knees. He pitched forward and landed on his neck so that it broke, and his body turned over and dropped into the water so that one of the stakes of the old bridge caught in his clothes. His hips stayed up in the air and he hung upside down, his head and shoulders underwater.

His people were with him and saw it. A great cry went up, so that the townspeople heard it and came running over the bridge, and by boat, as fast as they could. When they arrived, the respected men among them said to those who'd pulled him out, "See whether his neck is broken." They looked and said it certainly was.

When his companions heard that, they were amazed. "Merlin really did tell the truth when he said this man would die all three deaths at once. Anyone who doesn't believe him, and everything he says, is a fool, since it seems to us he's always right."

Merlin, who knew of it, came to Uther, who loved him very much, told him how the man had died, and told him to pass it on to Pendragon. Uther did, and Pendragon, astonished, asked him, "Who told you this?"

"My lord, Merlin."

The king told Uther to find out when it was, and Uther went to Merlin with it.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:85] "Yesterday. The ones who'll bring word will come in six days. I'm going away, because I don't want to be here when they come: they'd put all kinds of questions to me that I wouldn't want to answer. From now on, I won't speak in front of people except in riddles, so they won't know what I'm saying until they see it happen."

The court starts writing down Merlin's prophecies, and he speaks only in riddles

The story says that when Merlin had said this, he went to Blaise in Northumberland. Uther came to the king and told him what Merlin had said. When Pendragon heard it, he thought Merlin was angry and asked where he'd gone.

"I don't know where, my lord. But he said he didn't want to be here when this news came."

The story now leaves Pendragon and Uther and turns to Merlin, who was with Blaise in Northumberland and told him all these things and many others, to give him more to write in his book. He stayed there until the sixth day, when those who'd been at the man's death arrived and told the king the strange story as they'd seen it. Then he and everyone who heard it said no one was as wise as Merlin, and that they'd never again hear him say anything that was to come without writing it down. So they agreed.

That was how a book was begun that's called the Book of Merlin's Prophecies, about what he said of the kings of England and all the other things he spoke of later.⁴⁹ That's why it doesn't say who Merlin is or where he came from, since they wrote down only what he said.⁵⁰

Merlin stayed with Blaise a long while. In that time King Pendragon, who the English called by his true baptismal name, Aurelius Ambrosius, did whatever Merlin said, and so did his brother Uther.⁵¹

[Paris–Ulrich 1:86] When Merlin knew they'd spoken so and meant to put his words on record, he told Blaise, and Blaise asked him, "Merlin, will their book be like the one I'm making?"

"Not at all. They'll write down only what they can understand once it's happened."

Then Merlin came back to the king's court. When he arrived, they told him the news as if he knew nothing of it. Then he began to speak the dark sayings his book of prophecies was made of, which can't be understood until they've come about.

After that Merlin came to Pendragon and his brother Uther and told them, with deep feeling, that he loved them and wanted them to have great power, good fortune and honor. When they heard it, they were astonished, and told Merlin to tell them freely whatever he wished and to hide nothing about their affairs.

"I'll never keep anything from you that I ought to tell you," Merlin answered. "I'll tell you something you'll find amazing.

Merlin warns that the Saxons are coming and tells how to beat them

"Do you remember the Saxons you threw out of your land after Hengist died?"

"Yes, very well."

"Those who left told the other Saxons of his death, and he was of a very great family. When his relatives heard the news that Hengist was dead and his people driven from the country, they talked together and said they'd never be happy until they'd avenged him, and they're sure they can conquer this land."

At this, Pendragon and Uther were alarmed. "Do they have so many men that they can make war on us?"

"For every man you have who's fit to fight, they'll have two. Unless you act very wisely, they'll destroy you and take your kingdom."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:87] "We'll do everything as you advise, and never go against anything you tell us." Then they asked Merlin, "When do you think these people will come?"

"On the eleventh day of July, and no one in your land will know but you.⁵² I ask that neither of you speak of it, but do as I tell you. Summon all your knights and soldiers, poor and rich, and make them as welcome as you can, since it's wise to look after your men, and keep them near you. Ask them to be with you, as far as they can, the whole last week of June, at the edge of the plains of Salisbury. Gather all your strength there on the river, so you can keep the Saxons from it."

"What!" said the king. "Are we to let them land, then?"

"Yes, if you trust me, and let them get well away from the shore, so they never know you've gathered your army. When they're far enough off, send some of your people toward their ships, as if you didn't mean to let them go back. When they see that, they'll be frightened. Then let one of you two go with your troops and keep so close that you force them to camp away from the river against their will. Once they're camped, they'll be badly short of water, and the boldest of them will lose heart. Hold them like that for two days, and on the third, fight them. If you do this, I promise you your men will win."

Then the two brothers said, "For God's sake, Merlin, tell us whether we'll die in this battle."

"Nothing that has a beginning lacks an end," Merlin told them. "No one should be dismayed by death if they meet it as they ought, since everyone alive must know they're mortal. The same holds for you: no high rank or wealth can keep you from it."

Then Pendragon spoke up.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:88] "Merlin, you once told me you could foresee my end as surely as that of the man who tested you, and about him you told the truth. So please, if you will, tell me how I'll die."

"I want you both to send for the best relics and holy things you have, and to swear on them, each to the other, that you'll do what I command you for your own good and your honor. When you've sworn, I'll tell you more surely what you need to know."

Merlin tells the brothers one of them will die in the battle

They did just as Merlin had said. Then they said, "Merlin, we've done what you commanded. Now please tell us why you had us do it."

"You want to know about your death," Merlin answered the king, "and how this battle will go, and I'll tell you. Do you know what each of you has promised the other? I'll tell you. You've sworn that in this fight you'll be decent men, true to yourselves and to God. I'll teach you how to be respected, loyal and fair in judgment. I order you to go to confession, since you should do it now more than at any other time, knowing you're to fight. If you're as I tell you, be sure you'll win.

"The Saxons don't believe in the Trinity, for which Jesus Christ came to earth, and you're defending the inheritance that's rightfully yours. Whoever dies standing up for their rights, reconciled with the law of Jesus Christ as the Church commands, doesn't need to fear death much.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:89] "I want you to know that since the Church was founded in this island there's never been so great a battle as this one will be, and there won't be another in your time.

"Each of you has sworn to the other that he'll do what's good and honorable. I won't say it more openly than this, but be sure that one of you two must leave this world. On my advice, the one who remains will make the most beautiful and richest cemetery he can, where this battle is fought. I promise you I'll help with it, so that what I do in that place will be seen for as long as Christendom lasts. I've told you that one of you two must die: now take care to be decent men."

The brothers hold court at Pentecost as the Saxons arrive

So the time passed, and the appointed day arrived. The two brothers had done all Merlin had ordered. At Pentecost they came to hold court on the river, and the people gathered there. Gifts were given freely and everyone celebrated, and they stayed there until news reached them that the ships had arrived, in the first week of July. When Uther learned it, he knew Merlin had told him the truth. He had the Church's bishops order that there be no man in the army who hadn't confessed and forgiven everyone else.

The Saxons all came off the ships, took the land, stayed there eight days and on the ninth rode out. King Pendragon, who had good news of them and spies in their army, knew they were riding and told Merlin, and Merlin told him it was true. Then the king asked him what he should do.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:90] "Tomorrow you'll send Uther there with a large force. When he knows and sees they're well away from the river and the sea, let him get between them and the shore, and keep near enough to make them camp in the middle of the fields. Let him draw his men back, and in the morning, when the Saxons want to march, charge them and press them so hard they can't ride.⁵³ Then there won't be one of them who wouldn't rather be back where he came from.

"Let him do this for two days with all your men, and as soon as the day is fair and clear, charge them at the moment you see a red dragon running through the air between heaven and earth.⁵⁴ When you've seen it, you can fight safely, because it'll be a sign of your name, and your men will win."⁵⁵

Then they said goodbye. Merlin came to Uther and said, "Take care to be a decent man; you're in no danger of death in this battle."⁵⁶ Merlin went to Blaise in Northumberland and told him everything, and Blaise wrote it down, and it's through his book that we still know it. But here the tale falls silent about Blaise and Merlin, and turns to tell of Uther and Pendragon and how the battle with the Saxons went for them.

A red dragon flies over Salisbury, and the brothers meet the Saxons

The story says that the two brothers did everything just as Merlin had told them. Uther picked out a large part of the mounted troops, the strongest and best he could choose, and they rode until they saw the Saxons camped on the open plain. They threw themselves between the Saxons' fleet and their tents, and made them camp that night in the middle of the fields, without water and away from the vessels that held their food. Uther kept them so hemmed in for two whole days that they couldn't ride anywhere, near or far.

On the third day King Pendragon arrived in great strength and had his men made ready and his battalions drawn up. When the Saxons saw the two armies, they were terrified.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:91] Uther and his troops charged so hard that they drove the Saxons back onto Pendragon's army. There was such a din and uproar, such shouting, that you couldn't have heard God thunder. Pendragon's men stood ready to strike whenever he gave the word, but he was waiting for the sign Merlin had promised. Before long it appeared: a red dragon came flying through the air, breathing fire and flame from its nostrils and mouth, and swept roaring over the Saxons. At the sight, they were badly shaken and terribly afraid.

Pendragon and Uther told their troops the enemy was beaten, since they'd seen every sign Merlin had named. Pendragon's men rode at them as fast as their horses could carry them, and when Uther saw the king's forces had closed with them, he threw in all of his own. The Saxons met them as boldly or more, and the two sides clashed hard; it was a fierce, bitter battle, and in it King Pendragon was killed.

Uther buries the dead and becomes king

So, as you've heard, the fight at Salisbury was won: Pendragon died, and Uther carried the day. Many lost their lives there. Not one of the Saxons escaped, since they all had to drown or be cut down. That was how it ended.

After Pendragon's death, Uther was left, and became king. He had the Christians' bodies buried together in one place, and each man brought his own friends there, one after another. Uther had his brother's body carried there with those of his men, and each one's name written on his grave, and who he'd been. He had Pendragon's raised higher than the rest, and said he'd have nothing carved on it, since anyone who saw that tomb and didn't know whose it was would be a great fool.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:92] When he'd done this, Uther went to London with all his people and all the Church's bishops who served under him, and there he was crowned. Fifteen days later, Merlin came to court.

Uther takes the name Pendragon, and Merlin sends for stones from Ireland

The king was overjoyed to see Merlin. "Uther," said Merlin, "I want you to tell your people what I told you about the Saxons who'd come into your land, the promise you and Pendragon together made me, and the oaths you swore each other."

Uther told them all of it: everything that had passed between him and Pendragon, and all Merlin had said about the dragon, which the two of them had understood no better than anyone else. Then Merlin explained what it meant: its coming had signaled Pendragon's death and King Uther's rise. So the name was given to Uther as a surname, to honor his brother,⁵⁷ for the sign that had appeared and what it stood for, and from then on he was always called Uther Pendragon. That was how the barons learned what Merlin had wanted, and the orders he'd given the pair.

Things stayed that way a long while, and Merlin was very close to Uther Pendragon and his advisers. Then one day, when Uther Pendragon was settled in his kingdom, Merlin called him and said, "What are you going to do for Pendragon, who lies at Salisbury?"

"Whatever you wish," said the king.

"You swore to me you'd make a cemetery, and I myself would help all I could. I promised you we'd make something there that people would see for as long as the world lasts. Now keep your oath, and I'll keep my word."

"What can I do?" the king asked.

"Set out to make something never known before, that people will talk about forever."⁵⁸

"I'd be glad to," he answered.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:93] "Then send for some massive stones that are in Ireland," said Merlin. "Have your ships fetch them over. Your men will never bring any so big that I can't lift it, and I'll go and show them the ones I want." So the king sent a large fleet there.

Merlin raises the stones at Salisbury and tells Uther where his power comes from

When they got there, Merlin showed them some enormous rocks and said, "Here are the stones you're to take back." At the sight, they thought it sheer madness. They said the whole world couldn't turn one over, and they'd never put such things in their ships, God willing.

"Then you've come for nothing," Merlin told them.

They went back and told the king of the impossible task Merlin had set them, which they believed no one on earth could do.

"Wait until Merlin comes," he answered.

When Merlin arrived, Uther told him what his men had said. "Since they've failed me," said Merlin, "I'll keep my promise myself." Then by the power of his art he had the stones brought from Ireland to the cemetery at Salisbury, where they still are. When they'd come, the king went to see them, and took a large part of his people along to see the sight. Once there, they said they'd never seen such enormous blocks, and didn't believe all the world could move one. Everyone was amazed at how Merlin had got them there, though nobody had watched it happen or heard of it. Merlin told them to set the stones upright.

"Merlin," said the king, "no one but God could do that, unless you do it."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:94] "Then leave me to it," said Merlin, "and I'll have kept my promise to Pendragon, because I'll have done something for him that no other mortal man could ever finish."⁵⁹⁶⁰ So Merlin raised the stones in the cemetery at Salisbury, and that was the end of the work.

Merlin loved the king very much and served him a long time, until one day he took him aside and said, "It's time I told you the highest secret I know, since I see this whole country is yours. Because I love you, I want to tell you something. Didn't I keep Hengist from killing you? You ought to love me for that."

"There's nothing you could want that I wouldn't do, if I can," the king answered.

"If you do it, the gain will be yours," said Merlin, "since I'll teach you something to win you God's love."

"Merlin, say what you want without fear," said Uther. "You'll never name anything a man can do that I won't do."

"Sire, what I'm about to tell you is going to seem very strange," said Merlin, "and I ask you to keep it secret, since I want the gain and the honor to be yours."

The king promised Merlin he'd never speak of it. Then Merlin said, "Sire, the truth is that I know what's been said and done in the past, a gift I have by nature from the demon who fathered me. Our Lord, who has power over all things, has given me the sense to know part of the future. That's why the devils have lost me: I'll never do their will. Now you know the source of what I can do. I'll tell you what our Lord wants you to know. When you know it, take care to do as our Lord wishes.

Merlin tells Uther about the table of the Last Supper and Joseph's table

[Paris–Ulrich 1:95] "Sire, you must believe that our Lord came to earth to save the world, and sat at the Last Supper and said to the apostles, 'One of you is going to betray me.' The one who did that wrong was cut off from their company, just as our Lord had said. After that, Sire, our Lord died for us, and a knight asked for the body and took it down from the cross.

"Then, Sire, our Lord rose again, and after Jesus Christ's death this soldier was in a wild wasteland, with part of his family and many others who were with him. When a great famine struck them, they complained to the knight who led them, and he prayed God to show him why they were suffering such hardship.

"Our Lord told him to build a table in the name of the one at the Supper, square in shape, and to drape it well in white cloths, and set on it a vessel he had, from which Jesus and the apostles had eaten at the Supper, and to cover that completely except on his own side. Brons, his brother-in-law, caught a fish, and it was laid in the middle of the table, next to the dish, in front of Joseph of Arimathea.⁶¹ Through that vessel the good were separated from the wicked. Whoever could sit there, Sire, had everything their heart wanted.

"There was always one empty seat there, Sire, standing for where Judas sat at the Supper; when he heard our Lord say those words were meant for him, he left God's company. His place stayed vacant until our Lord set a man in it to make the twelve apostles whole. So these two tables belong together, and at the second, Joseph's, our Lord gave all who sat there what their hearts wanted. People call the vessel that gives them this grace the Grail. If you'll trust me, you'll found a third in the name of the Trinity, and each of the three will stand for one of the Trinity's powers.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:96] "I promise you that if you do it, great good will come of it to your body and soul, and things will happen in your time to amaze you. If you're willing, I'll help you all I can, and I swear it'll be one of the most talked-about works in the world. If you trust me, you'll do it, and if you take my word, you'll be very glad."

That's what Merlin said to the king. "I don't want our Lord to lose anything through me," Uther answered, "and I want you to know that I leave it all to you."

"Then decide, Sire, where you'd most like it made."

"I want it wherever you like."

"You'll make it at Carduel in Wales. Summon the people of your kingdom to meet you there at Pentecost, get ready to give great gifts, and give me workers who'll do as I say. When you want, I'll choose the ones fit to sit there."

So the king had it announced everywhere, and Merlin went and had the table made. Things stayed that way until the week of Pentecost, when Uther came to Carduel. When he arrived, he asked Merlin how he'd done, and Merlin said, "Very well, Sire."

Merlin seats fifty men at the Round Table and shows Uther the empty place

So the people gathered at Carduel for Pentecost, plenty of knights and ladies among them. Then the king said to Merlin, "Who are you going to pick to sit at this table?"

"Tomorrow you'll see what you never thought you'd see. I'll choose fifty of the most respected men in this land, and once they've sat there they'll never want to go home or leave this place. Then you'll see in your own what the empty seat means, and what the other two tables mean."

"I'd very much like to see that," said the king.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:97] Merlin picked out fifty of the most respected men he knew and sat them down. Then he called Uther over and showed him the vacant place. Many others saw it too, but nobody understood what it meant or why it was empty, except Merlin and the king. When that was done, Merlin told Uther to go and take his own place, but he said he wouldn't sit until he'd seen the men at the table waited on, and he had them served before he moved. Once they'd eaten, Uther went and sat down.

The fifty choose to stay, and Merlin says the empty seat will wait

It was like that for all eight days, and the king gave plenty of fine gifts and great jewels to the ladies and young women. When the barons had said goodbye and were going, they came to the men of standing who sat at the table, and Uther himself asked what they meant to do.

"Sire," they answered, "we've no wish ever to move from here. We'll bring our wives and children to this town and live here as long as our Lord allows, because that's how we feel."

"Do you all feel that way?" the king asked them.

"Yes," they all answered, "and we wonder very much how it can be. Some of us had never met before, and few of us knew one another, and now we love each other as much as a son loves his father, or more. It seems to me we'll never break up or go our separate ways, unless death parts us."

When the king heard them speak like that, he was astonished, and so was everyone who listened. He was very glad, and ordered them honored in the town as he was himself.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:98] When the people had gone, Uther said to Merlin, "What you told me was true. Now I truly believe our Lord wants this table founded. But I'm very curious about the empty seat, and I'd very much like you to tell me, if you know, who'll sit there."

"I can tell you this much," said Merlin: "it won't be taken in your time. The one who fills it will be born to a man who hasn't married yet, or learned he's to father such a child.⁶² First he must complete the place where the vessel of the Grail stands, which its keepers have never seen anyone do. That won't happen in your time either, but in the time of the king who comes after you. But I ask you to hold your gatherings and great courts in this town, and to be here yourself for the yearly feasts."

"Merlin, I'll be glad to," said Uther.

"I'm going away," said Merlin. "You won't see me again for a long time."

Then the king asked him, "Merlin, where are you going? Won't you come to every festival I keep here?"

"No, I can't be here, since I want the people with you to believe what they'll see come true, not say I made it happen."

Part 5: Uther wants Igraine and makes war on her husband

Merlin goes to Blaise, and Uther falls in love with Igraine at Christmas

The story says that Merlin left Uther Pendragon and went to Blaise in Northumberland, and told him these things, how the table had been founded, and many others you'll hear in his book. Merlin stayed away more than two years and never came near the king. For a long time Uther regularly held his court at Carduel, until one day he took it into his head to summon all his barons, and to have them bring their wives. So he called them for Christmas, sending his letters everywhere, and they did just as he'd ordered.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:99] You can be sure that plenty of young women, girls and knights came. I can't and shouldn't name everyone at that court, but I'll tell you of those my story speaks of. This much I want you to know: the duke of Tintagel was there, and brought his wife, Igraine.⁶³ When the king saw her, he fell deeply in love with her, though he never showed it, except that his eyes went to her more than to the others. She noticed it herself, and knew in her heart that Uther liked looking at her. Once she'd seen it, she avoided him all she could and was slow to come near him, since she was a very decent woman and very beautiful.

Because he loved her, and so no one would notice, the king sent jewels to all the ladies, and to Igraine he gave the ones he thought would please her most. Seeing that every other lady had received them, she wouldn't and didn't dare refuse her own gift.

Uther tells Igraine she's taking his heart, and waits for Pentecost

So the court broke up, and before it did, the king asked all his barons to come back at Pentecost, as they'd come to this feast, and the ladies too. Each was happy to. When the duke of Tintagel left, Uther rode part of the way with him and treated him with great respect. As they were leaving, he said just one thing to Igraine: he wanted her to know she was taking his heart with her. She acted as if she hadn't understood. So they said goodbye.

The king stayed at Carduel in high spirits and cheered the men of standing who sat at the table, but all the while his thoughts were with Igraine. So he waited until Pentecost, and then the barons and the ladies gathered.

Uther sends Ulfin to Igraine, and she threatens to tell her husband

[Paris–Ulrich 1:100] The king was overjoyed when Igraine came, and gave great gifts at that feast. When he sat down to eat, he had the duke and Igraine sit beside him. With his presents he did so much that Igraine could no longer keep from knowing he loved her.⁶⁴ So everyone enjoyed themselves, and the king treated his barons with great respect. When it was over, they all wanted to go home and said goodbye. Uther asked them to come back when he sent for them, and they all agreed. So the court broke up, and he spent the whole year in misery.

When it ended, he complained to two of his closest friends and told them how much he was suffering over Igraine. "Sire, what do you want us to do?" they said. "You'll never command anything we won't do, if we can."

"How could I be with Igraine more?" said the king.

They told him that if he went to her land, he'd be blamed and people would notice.

"Then what do you advise?" he asked.

"The best we can. Have a great court summoned at Carduel, and let everyone who comes know no one may leave for two weeks, so each must come ready to stay that long, and each of your barons is to bring his wife. That way you can have Igraine's love."

Uther had them summoned, and they all came to Carduel, and the king gave plenty of fine gifts there. He was very happy the day he held court, and spoke with an adviser of his named Ulfin.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:101] He asked Ulfin what he could do, since his love for Igraine was killing him: he couldn't bear not seeing her, the sight of her eased his pain, and unless he found some other help for his love, he'd die of it.

"You're a weakling," Ulfin answered, "to think wanting a woman will kill you. Who ever heard of a lady who was pursued and pressed, and given gifts, she and the people around her, who didn't give in? Yet you're losing heart."

"You're right," said the king, "and you know what such a thing needs. I ask you to help me any way you can. Take whatever you want of mine and give it to the men and women around her, and speak to Igraine the way you know I need."

"I'll do all I can," said Ulfin. So they ended their talk. Then Ulfin said to the king, "Be sure to stay on good terms with the duke, and I'll see about speaking to Igraine."

Uther said he'd be glad to, and so they began. All eight days he made a fuss of Igraine's husband and gave his companions plenty of fine presents, while Ulfin spoke to Igraine, telling her what he thought would please her most, and brought her beautiful jewelry again and again. She refused and wouldn't take any, until one day she took Ulfin aside and said, "Why do you want to give me these jewels and these fine gifts?"⁶⁵

"For your wisdom and your great beauty," he answered. "I can't give you anything, since all the king's wealth is yours, and his whole self is yours to do with as you please."

"How so?"

"Because you have his heart entirely; it's yours and obeys you."

"Whose do you mean?"

"Uther's."

She crossed herself. "God! How treacherous he is, pretending to love the duke and wanting to shame me! Ulfin," she said, "take care never to speak of it again. I want you to know that I'd tell my husband, and if he knew, you'd have to die for it. I'll keep it quiet only this once."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:102] "My lady," he answered, "it would be an honor to lose my life for my lord. No woman ever refused the king's love the way you do, since he loves you more than anything in the world. But maybe you're joking. For God's sake, have pity on him. You can be sure that great harm will still come to you from this, and neither you nor the duke can hold out against the king's will."

"I can, God willing," she said, in tears. "I'll defend myself very well: I'll never be anywhere he is."

Uther sends Igraine a gold cup to drink from for his sake

With that, Ulfin and Igraine said goodbye, and Ulfin went to Uther and told him all Igraine had said. Uther said that was how a good lady should answer, and told him, "Don't stop asking her because of it."

A day later the king sat at dinner with the duke beside him. He had a very beautiful gold cup in front of him, and Ulfin advised him to send it to Igraine. Uther raised his head and said to his guest, "Sir, tell Igraine to take this and drink from it for my sake, and I'll have it carried to her full of good wine by one of your men."

The duke, who saw no harm in it, answered, "Many thanks, Sire. She'll be glad to." He called one of his knights and said, "Bretel, take this cup to your lady from the king, and tell her to drink from it out of love for him."

Bretel took it, came to where Igraine was and said, "Uther sends you this, and my lord asks you to accept it and sip from it for his sake."

Igraine tells the duke, and they leave the court at night

When Igraine heard it, she was deeply ashamed and blushed. She drank from the cup and wanted to return it.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:103] "My lady," said Bretel, "the duke says you're to keep it." So she kept it, and Bretel went to Uther and thanked him on Igraine's behalf, though she'd never said a word to him.

Then Ulfin came by to see what Igraine was doing, and found her deep in thought. When the tables had been cleared, she called him over. "Ulfin," she said, "your lord has sent me a cup in great treachery. But believe me: I'll tell the duke the disgrace you two are trying to bring about."

"My lady," Ulfin answered, "you're not so foolish as not to know that once a woman tells her husband such a thing, he'll never trust her again. So you'll take good care not to."

"Damn anyone who keeps quiet about it!" said Igraine.

With that, Ulfin left her. The king had eaten and was in high spirits; he took the duke by the hand and said, "Let's go and see the ladies."

"I'd be glad to, Sire," he answered.

So the two of them visited Igraine's room, though Uther came only to see her, and she knew it. She held out that day until night, and then went back to her lodging. When the duke arrived, he found her crying there. He was alarmed, and took her in his arms like someone who loved her very much, and asked what was wrong.

"I won't hide it from you," she said, "because there's nothing I love as much as you." Then she told him everything the king had done, just as you've heard, and that he summoned all these ladies and held all these gatherings for her alone. "Now you've made me take his cup, and told me to drink from it for his sake. I can't hold out against him any more, or against Ulfin, an adviser of his. I know that now I've told you, it can't end without great harm. Please take me away; I don't want to stay in this town any longer."

When the duke had heard and understood what his wife told him, he was furious, since he loved her deeply. He called his knights together to talk.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:104] When they came, they could see their lord was angry. "Get ready to ride, very quietly, so no one knows," he said. "Don't ask me why until I tell you."

"As you command," they all said.

"Leave your baggage behind, and take only your arms and horses," said the duke. "It can follow us tomorrow, since I don't want the king, or anyone I can keep it from, to know I'm going."

It was done as he said. He'd had his mounts brought out, and he and Igraine rode off as secretly as they could. So he went home to his own country and took his wife with him. In the morning, once he'd gone, there was a great stir in the town among his people who'd stayed behind. The king learned of it and was deeply upset, above all that he'd taken Igraine. He summoned all his barons and told them of the shame and insult the duke had done him by going without the court's permission. They answered that they were all amazed, and that he'd acted foolishly; that was how those talked who didn't know the reason.

"Advise me how I can set this right," said the king.

"Sire, as you please," they said.

"If you agree," said Uther, "I'll order him to come and make amends for the wrong he's done me, and to come back the way he left, to answer for it." They were all for it.

The duke refuses Uther's order to come back to court

Two men of standing went with this message on Uther's behalf, and rode until they came to Tintagel. There they found the duke, and told him what the king commanded.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:105] When he heard he'd have to go back the way he'd come, he knew he'd have to bring Igraine, so he answered the messengers, "You can tell your lord I won't go back to his court, since he's done so much to me and mine that I shouldn't trust him or go there. I won't say any more than that, but I call God to witness, who knows he's wronged me too much for me to believe him." So the messengers went back to the king.

The duke's advisers stand by him, and Uther declares war

Once the envoys had left, the duke called together the men of standing he trusted most with his secrets, and told them why he'd come away from Carduel, and the treachery Uther was trying to bring about with his wife. When they heard it, they said it would never happen, God willing, and that any lord who'd plot such a thing against one of his own men deserved to suffer for it.

"I ask you," said the duke, "for God's sake and because you owe it to me, to help me defend my land if the king attacks me."

They answered that they'd be glad to, and would help him all they could. That was the advice his men gave him.

The messengers came back to Uther and told him the duke's answer. When he heard it, he said he was amazed at such foolishness from the duke, since he'd thought him a very wise man. Uther asked his barons to help him avenge the shame done to his court. They answered that they couldn't refuse him that, but they all urged him together, as the law required, to declare war on the duke forty days in advance.

The king did so, and told them to be at Tintagel when the time was up, ready for battle. They said they would. Then he sent envoys to give notice, and the answer came back that the duke would hold out if he could; once they'd gone, he prepared to fight.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:106] They reported to Uther that the lord of Tintagel would resist any attack.

Uther lays waste to the duke's land

At this news Uther was furious. He sent throughout his kingdom to summon his barons, gathered them all on the edge of the duke's land, and destroyed towns and castles. Then he learned that the man himself was in one fort and his wife in another, and asked his advisers which to attack first. They told him to go after her husband, since if he took him, he'd have the whole country. That was the plan, and Uther agreed. As they rode out, he said, "Ulfin, what can I do about Igraine?"

"Sire," Ulfin answered, "what you can't have, you have to do without. Put all your strength into taking him; once you have him, you'll see the other matter through."

Part 6: Merlin helps Uther win Igraine, and Arthur is born and secretly given away

Uther besieges the duke and longs for Igraine

The story says that the king besieged the duke in his castle. He was there a long time and couldn't take it, which upset him badly. He was also in agony over Igraine, until one day he sat in his tent and cried. When his men saw his tears, they went out and left him alone. Ulfin, who was outside, heard of it, came in and found him crying, and was very sorry, and asked him why.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:107] "Ulfin," said the king, "you must know why, since you know Igraine is killing me. I've lost all the rest a man needs, and I can't see any cure, so I know I'll die of it."

"Sire," Ulfin told him, "it's very weak of you to think a woman will be the end of you. But I'll tell you what to do, if you'll listen. If you sent for Merlin and kept asking until he came, he'd surely know how to advise you, and you could give him whatever he wanted."

"There's nothing anyone could do that I wouldn't," the king answered. "But I know Merlin knows how I'm suffering, and I'm afraid I've angered him because the empty seat at the Round Table was tried, since he hasn't come near me in a long while.⁶⁶ Or maybe it upsets him that I love my own man's wife. But truly, I can't help it: my heart won't let her go. I know he told me never to send for him."

"Sire," Ulfin answered, "I'm sure of one thing: if he's alive and well, and loves you as he used to, and knows what you're going through, he won't be slow to come to you."

So Ulfin comforted him, and told him that if he put on a cheerful face, enjoyed himself, called his men around him and stayed with them, he'd ease much of his pain. The king said he'd be glad to take that advice, but he could never forget his love for Igraine. So he took heart for a long while, and had the castle attacked again, but he couldn't take it.

Merlin comes to Ulfin and Uther in disguise and promises Uther Igraine

One day, as Ulfin was riding through the army's camp, he met a man he didn't know, who said,⁶⁷ "Sir Ulfin, I'd like to speak with you out there."

"So would I," said Ulfin.

So they went outside the lines, and Ulfin dismounted to talk to him and asked who he was.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:108] "I'm an old man," he said. "I was thought wise when I was young, but people say I ramble now. Still, I'll tell you in confidence that I was at Tintagel not long ago and got to know a respected man there, who told me your king loved the duke's wife, and that was why Uther was laying waste to his land, since he'd taken her away from Carduel. If you'll trust me and pay me well, I know someone who could get you a word with Igraine and help the king win her."

When Ulfin heard the old man talk like that, he wondered where he'd learned what he was saying, and begged him, if he knew such a man, to show him who could advise Uther.

"First I'll find out what reward the king would give," he answered.

"When I've spoken to him, will I find you here?" asked Ulfin.

"You'll find either me or my messenger." Then he said, "God be with you," and left.

Ulfin went back and told Uther all he'd found. The king laughed and said, "Ulfin, do you know this man?"

"Sire, he's an old man."

"When does he want to speak to you again?"

"In the morning, and he told me to be ready to say what reward you'd give him."

"Then I'll go with you," said Uther.

Then the king went where Ulfin led him, and once they were out of the camp, they found a man who couldn't walk. As Uther passed in front of him, he cried out, "King, give me something I'll thank you for, and may God give you what you love most in the world."

Uther laughed and said, "Ulfin, would you do anything for me?"

"Yes, Sire, anything I could."

"Then go," said the king, "to that lame man, and tell him I've given you to him as his servant, since I have nothing else with me that's mine to give."

Ulfin went and sat down beside him at once. When the man saw him, he said, "What do you want here?"

"The king wants me to be yours."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:109] At that, the lame man laughed. "Your lord has seen through me and knows me much better than you do. Now go back to him and tell him he'd ask too much of you to get what he wants, and tell him from me he was quick to see through me, and it'll go better for him."

Ulfin went back and told him. When Uther heard it, he rode back fast, and when they came to where they'd found him, there was no one there.⁶⁸ Then the king said to Ulfin, "Do you know who it was that spoke to you yesterday as an old man? The same one you saw lame today."⁶⁹

"Can anyone change shape like that?" asked Ulfin. "And who'd do it?"

"Believe me, it's Merlin, making fun of us. When he wants to talk to us, he'll tell us."

So they let it be. Then Merlin appeared at the king's tent in his own form and asked where Uther was. A messenger told Uther that Merlin was asking for him. Hearing it, he was very glad, and hurried to where Merlin was, calling to Ulfin, "Now you'll see what I told you: Merlin has come, and I knew it was useless to look for him."

"Sire," said Ulfin, "now we'll see whether you were ever willing or able to do as he wishes, since there's no one who can help you more with Igraine's love."

Merlin came to Ulfin and said, "If the king would promise me on holy relics that he'd give me a gift of my choosing, so long as it was honorable, I'd help him win Igraine's love. You must swear it too, before you go to meet him."

"I'm sorry it isn't already done," Ulfin answered.

The king agreed to what Ulfin had said, and Ulfin said, "But now think how he can find relief."⁷⁰

When Merlin heard that, he laughed and said, "Once the oaths are sworn, I'll tell you how it can be done."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:110] Then Uther had the relics brought, and there he and Ulfin swore as Merlin set out: that the king would give Merlin whatever he asked. With that, Merlin held them to it.

Then Uther said, "Now I ask you, Merlin, to help me with this, because no man in the world needs it more than I do."

"Sire," said Merlin, "you'll have to go to where Igraine is in a very strange way, since she's a very wise lady, and very faithful to God and to her husband. But now you'll see what power I have to do what you want. Sire, I'll give you the duke's looks so well that no one will know you. He has two knights as close to him and to Igraine as anyone can be: one is named Bretel and the other Jordain. I'll give Ulfin Jordain's face and take Bretel's myself, and I'll have the gate of the castle where Igraine is opened and bring you inside, and you'll sleep with her. We'll follow you in, Ulfin and I, in the shapes we'll take.

"But you'll have to leave very early once we're in, since in the morning we'll hear very strange news. Have your army and your barons ready to move out, and don't let a soul go near the castle until we're back. Be careful not to tell anyone where you mean to go, except us two who are here."

Ulfin and the king answered that they'd do it all just as he'd laid it out.

"Then get ready," said Merlin, "since I'll give you these likenesses on the way."

Uther hurried to do what Merlin told him as fast as he could, and when he'd done it, he said to Merlin, "Is everything prepared?"

"There's nothing left but to go."

So they set out, and rode until they reached the castle. Then Merlin said, "Sire, stay here, and Ulfin and I together will go ahead." So they went off, and he gave himself and Ulfin their new shapes, and once they'd changed, they returned to the king.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:111] Merlin brought him an herb and said, "Sire, rub your face and hands with this." Uther did, and once he had, he looked exactly like the duke. Then Merlin said to him, "Sire, do you remember ever seeing Jordain?"

"Yes, I know him very well."

Merlin went to Ulfin, gave him Jordain's appearance, and led him to the king.

"I wouldn't take him for anyone but the duke," said Ulfin.

Uther said he'd have taken Ulfin for Jordain. After they'd stood like that a little while, they looked at Merlin, and he seemed to them to be Bretel. So they talked together and waited for night. When it was a little after dark, they came to Tintagel's gate. Merlin called the porter, and he and the guards saw plainly Bretel, the duke and Jordain, and opened up and let them in.

Once they were inside, Bretel told everyone not to say their lord had come, but plenty went to tell the duchess he had. The three rode on until they came to the hall, where they dismounted. The king took Merlin aside, and Merlin told him to act as cheerful as the duke would. So they made their way to Igraine's room, where she was already lying down, and as quickly as they could they put their lord to bed.

Uther sleeps with Igraine disguised as the duke, and Arthur is conceived

So Igraine spent the night with Uther Pendragon, taking him for her husband, who she loved very much, and welcomed him warmly; and he fathered the good king who was called Arthur.⁷¹ At first light news reached the town that the duke was dead and his castle taken. It spread very quietly.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:112] When Bretel and Jordain, who were already up, heard it, they came to where their lord lay and said, "Sir, get up and hurry back to your men, since they think you're dead."

"It's no wonder they think so," he said. "I left without anyone knowing."

He said goodbye to Igraine and kissed her very tenderly as he went, in front of everyone there. Then they slipped out as fast as they could, unnoticed, and Uther was overjoyed.

"Sire," Merlin said, "I've kept my promises to you. Now make sure you keep yours to me."

"You've done me the greatest kindness anyone could, and the finest service one man could do another," he said, "and I'll keep my word, God willing."

"I'm asking for it now," Merlin told him, "and I want you to know you've gained an heir, and that you've given him to me, since you're not to keep him. You'll give me all the rights you have in him. Have the hour and the night you fathered him written down, so you'll know whether I've told you the truth."

"I've sworn it to you," said the king, "and I'll do just as you've said. I give him to you."

So they rode on until they came to a river, where Merlin had them wash, and they became as they'd been before. Then they hurried back to the army. As soon as they arrived, Uther's men gathered around him and told him the duke was dead. He asked how it had happened, and they told him that the day he'd left, the camp was very quiet and calm.

"The lord of Tintagel noticed you weren't here, and had his troops arm, and they came out on foot and on horseback and fell on our lines, doing great damage before your people were ready. Then the shouting went up, and we took up our weapons, charged them and drove them back to the gate, where the duke wheeled around and fought hard.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:113] "His horse was killed under him there and he was thrown, and he died among our foot soldiers, who didn't know him. We forced our way in with them, and once they'd lost him, they barely resisted."

The king said he was very sorry to hear it.

Uther wants to make amends, and Ulfin plans a meeting with the duke's family

So the duke of Tintagel was killed and his castle taken. Uther told his barons how sorry he was for what had happened to him, and asked their advice on setting it right, since he didn't want to be blamed: he hadn't hated the man enough to want him dead. "I'll make amends as best I can."

Then Ulfin, who was very close to the king, spoke up. "Sire, now it's done, it has to be put right as well as possible."

Then Ulfin took a large number of the barons aside and said, "How do you think our lord should compensate the lady and the duke's friends for his death? He's asking your advice, and you should advise him as well as you can."

"We'll be glad to," they answered, "and you tell us what's best to propose, since we know you're very much in his confidence."

"Do you think," said Ulfin, "that because I'm close to him, I'd tell him one thing behind his back and another to his face? Then you'd take me for a traitor. But if the advice on making peace with the lady's friends were left to me, I'd suggest something you wouldn't dare to think of."

"We ask you for it," they answered, "and we know your judgment is good, and we beg you to tell us what you think of what you've heard."

"I'll tell you my view," he said, "and if you know better, say so.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:114] "I'd suggest the king send for the lady's people and the duke's, wherever they are, and have them come to Tintagel, and be there himself, and bring the lady and her friends to him, and offer them peace for the duke's death on such terms that if they refused, they'd be blamed and the king held to be fair."

So they went before Uther and told him what they'd decided, but didn't say Ulfin had given them the idea, since he'd told them not to. "I fully agree," Uther answered, "and want it done just as you've laid it out."

Merlin claims the reward Uther promised him

So the king sent through the lands for the duke's relatives to come to Tintagel under a safe truce, since he wanted to make amends for everything they held against him. Then Merlin came to him privately and said, "Sire, do you know whose plan you're following?"

"No, only that the barons recommend it."

"Sire, they couldn't have thought of it among themselves, but Ulfin,⁷² who's very wise and loyal, worked out in his heart the best and most honorable peace there could be. He doesn't think anyone knows it, and no one does, except me and you, now that I've told you."

The king asked Merlin to tell him, and Merlin did. When he heard it, he was overjoyed and said, "What do you advise me to do about it?"

"I know of no better or more honest advice to give, and you'll have everything your heart wants so badly. I want to go away. But first I want to speak to you in front of Ulfin. When I've gone, you can ask him how he thought of this peace."

The king said he would. Ulfin was called, and when he'd come, Merlin said, "Sire, you've promised me the heir you've fathered, since it isn't right for you to keep him as your son.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:115] "You have it written down when he was conceived, the night and the hour. You know he came to you through me. So the sin would be yours if I didn't help him, since his mother might still be shamed by him, and a woman is helpless against what she can't hide. I want Ulfin to make his own record, with the date and the night of it. You won't see me again, nor will he, until the night the child is born.

"I ask you, as my lord, to believe Ulfin in all he tells you, since he loves you with all his heart and will never urge on you anything that isn't to your gain and honor. I won't speak to you again for six months, but between now and then I'll talk to Ulfin. What I send you by him, believe and do, if you want to stay on good terms with me and with him, and keep your good faith from now on."

Merlin warns Uther never to tell Igraine he slept with her

Ulfin wrote down the date the child was conceived, and Merlin took the king aside.⁷³ "Sire, make sure Igraine never learns it was you who slept with her. That way she'll have to do what you want: if you ask her about her pregnancy, she won't be able to say who the father is, and she'll be too ashamed to face you. That's the best way you can help me get the child."

So Merlin said goodbye to Uther and Ulfin. The king rode on until he came to Tintagel, and Merlin went to Blaise in Northumberland and told him these things, and Blaise wrote them down, and it's through him we know them. When Uther was at Tintagel, he called his men together and asked what he should do about this matter.

"Sire," they said, "we advise you to make peace with the duchess, and with her friends and the duke's."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:116] Uther told them to go and talk to her, and tell her she couldn't hold out against him, and that if she wanted a settlement, he'd make one entirely as she wished. So the barons went off to Tintagel. Uther himself stayed behind, took Ulfin aside and said, "What do you think of these terms?" He let Ulfin understand he knew who had worked it out.

"Sire, I did work it out," said Ulfin. "Now you know whether you like it."

"I like it well. I wish she were here already."

"Sire, don't be in a hurry to agree to it; I'll press for it myself."

So they ended their talk. The messengers came to Tintagel and found the duchess and her late husband's friends, and told her how the duke had died, through his own recklessness. They said Uther was very sorry, and would make peace with her and those close to her. Her side could see plainly they couldn't resist him, and the men of standing urged the lady and all her supporters to accept the king's offer.

"We'll talk it over," they answered, and went aside.

Then the lady's friends and the duke's said, "These envoys are right that we can't defend ourselves against the king. But let's hear what terms he means to make with you and with us. He can offer them in such a way that they mustn't be refused, and that's what we think."

"I never went against my husband's advice," said the lady, "and I won't go against yours."

So they came back from their talk, and one of the wisest said to the messengers, "The duchess says she wants to know what amends the king would make."⁷⁴

"We don't know the king's mind," they answered, "but he did say he'd set it right entirely as his barons decide."

"Then he'd do right by her, if that were so. You're such decent men that you'll advise him well, God willing, so that it's to his honor."

A day is set for the duke's family to meet the king

[Paris–Ulrich 1:117] So they fixed a day two weeks off when the lady and her friends would come before Uther to hear what he had to say. Once it was settled, the messengers went back and told him what they'd found with Igraine and her people. He said she'd be well escorted, she and everyone with her; he agreed to all of it willingly. So the king waited out those two weeks, and he and Ulfin together talked over many things.

When the day came, Uther sent for the duchess with safe conduct, as he'd been advised. When she reached the army, he called in all his barons and asked what her side meant to ask for toward this peace.

Igraine's advisers answered, "Sire, she hasn't come here to make demands, but to hear what you'll offer her for her husband's death."

When the king heard them, he thought them very wise. He took his own people aside and asked them, "What do you advise me in this matter?"

"Sire, no one but your own heart can know what peace you want with them or what you want to offer."

"I'll tell you," the king answered. "You're all my own people, and all such decent men that you won't give me bad advice, so I leave it entirely to you."

"Sire, that's a heavy responsibility," they said. "Then order Ulfin to sit with us, since we'd do nothing without him."

Both sides leave the peace to the barons, and Ulfin proposes the marriage

[Paris–Ulrich 1:118] When the king heard they wanted Ulfin to advise them, he pretended to be pleased, and said to Ulfin,⁷⁵ "I raised you and made you a rich man. I know you're wise. Go and help them, by my order."

"I will, since you wish it," said Ulfin. "But I want you to know this: no lord can be loved too much by those who serve him, and if they're decent men, he can't humble himself too much toward them to win their hearts."

So Ulfin joined the barons. When they'd all gone aside, they asked him, "Ulfin, what do you advise in this matter?"

"You've heard that the king puts himself in your hands. Now let's go to the lady and her friends and find out whether they'll do the same." They all said he'd spoken well.

So they went to speak to Igraine and her advisers. Once they were with her, they said the king was leaving it all to them and would keep whatever peace they made, and they'd come to ask whether her side would do the same.

"That needs thinking over," they answered. They talked it over and said Uther couldn't offer more than to put himself in his barons' hands. So the lady, her people and the duke's relatives agreed to do the same, and gave their word on it.

Then they met to decide, each giving his view, and when all had spoken, they turned to Ulfin.

"I'll tell you all what I think," said Ulfin. "You know the duke died because of Uther, and had done nothing to deserve death. Isn't that true? His wife is left burdened with children,⁷⁶ and you know her land has been laid waste; and she's the best lady in the world, the most beautiful and the wisest.

"You know the duke's relatives have lost much by his death, so it's only right that Uther give them back part of their losses, to win their love. Besides, you know the king has no wife.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:119] "So I say he can't repair her loss or make amends to her unless he marries her, and I think he should, both to set things right and to win our love and the love of everyone in the kingdom. Once he's done and granted that, let him marry the duke's daughter to King Lot of Orkney, who's here, and do enough for the rest that they hold him as a friend, their lord and a loyal king."

Both sides accept, Uther marries Igraine, and Lot marries her daughter

"Now you've heard my advice," said Ulfin; "now you can say something else, if you don't agree."⁷⁷

"You've said the best that anyone could think of," they all answered. "If you dare put it to Uther, and we see he's willing, we'll all go along with it."

"You haven't said enough," Ulfin told them. "But if you're fully in favor, I'll take it to him. Here's Lot, king of Orkney; much of the peace depends on him, so let him say what he thinks."

"Whatever you've laid on me," said Lot, "I won't let the settlement fail because of it."

When the others heard that, they were all of one mind. Then they came to where the king was, and the lady and all her advisers were sent for. When they'd all come, Ulfin told them the peace as they'd worked it out, and asked the barons, "Do you approve this agreement?"

"Yes," they all answered.

Ulfin turned to the king and said, "Sire, what do you say? Will you accept what these men of standing have agreed?"

"I'm willing, if the lady and her friends consent, and King Lot will take the duke's daughter for my sake."

"Sire," King Lot answered, "you'll never ask me anything good that I won't do out of love for you and for the peace."

Then before everyone Ulfin asked the one who spoke for the lady, "Do you approve these terms?"

[Paris–Ulrich 1:120] He replied like the wise man he was. He looked at Igraine and her advisers, who were so downcast and moved that tears welled up from their hearts to their eyes, and some of them were sobbing from pity and from joy. He himself was crying, and said, "Never did a lord make such good amends to his men." He asked Igraine and the duke's family, "Do you accept this peace?"

She said nothing. Her relatives and the duke's all spoke up: "No one could refuse it, and we welcome it, since we hold the king to be a decent man, and so loyal that we'll trust him in everything else."

So the peace was sworn on both sides, and Uther Pendragon took Igraine as his wife and gave her daughter to King Lot of Orkney.⁷⁸ The wedding was held on the thirteenth day after the two weeks that followed the talks; the duke had been killed twenty-one days before they met, so you can count two full months from the night Uther had slept with her in her room.⁷⁹

From Lot's bride came Mordred, Sir Gawain, Agravain, Guerrehès and Gahariès.⁸⁰ King Neutres of Sorhaut married Morgans, another daughter, born out of wedlock. The king sent a third, Morgue, to a convent on the advice of all her friends together, to learn to read and write, and she studied so well that she mastered the seven arts. She knew astonishing things about astronomy and practiced it constantly, and was deeply skilled in medicine, which is why Morgue was called Morgan le Fay. The king provided for all the other children, and he loved the duke's relatives very much.

Uther asks Igraine whose child she's carrying

So Uther had Igraine, and kept her until her pregnancy showed. One night, lying beside her, he put his hand on her belly and asked whose child she was carrying.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:121] It couldn't be his from their marriage on, since he'd written down every night he'd spent with her; nor could it be the duke's, who hadn't slept with her for a long while before he died. When she heard the question, Igraine was ashamed and began to cry. "Sire," she said, "I can't make you believe a lie about what you know. I'll tell you nothing but the truth; only, for God's sake, have mercy on me, because what I have to say is strange and true, if you promise you won't leave me."

Uther gave his word he'd never leave her, whatever she said.

Igraine tells her story, and Uther asks her to give up the child

Reassured, the queen was very glad. "Sire, I'll tell you something astonishing," she said, and told him how a man who looked like the duke had slept with her in her room.⁸¹

"He brought two of the men my husband loved best in the world, and came to me in my bedroom with all my household watching, and took me to bed, and I was sure it was him.⁸² That man fathered the baby I'm carrying, and I know it was conceived the night my lord died, since he was still lying beside me when the news came. Then he let me think he was my husband, and that his men didn't know what had become of him, and so he left."⁸³

When she'd finished, Uther said, "My dear, make sure no man or woman you can hide it from ever learns of it, since you'd be shamed if it were known. You should know that by rights the child you'll bear is neither mine nor yours, and we won't keep it. Instead, as soon as it's born, I ask you to give it to whoever I name, so we never hear of it again."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:122] "Sire, you can do as you like with me and with everything that's mine," she answered.

Then Uther went to Ulfin and told him what he and Igraine had said. When Ulfin heard it, he said, "Sire, now you can see she's wise and loyal, since she didn't dare lie to you, even about taking another man for her husband. You've served Merlin well, because he couldn't have the child any other way."

Merlin names a respected man in the city to raise the child

So things stood until the sixth month, when Merlin had promised to come back. He came and spoke with Ulfin in private, asking for news of what he wanted to know, and Ulfin told him the truth of all he knew. When they'd talked, Uther sent Ulfin for Merlin. Once the three of them were together, the king told Merlin how he'd dealt with Igraine, and how they'd arranged the peace that made her his wife.

"Sire," Merlin answered, "Ulfin is free of the sin, since he brought about the love between you and the queen.⁸⁴ But I'm not yet clear of helping fool her with the trick I played, or of the child she carries without knowing whose it is."

"You're so wise you'll find a way to settle it," the king said.

"Sire, you'll have to help me," said Merlin. Uther said he'd help him every way he could, and promised to see that Merlin got the baby.

"There's a man in this city who's the most respected in the land," Merlin said, "and his wife is the most decent woman there is, the most well-mannered, and graced with every fine quality. She's just had a son, and her husband isn't very rich. I want you to send for him and give him enough of your own so that the couple will swear on relics to do what I ask.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:123] "They're to nurse a boy who'll be brought to them, on her own milk, and have another woman feed theirs, and raise the newcomer as their son."

"Merlin, it'll be as you say; I agree," Uther said. Then the two said goodbye, and Merlin went to Blaise, his master.

Ector agrees to raise the king's child as his own

Uther sent for the respected man, and when he came, gave him a warm welcome. The man was astonished that the king made such a fuss of him.

"Dear friend," Uther said, "I must confide in you about a strange thing that's happened to me. You're my sworn man, so I ask you, as you're bound to me, to help me with something I'll tell you, and to keep it secret as best you can."

"Sire, you could never order me to do anything I wouldn't do if I could," he answered, "and if I can't, I'll still keep quiet about it."

"In my sleep," the king said, "I dreamed a holy man appeared and told me you were the most respected and loyal man in my kingdom, and that you'd just had a son; and he told me to ask you to wean the boy and give him to another woman,⁸⁵ and to have your wife, out of love for me and for you, nurse a baby who'll be brought to her."

"Sire, that's a great thing you're asking," the man answered. "Please tell me when this child will arrive."

"I swear to God I don't know," said Uther.

The man said he'd do as Uther wished. Then the king gave him such a fine gift that he was stunned, and with that they said goodbye.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:124] The man went home and told his wife what Uther had said. It seemed very strange to her when she heard it. "Can I really leave my own son to nurse someone else's?" she said.

"There's nothing we shouldn't do for our lord," he said. "He's done so much for us, and promises so much, that we must do as he pleases. I want you to agree to it, fully."

"I'm yours, and so is the boy, so do as you like with us both," she said. "I consent, since I mustn't go against you in anything."

The man was very glad to have her word,⁸⁶ and told her to find a wet nurse for their own before the other baby arrived. So he weaned the boy. When the queen's time was near, the day before she gave birth, Merlin came to court in secret and spoke to Ulfin.

"Ulfin, I'm very pleased with the king, who talked so wisely to Ector about what I'd asked. Now tell him to go to Igraine and tell her she'll have her child tomorrow night, after midnight, and to order her to have it handed to the man who'll be waiting outside the hall."

When Ulfin had heard, he said, "Merlin, won't you speak to the king, then?"

"Not this time," said Merlin.

So Ulfin passed on Merlin's message to Uther.

Igraine gives birth, and Merlin carries the child to Ector

Uther was overjoyed to hear it. "Ulfin," he said, "won't he talk to me before he goes?"

"No," said Ulfin, "but do what he tells you."

Then the king went to the queen. "My lady, I'll tell you something, if you'll trust me and do as I say."

"Sire, I'll believe you in anything you like, and do whatever you tell me," said Igraine.

"Tomorrow night after midnight, with God's help, you'll have your baby," Uther said.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:125] "As soon as it's born, I ask and order you to have one of your trusted women give it to the first man she finds as she leaves the hall. Tell everyone at the birth never to say you've had a child, because it would be a great shame to me and to you: plenty of people would say it wasn't mine, and it doesn't seem it could be."

"Sire, what I told you before is true," she answered, "and I'll do as you command; but I'm amazed that you know when I'll give birth."

"Please just do as I ask," said the king.

"Sire, I will, God willing," she said.

With that Uther left her. By God's will, the next evening her pains began, and she was in labor until the hour he'd named, and gave birth after midnight, before day. As soon as the baby came, she called a woman she trusted completely. "My dear, take this child to the door of the hall, and if you find any man who asks for it, give it to him. Notice what kind of man he is."

She did as the queen ordered. She wrapped him in the richest cloths she had and carried him to the hall door. When she got there, she saw a man who looked extremely frail.

"Sir, what are you waiting for here?" she said.

"For what you're bringing me," he answered.

"Who are you, and what should I tell my lady about who I've handed her baby to?"

"What you're asking is none of your business; do as you're told."

She held out the bundle, he took it, and from that moment she never knew what became of him. She went back to Igraine and said, "My lady, I've given the child to an old man; I don't know anything else about him." The queen cried, deeply upset. The old man hurried off to Ector as fast as he could.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:126] He found him in the morning on his way to mass, and Merlin called to him:⁸⁷ "Ector, I want to talk to you."

Ector looked at him, and thought him a very holy man. "Sir, what can I do for you?"

"Ector, I've brought you a baby, and I ask you to have him raised more richly than your own. I promise you: if you do, great good will come of it to you and your heirs, more than you'd believe if someone told you."

"Sir, is this the child the king asked me so earnestly to raise?"

"Yes, it is. Uther and all the men of standing ought to ask it of you, and you should know that my asking counts for as much as a very rich man's."

Ector took him in his arms and saw how handsome he was, and wanted to know whether he'd been baptized. The old man said no: "But have it done now."

"Of course," said Ector. "What's his name to be?"

"Arthur," the old man said. "I'm going, since I've nothing more to do here. You'll see by this that great good is to come to you: you won't have had him long before you won't know which you love more,⁸⁸ your own son or this one."

"Sir, what should I tell the king who gave him to me, and who are you?"

"You'll learn no more this time."

Part 7: Uther dies, and the sword in the stone makes Arthur king

Ector raises Arthur, and the Saxons beat Uther's army while he's sick

The story says that Merlin left Ector, and Ector had the child baptized at once, and named Arthur. Then he brought him to his wife. "My lady, here's the baby I asked you so much about."

She said he was very welcome, held him, and wanted to know whether he'd been christened. Her husband said he had, and was called Arthur. Then she nursed and raised him, and sent her own son to be fed by another woman.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:127] Uther ruled the land for a long time after that. Then he fell seriously ill with gout, in his hands and feet. The Saxons rebelled in many places in his kingdom, and did him so much harm that he complained of it to his barons, who advised him to take revenge if he could. The king asked them, for God's sake and for his, to go, as decent men should for their lord. They all answered that they'd go willingly, and went, and found Uther's enemies, and saw that they'd won over a large part of the country. They came against them, and the king's troops fought like soldiers with no leader, and were beaten, and the king lost many of his men there.

The Saxons grow stronger, and Merlin goes to the sick Uther

When word reached Uther that his army had been defeated, he was furious. Then the survivors of the battle came back, complaining bitterly.⁸⁹ Having won, the Saxons grew much stronger and more numerous. Merlin, who knew all this, went to Uther, who was very weak from his illness and had lived out much of his time.

Merlin tells Uther to be carried into battle on a stretcher

When Uther heard Merlin was coming, he was very glad, and thought he'd find help yet. When Merlin came before Uther Pendragon, the king gave him a warm welcome.

"Sire, you're very frightened," said Merlin.

"Merlin, I can't help it. You know my own men, the very people I thought would help me and had nothing to fear from, have destroyed my kingdom, and killed my soldiers and routed them in battle."

"Sire, now you can see that no one's worth anything in a fight without a lord."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:128] "Merlin, for God's sake advise me what to do."

"Sire, I'll tell you a few words, in private, and I want you to believe them. Have your armies and your people summoned, and when they're all gathered, have yourself put on a stretcher and go and fight the Saxons,⁹⁰ and you can be sure you'll defeat them.⁹¹ When you have, you'll see that a land without a lord is worth nothing. When that's done, give away your treasure, since I can see you can't live much longer.

"I want you to know that those who have great wealth and die with it all, unable to give it away or use it to do good for their souls, don't own it: it belongs to those who keep them from doing good with it, and those are the devils. A rich man would be better off never having had any of the riches of this earthly life. Honors only harm the soul unless they're shared out as they should be.

"You know ahead of time that you must die, so you should give yours away so that you don't lose the joy of the other world, since what this life offers is worth nothing beside what waits above. I'll tell you why in a single word: you know there's no delight on earth so great that it doesn't fail, while the happiness bought in the next life can't die or end. Whatever we have in this mortal life our Lord lets us have to test whether we'll win the other.⁹² So whoever wants to be wise must buy eternal life with what God has given them here.

"You've had so much of everything good: what good have you done for our Lord? I've loved you deeply and love you still, and no one should love you more than you love yourself.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:129] "I tell you plainly you won't outlive the victory you'll win in this fight and this battle. Believe me, all the honors a man has in this life can't be worth as much to him as dying well. If you'd done all the good there is and then fell at the last, you'd risk losing everything; and if your life had been wicked and you died well, you'd be forgiven. I want you to know that you'll take nothing from this world but your charity and your good works.

"Now I've shown you how things stand with you. You know your wife Igraine is dead and there can be no other, so your land will be left without an heir after you, which is why you must work hard to do good. I'm going, since I've nothing more to do with you. But Ulfin must trust me when he's needed."

"That's grim news," the king said to Merlin, "though you've told me too that I'll beat my enemies. How can I repay our Lord?"

"Only by dying well. I'll leave you now; think of your soul after the battle, please, and of what I've told you."

Uther wanted to know about his son, the one Merlin had carried off. "That's not for you to ask," said Merlin, "but I'll tell you this much: the child is good and handsome and well cared for."

"Merlin, will I ever see you again?"

"Yes, once, and no more."

Uther fights the Saxons from his stretcher

So the king and Merlin said goodbye. Uther summoned his people and said he'd march against the Saxons. He went, carried on a stretcher, and found them. They came against him and fought, and his men, encouraged by their lord, routed them and killed great numbers. So the king won and destroyed his enemies, and the land was left entirely at peace.

Uther gives away his treasure, and Merlin speaks with him as he dies

[Paris–Ulrich 1:130] Uther did as you've heard. Then he remembered what Merlin had told him, and went back to Logres. When he got there, he sent for all his great treasure and wealth. He had it made known to all kinds of good people where the poorest of his kingdom were, and gave them rich gifts and generous charity,⁹³ and shared out the rest on the advice and at the wish of the Church's clergy. So Uther let go of what was his: there was nothing of value he could remember that he didn't hand over for the love of God and on Merlin's word.

He humbled himself before God and his priests so gently that they felt sorry for him. His people looked after him for a long time, until his sickness took a turn for the worse. They gathered at Logres, deeply upset that he was dying; they could see he wouldn't live. He grew so weak that he lost his speech, and couldn't say a word for three days.

Then Merlin, who knew everything, came to the city. When he arrived, the men of standing had him brought to them. "Merlin, the king you loved so much is dead."

"You're wrong: no one with so good a death ever really dies, and he's not gone yet."

They said he was, since he'd been silent three days and never would speak again.

"He will, God willing. Come with me, and I'll make him talk to you."

They went to where the king lay, and had all the windows opened. Uther looked at Merlin and turned toward him as well as he could, and seemed to know him. Merlin called to the barons there, and to the Church's bishops.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:131] "Whoever wants to hear what the king will say, come close."

"Merlin, how do you think you'll make him speak?" they asked.

Then Merlin went around to the other side, by Uther's head, and whispered in his ear: "King, this is a very good death, if your conscience is as it seems. I tell you that your son Arthur will rule your kingdom after you, by the power of Jesus Christ, and he'll be the one who completes the Round Table you founded."

When Uther heard this astonishing news, he drew close and said, "Merlin, ask Arthur for God's sake to pray to Jesus Christ for me."⁹⁴

Then Merlin addressed everyone in the room: "Now you've witnessed what you didn't think possible; and believe me, this is the last word he'll ever say."

Then Merlin rose, and all the others, who were amazed that the king had spoken; and none of them could ever know what he'd said to Merlin.

Uther is buried, and the barons ask Merlin for a king

So King Uther Pendragon died that night, and the land was left without an heir.⁹⁵ The barons, the clerks and the archbishops gave him the finest service and the greatest honor they could. The day after the burial, the lords and all the Church's bishops gathered to decide how the people would be governed, and couldn't agree on anyone. Then they said together they'd ask Merlin, since he was very wise, and no one had ever known him to give bad advice. So they all agreed on Merlin, and sent for him. When he came, they said, "Merlin, we know your wisdom, and how much you've loved the kings of this realm.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:132] "You can see the land's been left without an heir, and a country with no lord is worth little. So we beg you, for God's sake, to help us choose a man who can govern the kingdom for the good of the Church and the salvation of the people."

"I'm not God, to advise on such a matter or to name anyone to rule," Merlin told them. "But if you'll follow my advice, I'll give it to you; and don't take it unless it's good."

"May God help us agree on what's good and right for the land," they answered.

"I've loved this kingdom deeply, and all its people. If I told you to make one of you king, I'd easily be believed, and it would be right. But a fine chance has come to you, if you'll see it. Uther died in the two weeks after Saint Martin's Day, and from then it's only a little while to Christmas. If you'll trust me, I'll guide you well and honestly, as the Church and the world would have it."

"Merlin, say what you like, and we'll believe whatever you say," they all answered as one.

"We know the birthday of the King of all kings is near, the one who rules all that is and upholds all good. If you have the people agree, since everyone needs a good leader, I promise you this: on that feast called Christmas, when he chose to be born a man, the true lord of all things,⁹⁶ he in his goodness and humility will choose us a ruler that day who'll do what he wants.⁹⁷ Just as surely he'll give us a clear sign that day, as he pleases, so the people will know the man is king by that choice alone, with no one else having a say.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:133] "I promise you, if you have the common people do this, you'll see what it means."

"Merlin, that's the best advice anyone could give," they all said as one.

Then they asked each other, "Do you accept this plan?"

"There's no one who shouldn't," came the answer from all.

Then the barons together called on the bishops and archbishops to have the common people pray and give to the poor. They were to order it in every church, each priest making it known, and all were to promise one another that they, and we with them, would keep the Church's teaching and the sign God would show us.⁹⁸ So all of them stood by Merlin's plan. Then Merlin said goodbye to them, and they begged him to come back at Christmas to see whether what he'd taught them would come true.

"I won't be there, and you won't see me before the election," said Merlin. With that he went to Blaise and told him the things he knew were to come. The great lords and the ministers of the Church had this proclaimed everywhere, and that all the men of standing of the kingdom should come to Logres at Christmas to see Jesus Christ make his choice.

Ector brings Arthur and Kay to Logres for Christmas

So it was known and understood all over, and they waited for Christmas. Ector had raised the boy until he was a grown squire, nursed on no milk but Ector's wife's, while their own child had been fed by a peasant woman.⁹⁹ Ector hardly knew which of the two he loved more; he'd never called Arthur anything but "my son," and the boy believed it. On All Saints' Day before that Christmas, Ector made Kay a knight, and at Christmas he came to Logres like the others,¹⁰⁰ bringing both of them.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:134] On Christmas Eve the clerks, the priests and all the men of standing of the kingdom gathered, having done what Merlin had told them. Once everyone was there, they kept themselves devout and waited for the feast as was right. They heard midnight mass and prayed to our Lord to send them a man fit to uphold Christendom. When it was over, some went away and some stayed in the church to wait for the morning service.

Many said that anyone who believed our Lord would trouble himself to choose a king was a great fool. As they were talking, the bell rang, and they all went in. When the congregation had assembled, one of the holiest men of the land was ready to sing the mass. Before he began, he spoke to the people: "You should be gathered here for a good purpose, and for three things, which I'll tell you: for the saving of your souls, for the honor of your lives, and to see the miracle our Lord will work today, if he's willing, to give us a king to uphold the Church and defend the people and the whole kingdom.

The archbishop prays for a sign, and a sword appears in a stone

"We're all at odds over choosing one of us, and we aren't wise enough to know how to pick the best. Since we don't know, let's pray to Jesus Christ to show us a sign today of the king he wants, as truly as he was born on this day. Each of you, ask it as well as you can."

They did as he'd told them, and he sang mass up to the gospel. Some had already made their offerings and gone out together in front of the church, where there was a wide open space.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:135] When they'd come out, day was breaking, and by the door and its porch they saw a great stone,¹⁰¹ square on all four sides.¹⁰² They couldn't tell what it was made of, and said it was marble. On top, in the middle, stood an iron anvil, a good half a foot high, with a sword driven up to the hilt through the metal.¹⁰³

Those who'd come out first were amazed at the sight, and went back inside to tell the people. When the archbishop of Logres, who was singing the mass, heard of it, he took the holy water and all the relics and led the way, the others following. They studied the stone and the blade in its middle, and sprinkled it. Then he looked closer and saw gold letters on the pommel, and read them:¹⁰⁴ whoever drew this sword out would be king of the land by the election of Jesus Christ.

The stone is guarded, and the barons argue over who'll try first

When he'd taken in the words, the archbishop told the people. Then the stone was given into the keeping of nine men of standing and five clerks. Everyone said God had shown them a great sign, and they went back to say mass and give thanks to our Lord, singing Te Deum laudamus.

When the holy man had come to the altar, he turned to the congregation and said, "Now you can know that some of us are good, since our Lord has done this for us. He'll make its meaning clear in his own time." Then he sang the mass. When it was over, they all gathered at the stone. They asked one another who'd try first, and all agreed that no one would make the attempt except as the ministers of the Church advised.¹⁰⁵

[Paris–Ulrich 1:136] This set off a fierce quarrel, because the highest and most powerful, who had the most strength,¹⁰⁶ wanted their turn before anyone else. Plenty was said that shouldn't be repeated. The archbishop spoke loud enough for most of them to hear: "You aren't as wise or good as I'd like. I want you to know that our Lord sees and knows, and he's chosen one, though we don't know which. This much I can tell you: wealth, birth and pride count for nothing here, only our Lord's will. I trust him so far that if the one who's to draw this sword weren't born yet, it would never come out until he drew it."

The barons accept the archbishop's order and try the sword

All the great and wealthy men agreed. They stepped aside and said they'd accept what the archbishop decided and act entirely on his advice. When he heard it, he was so glad he cried for joy, and said, "This humility comes to you from God. I promise you I'll do everything by his will, so that no one will ever blame me."

This meeting was held before high mass. The archbishop told them, "Our Lord has worked a great miracle for us here, and given us a very fine sign. When he set up justice on earth,¹⁰⁷ he put it in a sword, and at the founding of the four orders it was handed to the knights, to defend the Church and uphold the law. Now our Lord makes this choice for us by the blade, and you can be sure he's seen and settled who he means to give that power to. So the great men shouldn't rush, since it can't and won't be drawn out by wealth or pride.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:137] "Nor should the poor be angry if the rich try ahead of them, because it's right and fair that the highest and noblest go first."

So they all agreed to what the archbishop said: he'd decide who went to the stone, and they'd obey the one God gave the grace to and take him as their lord. Then they returned, and he picked two hundred and fifty of the most respected men, as far as he knew, and had them take hold of it. When they had, he told the rest to go.

One after another, everyone who cared to made the attempt, but there wasn't one who could draw it out or even move it. Then the stone was given into the keeping of nine men of standing. The people were told that anyone who wanted to could try,¹⁰⁸ and the guards would watch closely to see who drew the sword; but no one who came could ever get it out.¹⁰⁹

Arthur draws the sword for Kay on New Year's Day

So it stayed there the whole week until New Year's Day. The barons were all at high mass, and the archbishop preached to them and taught them all the good he could. Afterward he said, "I told you that even those who live farthest away had time to come. Now you'll see which of you draws it, since God has chosen him." They all said they wouldn't leave until they saw who God gave the gift to.

So mass was sung, and the barons went to their lodgings. After the meal the knights, as usual, rode out of town to joust in the fields, and most of the people followed to watch, the nine guards too. When the riders had been at it a good while, they handed their shields to their squires, who took their turn.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:138] They kept on until a brawl broke out among them, and the whole town came running. Ector had made his older son a knight on All Saints' Day. When the fight began, Kay called his brother: "Go to where we're staying and fetch my sword." Arthur was eager and quick, and said, "Happy to, sir." He went to the lodging and looked for his brother's blade or any other, but couldn't find one, and was so upset he began to cry.¹¹⁰

Then he came back past the church where the stone stood and saw the sword, which he'd never tried to draw. He thought that if he could get it, he'd take it to Kay; so he rode up without getting down, took it by the hilt, carried it off and hid it under the tail of his coat.

Kay, waiting outside town, saw him coming, went to meet him and asked for his sword. Arthur said he couldn't find it but had brought another, and pulled it out from hiding. When Kay wanted to know where he'd got it, Arthur told him. Kay took it, tucked it under his own clothes, and went looking for their father until he found him. "Sir," he said, "I'll be king. Here it is, the sword from the stone."

When Ector saw it, he was astonished, and asked how he'd come by it. Kay said he'd drawn it.

Ector sees through Kay's lie, and Arthur draws the sword again

When Ector heard his son say this, he didn't believe him, and told him he knew it was false. The two of them went to the church, Arthur following. When Ector saw the stone with the sword gone, he said, "Kay, don't lie to me. How did you get this out? I'll know if you're not honest, and I'll never love you again."

Kay answered, ashamed, "Sir, here's the truth. My brother Arthur brought it to me, and I don't know how he got it."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:139] When Ector heard that, he said, "Give it to me." Then he looked behind him, saw Arthur, and said, "Come here, my son. Take the sword and put it back where you found it." Arthur took it and set it back in the anvil, and it held as fast as before. Ector told Kay to hand it to him; Kay pulled at it but couldn't. Then Ector went into the church and called his two boys. He took Arthur in his arms and said, "My dear son, if I could bring it about that you were king, what would I gain by it?"

Arthur answered, "Sir, whatever good comes to me, that or any other, you'll be its lord, as my father."¹¹¹

Ector said, "I raised you as my own, but truly I don't know who your parents are."

Arthur is heartbroken, and Ector asks him to make Kay his steward

When Arthur heard Ector disown him, he cried, heartbroken. "Dear God," he said, "how can any good come to me, now I've lost my father?"

Ector said, "My lord, whoever fathered you, if our Lord wants you to have this grace and I help you get it, what will I have from it?"

Arthur said, "Sir, whatever you like."

Then Ector told him all he'd done for him: how he'd brought him up, weaned his own son and had him nursed by a stranger.¹¹² "So you owe me and my boy a reward, since no man ever raised a child more tenderly than I've cared for you. Now I ask you, if you have this grace and I help you to it, to repay it to Kay."

Arthur said, "Sir, please don't disown me, because I wouldn't know where to go. If you can win it for me and God wants me to have it, I'll have nothing that isn't yours to command."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:140] Ector said, "My son, I won't ask you for your kingdom now, but when you're king I do want you to make your brother steward of your land, so that whatever wrong he does he never loses the post, and no one else holds it while he lives. If he's cruel, false and coarse, you must put up with it, since every bad trait he has he took from the woman who nursed him: he's turned out so unlike his blood because his mother fed you instead. So you should bear with him all the more. Please give him what I ask."

Arthur said, "Sir, I'm glad to." Then Ector led him to the altar, and Arthur swore to keep it faithfully. When he'd sworn, they came out in front of the church. By then the brawl had died down, and the barons went back in for the evening service.

Then Ector called his friends and his family and said to the archbishop, "Sir, here's a child of mine who isn't a knight yet, and he's begging me to let him try this sword. Please call some of these barons." He did. They all gathered at the stone, and when they were there, Ector told Arthur to take the blade and hand it over. When the archbishop held it, he took Arthur in his arms and began to sing aloud, Te Deum laudamus.

Arthur draws the sword before the barons, who won't accept a boy king

So Arthur was carried into the church. The barons who'd seen it were deeply troubled, and said it couldn't be that a boy should be their lord. The archbishop grew angry: "Our Lord knows better than you who each of us is."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:141] Ector, his family and many others took Arthur's side, but the common people and the barons of the land were against him. Then the holy man said a bold thing: "If everyone in the world wanted to go against this choice and our Lord alone were for it, it would still happen. I'll show you how much I trust in God. Arthur, my boy, go and put the sword back where you took it from." In front of them all, Arthur carried it back and set it in again, and the archbishop said, "There's never been a finer choice made or seen. Now, my rich lords, see if you can draw it."

They did, but not one of them could get it out. He told them, "Anyone who goes against God's will is a great fool."

They said, "Sir, we're not defying him, but it's very strange to us that a boy should be our lord."

The archbishop told them, "The one who chose him knows him better than you do."

The barons ask for the sword to stay in the stone until Candlemas

Then the barons begged him to leave the sword in the stone until Candlemas, when more would try who hadn't yet, and he agreed. So it stayed there until Candlemas, when all the people gathered and whoever wanted to tried. When they all had, the archbishop said, "It's only right that we do the will of Jesus Christ.

Arthur draws the sword at Candlemas, and the barons ask to wait until Easter

"Go on, Arthur, my son: if it's our Lord's will that you rule this people, give me that sword." Arthur stepped forward and handed it to him. When he and the people saw it, they cried for joy and pity, and asked, "Is anyone still against this choice?"

[Paris–Ulrich 1:142] The rich men answered, "Sir, we ask you again to leave it until Easter. If no one comes by then who can draw it, we'll obey this one as we've agreed. If you want to do it some other way, each of us will look out for himself."

The archbishop said, "Will you all accept him willingly if I do?"

They all said, "Yes, and from then on let him do as he likes with the land and the kingdom."

He said, "Arthur, my boy, put the sword back in the stone. God willing, you'll never miss the good he's promised you." Arthur went forward and set it back in its place. When it was in, the archbishop had it covered, and it held as it always had.

Then, having taken the boy into his care, he said, "Arthur, you can be sure that you're king and lord of this people. See that you're a decent man. From now on, choose who you want to know your private words and plans, and give out the honors and the offices of your household just as if the crown were already yours, because it'll be, God willing."

Arthur answered, "Sir, whatever good God means to give me, I put in the care of the Church and under your guidance. Choose for yourself the people who'd serve me well in doing our Lord's will and for the good of Christendom. Please call my lord to you." So the archbishop called Ector and told him the fine things Arthur had said.

Kay becomes steward, and at Easter the barons make Arthur wait for Pentecost

Then they chose him the advisers they wanted, and on the advice of his guardian and all his barons he made Kay steward of his land. Everything else he left until Easter. When it came, they all gathered at Logres, and on Easter Eve, once everyone was there, the archbishop summoned them to his palace to confer.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:143] When they'd all come, he told them what he saw of the will of Jesus Christ, who by this choice wanted the boy to have the kingdom, and then the good qualities he'd seen in him since they'd met.

The barons said, "Sir, we don't want to go against our Lord's will, but it amazes us that a man of such low birth should be our lord."

The archbishop said, "You're not good Christians if you oppose it."

They said, "Sir, we won't, but do it partly our way. You've found this child wise and knowing in many things; we've never met him or tried him, and know little about him. So we ask you, before he's crowned, to give us time to see what kind of man he'll be. Once we see how he behaves, some of us will feel they know him well."

He said, "Do you want his coronation put off?"¹¹³

They said, "Sir, we do: wait until tomorrow. If we find him fit to be king,¹¹⁴ delay the crowning until Pentecost. That's what we ask of you."

The archbishop answered, "We won't refuse you that."

So the meeting broke up, and the next day at high mass they brought the boy to the choosing, and Arthur drew the sword out again as before. They took him, raised him up and held him as their lord. Then they all asked him to put it back and talk with them. He said he'd be glad to, returned it to the stone, and they led him to the main church to speak with him and test him.

Arthur won't take the barons' oaths until he's crowned

[Paris–Ulrich 1:144] "Sir," they said, "we see clearly that our Lord wants you to be our king and lord, and since he wants it, we want it. We'll accept you as such and hold our lands from you, and we ask you to put off your coronation until Pentecost; you'll be no less master of the kingdom and of us for that. We want you to answer us without taking advice."

Arthur answered, "You want me to take your oaths, give you back your lands and have you hold them from me. I can't and shouldn't do that: I can't grant or govern your estates or anyone else's until I have my own. You ask me to be lord of the kingdom, which can't be until I've been anointed and crowned and given its honor. But as for the coronation, I'll be glad to grant you the delay, since only God and you can crown me."

The barons test Arthur with gifts until Pentecost

When the barons heard the boy's answer, they said he'd be very wise if he lived, he'd answered so well. Then they said, "Sir, it would be much better if you were anointed king at Pentecost." Meanwhile, with the archbishop's permission, they obeyed Arthur. They had valuable goods and great jewels brought, to see if he'd be greedy for any. He asked the men he knew about each person's merit, and acted on what he heard.

[Paris–Ulrich 1:145] Once he'd taken all the goods, he shared them out, as I've told you, by what each one deserved, giving each what he needed most.

Arthur gives every gift away, and the archbishop knights him

So he gave away everything they offered to test him, and kept none. When the barons saw him act this way, there wasn't one of them who didn't respect him in his heart. Behind his back they said he'd be a great man, since they found no greed or meanness in him: as soon as he'd taken a thing, he'd given it out again, and every gift he made was fitting for the man who got it. So they tested Arthur and couldn't find a single fault in him, and they waited until Pentecost.

When Pentecost came, all the barons gathered at Logres, and everyone who cared to tried the sword, and none could get it out. The archbishop had prepared the crown and the coronation for Pentecost Eve, the Saturday before the evening service. By common consent and with the agreement of most of the lords, he made Arthur a knight.¹¹⁵ That night Arthur kept watch in the main church until daybreak.

The next morning the barons were all summoned and gathered there, and the archbishop spoke to them all: "Here's a man our Lord has chosen for us, the way you see and have seen since Christmas: everyone who wanted to has tried the sword, and no one could ever get it out but Arthur, who's here. Here are the royal robes and the crown, by common consent and from your own mouths. Now, if any of you is against this choice, let him say so."

[Paris–Ulrich 1:146] They answered together, "Sir, we all agree, and want him crowned king by God's will, so long as he forgives us all if he bears any of us ill will for standing against his coronation and his choosing until today." Then they knelt and begged for mercy as one. Arthur, crying with pity, went down on his knees to them too and said, "I forgive you, and pray the Lord who's granted me this honor to do the same."

Then they rose, took Arthur in their arms, carried him to where the royal robes were, and dressed him in them. The archbishop, ready to sing mass, said to him, "Sir, go and get the sword and the justice with which you're to defend the Church and protect Christendom." The procession went to the stone, and there he said, "Arthur, if you're willing to swear to God to help and raise up the Church as far as you can, to keep faith and peace on earth, and to uphold what's right, go forward and take the sword by which our Lord has chosen you."

When Arthur heard this, he cried with pity, as did many barons, and said, "As truly as our Lord is God and lord over everything there is, may he give me the strength and power to do and keep what you've said, just as surely as I mean to."

Arthur lifts the sword once more and is crowned king

The story says Arthur knelt, took the sword in his joined hands, and lifted it from the anvil as easily as if nothing held it. Then he carried it upright in front of him, and they led him to the altar, where he laid it down. Then they anointed and crowned him, and did everything a coronation calls for. When the rite was over and the mass sung, they came out of the church and looked, and saw nothing of the stone, and didn't know what had become of it. So Arthur was chosen king, and he held the land and the kingdom of Logres in peace for a long time.

Notes on this translation

How it was translated. The French came first. Each page was read from three scans of the 1886 edition, with Paris and Ulrich's margin notes set apart from the story, every word the three machine readings disagreed on checked against the image, and their printed corrections applied, before any of it was put into English.

What Paris and Ulrich's marks become. Their French sets in square brackets what they added to the Huth manuscript, including a few gaps they filled from another copy, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, français 747, and in round brackets a word they'd take out. The English reads their text, the added words in and the others out, with an endnote where an addition or a changed reading touches the sense. Their summaries in the margin and their footnotes stay in the French; the English tells the story alone.

Names and titles. People and places go by the names an English reader knows, such as Arthur, Uther, Igraine and Logres, and the glossary lists every spelling the French gives them. The first two endnotes say how the English handles the French's names for the devil and for God.

The endnotes. Some report Paris and Ulrich's own work on the text: a word they added, a reading of the Huth manuscript they changed, a correction from their errata. The rest, marked with an asterisk, explain a custom, say who a reference means, and, from Part 5 on, name the chapters of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur that tell the same events.

Gaston Paris's introduction. The 1886 edition opens on some eighty pages of French by Gaston Paris, left out here. He describes the Huth manuscript, once owned by the scholar Du Cange, and what it holds: prose versions of Robert's Joseph and Merlin, then the sequel, which is what makes the book so valuable. He argues that Robert took much of Merlin from Geoffrey of Monmouth's history of Britain, which he knew only loosely, from a French version: Robert gives King Constant a son called Moine, makes Winchester a port and takes Logres for a city. Most of the introduction is about the sequel, the Grail quest after it, and the later books drawn from them, Malory's among them. It comes before page 1 in each of the scans the source block names.

Sources

Every edition, scan, dictionary and word list this translation rests on, in Chicago form, each with what it was used for. A page cited as "Paris–Ulrich 1:38" is volume 1, page 38, of the first entry.

The text

• Paris, Gaston, and Jacob Ulrich, eds. Merlin, roman en prose du XIIIe siècle, publié avec la mise en prose du poème de Merlin de Robert de Boron d'après le manuscrit appartenant à M. Alfred H. Huth. 2 vols. Société des anciens textes français. Paris: Firmin Didot, 1886. Volume 1, pages 1–146, printed from London, British Library, Additional MS 38117 (the Huth manuscript), ff. 18v–74r, is the text translated here. From volume 2 came Paris and Ulrich's word list, the Vocabulaire (2:257–264), and their name index, the Table analytique des noms de personnes et de lieux (2:265–306), which the glossary was drawn from, and their Errata (2:307–308), whose ten corrections to these pages are applied in the French.

The scans

• Paris and Ulrich, Merlin, vol. 1. University of Toronto copy. Internet Archive. Every page of the French was read against its images, and every page marker links to them.
• Paris and Ulrich, Merlin, vol. 1. Bibliothèque nationale de France copy. Internet Archive. Its machine-read text was the second of three readings compared word by word.
• Paris and Ulrich, Merlin, vol. 1. New York Public Library copy, scanned by Google. Internet Archive. The third reading.
• Paris and Ulrich, Merlin, vol. 2. University of Toronto copy. Internet Archive. The word list, name index and errata were read from its images.
• Paris and Ulrich, Merlin, vol. 2. New York Public Library copy, scanned by Google, and a second copy scanned by the Internet Archive. Their machine-read text was compared with the Toronto images for the word list and name index.

Dictionaries and style

• Godefroy, Frédéric. Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle. 10 vols. Paris: F. Vieweg, 1880–1902. Searchable at micmap.org/dicfro. The meanings of Old French words beside Paris and Ulrich's glosses, in the manifest and the glossary.
• Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster. merriam-webster.com. US spelling and usage.
• The Chicago Manual of Style. 18th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2024. chicagomanualofstyle.org. Punctuation, quotation, numbers and these citations.

Background for the endnotes and the glossary

• Encyclopædia Britannica. 11th ed. 29 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910–1911. Wikisource. The feasts, customs and buildings the glossary explains: Candlemas, All Saints, Saint Martin's Day, the porch of a church, the trivium.
• Encyclopaedia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com. Where the real places in the glossary are.
• Geoffrey of Monmouth. Histories of the Kings of Britain. Translated by Sebastian Evans. Everyman's Library. London: J. M. Dent, 1912. Internet Archive. The older telling Robert drew on: Merlin's father, the red dragon in the sky, the stones brought from Ireland, the book of Merlin's prophecies, cited in the endnotes and the glossary.
• History of the Britons (Historia Brittonum). Translated by J. A. Giles. Project Gutenberg. gutenberg.org/ebooks/1972. The red and white dragons under Vortigern's tower.
• The Holy Bible. King James Version. Acts 2:1–4. Pentecost, in the glossary.
• Malory, Thomas. Le Morte Darthur. Edited by A. W. Pollard. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1903. Standard Ebooks, 2020. standardebooks.org/ebooks/thomas-malory/le-morte-darthur. Which chapters of Malory's Book I tell the same events, named in the endnotes; never a source of wording.
• Wikipedia. "Camelot" and "Logres." The legendary places, where no other source can place them.
• Wikipedia. "Ector (Arthurian legend)." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ector_(Arthurian_legend). The name readers know Arthur's foster father by, Ector; the article lists the French form Paris and Ulrich print among his names, and the glossary gives it.

Word lists

• Atkinson, Kevin. "SCOWL (Spell Checker Oriented Word Lists)." Version 2020.12.07. wordlist.aspell.net. The ordinary English words, so the glossary explains none of them.
• Dave, Hermit. "FrequencyWords: English, 50,000 Words." From the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus. GitHub. github.com/hermitdave/FrequencyWords. Which words are everyday speech: a rarer one in the English was judged old or plain before it stayed.
• NLTK Project. "Stopwords Corpus: English." NLTK Data. GitHub. github.com/nltk/nltk_data. The grammar words, with the commonest everyday ones, that may come back within forty words.
• This shelf's own lists of old words, contractions and English word order, judged and grown as the translation went, which the English is checked against.

Credits

Translated with machine assistance by Ryan Allen¹¹⁶ for Leaftext, more than 2 million new tokens so far on this book; a working translation, not a scholarly edition.

How it was made: built by Ryan Allen¹¹⁶, who read and edited every line¹¹⁷, all checks passed¹¹⁸, readable first¹¹⁹, plain speech¹²⁰, shaped for English¹²¹, every link said¹²², nothing said twice¹²³, the right word each time¹²⁴, no word worn out¹²⁵, modern idiom¹²⁶, US English¹²⁷, English word order, natural tenses¹²⁸, contractions, neutral tone¹²⁹, gender neutral¹³⁰, no false echoes¹³¹, prose and verse read aloud; source lines and stanzas kept¹³², scenes read for movement¹³³, checked against the scan, sources named¹³⁴, honest where unsure¹³⁵, no borrowed wording¹³⁶, source over Malory¹³⁷, translated by manifest, every choice logged, changes carried everywhere, story headings¹³⁸, matching outlines, laid out for screens¹³⁹, pages linked to scans, endnotes, Malory cross-referenced¹⁴⁰, additions marked, sourced glossary, modern names, places located from sources, no guessed identities¹⁴¹, no common words glossed¹⁴², free with credit¹⁴³.

Ryan Allen's translation and original notes are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Anyone may copy, change, print or sell them if they credit Ryan Allen, link to the license and indicate changes. The medieval source text remains in the public domain.

Endnotes

* New in this translation: written for it, not taken from Paris and Ulrich's notes of 1886.