The Legendary Merlin

Did he -- and Arthur-- really exist?

Myrddin Wylt (c. 500 - after 573 AD). In real history he was given command of an army in a battle,
messed it up, was soundly defeated and fled into the forest.

All my life I had thought that the man, and indeed the entire Arthurian legend, was a myth. How wrong I was. With an interest which turned into fascination I read of how modern researchers have finally traced the real Arthur, and unraveled the rather more complex trail which has been left by the man we now know as Merlin.

By the end of the 4th century the very fabric of the Roman Empire was in tatters. They had ruled the southern half of the island of Britannia, the dominion south of the great wall of Hadrian, for three hundred and fifty years since the days of Claudius the Fool*. But in this vast Empire, which stretched from the Atlantic to the Caspian Sea, and from the blustery wastes of Caledonia to the scorched sands of the Sahara, the profession of soldiery had turned from an honourable business, where heroes could excel and earn rewards in newly conquered land and property, to a trade fit only for the rabble in an Empire where all the land was already owned and spoken for.

Presently it was everywhere in decline, its over-sophisticated citizens having either forgotten about or come to frown upon the harsh truth that force and violence have always been essential to the preservation of any civilised order.

But In Germany, which Rome had never been able to conquer, they had never forgotten this. Their celebrated gods were deities of victory, or violent triumph over all adversity, and their heaven, called Valhalla, could not be entered unless death had ocurred in battle.

Upon the very last day of the year 406, the Germans, organised and disciplined, stormed into Roman Gaul over the frozen Rhine and began a systematic campaign of destruction of the Roman province. Soon every city in what is now France was in flames. Then, after 4 years, when they turned their gaze southwards toward Italy and Rome, the Emperor, Honorius, ordered the withdrawal of all the legions in Britannia, issuing his famous edict that "the Cantons should now take steps to defend themselves".

And so, in 410, Britannia was left wide open.

It didn't take the Germanic tribes of Lower Schleswig and Saxony long to realise their opportunity. For generations now they had been aware of the opulent Roman island beyond the sunset, and in increasing numbers they had set out in their open mastless ships to raid there. Now, with Rome fighting for its very existence and Britannia defenceless, colonisation, until now  but a dream, began to enter their minds as a realisable goal.

They were a fierce and hardy race, reared on the open, exposed salt marshes and flats of Schleswig Holstein in harsh but clannish societies where there was no room for the weak and craven. Salt water, storm and tempest were in their blood. One of their poems ran,

The blast of the tempest aids our oars,

The bellowing of the heaven, the howling of the thunder,

Hurts us not,

For the hurricane is our servant and drives us where we wish to go.

With little resistance they settled the eastern seaboard of Britannia and renamed it Anglia or Ang-land, the land of the Angles. They brought with them a new language, English, which they established wherever they settled, driving out the old Romano-British tongue, which nowadays we call Welsh, and pushing it ever westward.

Meanwhile, the native people of the desperate island had fragmented, loosely back into the localised tribes which they had formed in the centuries before Roman subjugation, each under its own king, and having been inevitably softened by centuries of civilisation, they began to give way to the Saxon incursions. By the middle of the 5th century, that is, after only 50 years, the invaders controlled the entire eastern half of the island.

Increasingly the Romano-British cried out, first to Rome and then, when no help came, to their own leaders, notably Vortigern who after the Roman withdrawal had been quick to take control of central and north Wales. But he was killed in 448 fighting another bunch of opportunists, the Irish, and after much bickering in 460 they had a large inter-tribal meeting and appointed Ambrosius Aurelianus as leader of a unified British military force. However despite several battles -- and some initial success -- the Saxon incursions continued, until at length the overall battle front, orientated north-south straight down the length of the island south of the Wall, approached the River Severn near Roman Bath.

Now the cry of real desperation went up: Ambrosius Aurelianus was killed in 488 and what remained of the Celtic world was about to be split in two, as West Wales, nowadays Cornwall, was about to be cut off from Wales proper as the Saxons reached the sea in between. "May the One God help us", the Christian natives cried, "for the invader drives us to the sea and the sea drives us to the invader".

At this point, something very mysterious happened in the shadows of our history. Someone, somewhere, rose up-- and in a series of twelve glorious battles, culminating at Mount Badon outside modern Bath, he fought the invader to the death. So complete, so devastating were these victories, that the Saxons were halted in their tracks and left the British alone for 50 years. And in modern times we have finally proved that this actually happened; archaeological data has at last shown that no new Saxon graves were dug in the Disputed Zone over this half-century period.

We know almost nothing of the warlord who orchestrated this dazzling campaign. Many centuries later, in 1135, we were told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who may have heard ancient legends now forgotten, that he was called Dux Bellorum, the Duke of War, and that his name was Arthur.

But that is where the mystery begins. Researchers over centuries have combed and scrutinised every archive depository in search of the hero, but.....no Arthur.

It was not until the late 20th century that a breakthrough finally came. Two researchers, Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman, were studying some obscure Welsh records when they came upon a strange record of a conversation dating from the 540s  between the King of Gwynnedd in North Wales and an emissary from a neighbouring kingdom. In this conversation the emissary reveals how the Kings of Gwynedd had battle-names and describes the King, Maglocunus ( Maelgwyn Gwynedd) as, "You Charioteer of the Bear's stronghold".

"Well so what?", you might think. So Maglocunus was called "The Charioteer". But regarding the Bear, who had clearly left his legacy on their hierarchy, the researchers noticed that the Celtic word for "bear" is "Arth", and the Latin for the same word is "Ursus", and that joining the two together, as in the Romano-British variant tongue of the original Welsh, might give us "Arthur-sus", or Arthur for short. Well, perhaps this was a mere coincidence. But the researchers delved deeper.

They didn't have to look far. The grandfather of this Maglocunus had been called Enniaun Yrth, also King of Gwynnedd, and his battle-name had been "Terrible Head-Dragon"-- which  incredibly in the Celtic tongue was Uthr Pen-Dragon!!  Ecstatic at this discovery, they then rushed to trace the  person right in between the two kings on the ancestral tree-- the father of Maglocunus and the son of Uther Pen-Dragon. After all, was the King Arthur of legend not Pendragon's son?

They quickly traced the man---Cadwallon Lawhir, also King of Gwynedd---only to discover to their abject disappointment that his battle name had been "Long Hand", not The Bear. But then, just as they were about to give up, they discovered that Cadwallon had not succeeded his father but his brother. He was called Owyn Ddantgwyn, King of Gwynedd, son of Uthr Pen-Dragon,-- and to their utter astonishment his battle name was... The Bear.--Arthursus.

And so, against all the laws of random chance, we have, ruling in ancient Gwynedd at precisely the time that the Saxons were stopped dead in their tracks, an influential King whose father was nicknamed Uthr Pen-Dragon (of all names...I mean, have you ever met another one?) and who himself was nicknamed Arthursus.

Also along a close parallel with legend, this Arthursus was eventually killed in a battle in 519 against his own son, at a place within his own realm called Gamlann, now (as then) located on the border between Gwynedd and neighbouring Powys.** In legend the same thing happens, but at a place called, of all names, Camlann, which of course differs from Gamlann by only a single letter. Coincidence?     

Here is the genealogical tree of the real Arthur.

But... where does Merlin fit into all this? In legend of course, as first related to us in 1135 by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Merlin was the power behind Arthur's throne, the Druid, shaman, bard, astronomer, magician and sage who was instrumental in bringing Arthur (or should we now say Owyn) to the throne. But one does wonder, having done the research which I have done into Merlin, just how fertile an imagination Geoffrey had. Read on....

Now this may scarcely be believed, but nevertheless it is the plain and simple truth, that Merlin is actually mentioned in the Annales Cambriae, the Welsh annals compiled in the 12th century. He is called Myrddin Wylt and his origins appear to be sited somewhere around Carmarthen in South Wales, but he appears in the Annales as an old man in the early 570s,and apparently he had quite a history. In the 550s he had been the bard of another local tribal King, Gwenddolau, who ruled a kingdom located more or less in what we now call the Lake District of north-western England. To the south it may have run as far as the confines of Gwynedd, and to the north it adjoined the kingdom of Ebrauc in what is now south-western Scotland.

He had a reputation in Gwendollau's court for being a seer and magician, and for being very extreme, unstable and variable in nature. In 573 Gwenddolau's kingdom was invaded by the sons of king Eliffer of Ebrauc, and a pitched battle fought at Arfderydd (or Arthuret) near modern Carwinley not far from Carlisle, in the region of the Wall which may well have divided the two kingdoms. In a bloody battle Gwenddolau was slain and  Myrddin, quite delerious, fled, curiously to the  north, where he took refuge in the dark forest of Coed Celyddon, the Caledonian forest in the region of the Solway Firth.

Here we lose track of him, the Annales closing on the subject with "..Gwenddolau is slain and Merlin went mad".

But curiously, there is a Scottish legend from about the same time which speaks of a magician, seer and sage, whom they called Lailoken,*** who hated Christianity, lived wild in the dark woods and could communicate with the animals. This Lailoken was apparently quite mad, and like Myrddin seems to have had high connections.

Modern researchers more or less agree that the two men were probably one and the same.

But...where's the connection with Arthur? Well, in terms of the evidence which we have, all that has survived, there isn't one. Not a direct one at least. Moreover, as we now have the true name and dates for Arthur, and loosely those for Myrddin, we can see that Geoffrey of Monmouth, far from having had the benefit of legends now lost, was instead quite an embellisher. For example we know that Arthur was slain in 519,and that Myrddin was an old man in 573. But we know from archives that Arthur (Owyn Ddantgwyn) was born in 460 and was therefore 59 when he died.  But at that time, 519, Myrddin couldn't have been much more than a youth, probably having been born around 500. This is strikingly at odds with the legend, which basically reverses their ages making Myrddin old and Arthur young. One begins to wonder whether Myrddin ever met Arthur; at the very least Myrddin would have had to have been quite remarkable to have left any kind of impression upon the mighty warlord at so young an age.

This has led to speculation that there may have been an earlier Merlin, who was much older than Arthur as the legend says, and these two Merlins have become fused into one. The best candidate for this earlier Merlin is none other than Ambrosius Aurelianus himself, who may have stayed on into the reign of Enniaun Yrth as his head advisor, and in this capacity he may have continued into the reign of the young Arthur.

There is however a rather loose historical connection between Myrddin Wylt (the younger Merlin), and one of the Arthurian characters. Enniaun Yrth, the Uthr Pen-Dragon of reality, had a brother called Typaun ap Cunedda, whose great grandson, a king of Gododdin, (now Lothian in Scotland), was called Gawain and was almost certainly the Gawain of the Arthurian legend. This kingdom of Gododdin was very much the haunt of the Lailoken of Scottish legend, who as we have seen is thought to have been Myrddin Wylt, and Gawain was alive in the latter years of Myrddin Wylt and Lailoken.. If Myrddin Wylt was Lailoken, then given his high connections it would seem incomprehensible that he never met Gawain.

However (Geoffrey!) this Gawain was only a 9 year old kid when Arthur fell at Gamlann in 519. The connection, though, is there.

--- Michael Alan Marshall

* Some fool-- he became so expert at keeping his head down during the reign of his despotic predecessor Caligola (Caligula), whose brain had been damaged by an illness, that his simpleton's reputation never quite left him. He it was, however, who masterminded the invasion and conquest of Britain in 43, something which Gaius Julius Caesar had twice failed to do a century before, and utterly bamboozled the Britons by falling upon London from the north.

** Upon Arthur's death, there was "much rejoicing" in Dalriada (modern Antrim) and elsewhere in Ireland, from where opportunistic invasions of Arthur's domains had been launched. Meanwhile the Saxons resumed their advance, conquering West Wales (Cornwall) but never Wales itself, which absorbed the Brittonic refugees from the east and enabled them to preserve themselves-- and the old language of the island.

*** They probably didn't ask him his real name. If you saw a wild man running naked through the woods and talking to the animals, would you go and ask him his name?  I wouldn't.

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