Editing Merlin (section)

=== Romance reimagination ===
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| image1 = Histoire de Merlin.png
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| caption1 = [[Jean Colombe]]'s circa 1480 illumination of the story of Merlin's unholy birth as told in the [[Merlin (Robert de Boron poem)|Prose ''Merlin'']], elaborating on the brief mention by Geoffrey. This was the first popular account of [[Sexuality in Christian demonology#Sexual relations|demonic parentage]] motif in Western Christian literature<ref name="True History">{{cite book |last=Lawrence-Mathers |first=A.|year=2020 |orig-year=2012 |chapter=Chapter 6: A Demonic Heritage |title=The True History of Merlin the Magician |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0300253085}}</ref>
| caption2 = Emil Johann Lauffer's painting of Merlin taking the newborn Arthur to be secretly raised by [[Sir Ector|Ector]]. Merlin is often linked to [[stag]] themes in the legend by either riding on it or transforming himself into one in an apparent association with old Celtic pagan beliefs and their Christianisation{{#tag:ref|Merlin's connections with stags within his stories may be a shadow of the belief in avatars of the Celtic "horned god", [[Cernunnos]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CpWNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA407|title=Merlin: A Casebook|first=Peter H.|last=Goodrich|date=22 June 2004|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781135583408|via=Google Books|access-date=21 May 2023|archive-date=21 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521170959/https://books.google.com/books?id=CpWNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA407|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fGAoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT156|title=Merlin: Priest of Nature|first=Jean|last=Markale|date=1 June 1995|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=9781620554500|via=Google Books|access-date=21 May 2023|archive-date=21 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521171000/https://books.google.com/books?id=fGAoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT156|url-status=live}}</ref> As the [[Celtic Otherworld]]-associated "enchanted [[white stag]]" motif become increasingly Christianised,<ref>{{cite book | last=Johnson | first=F.F. | title=Origins of Arthurian Romances: Early Sources for the Legends of Tristan, the Grail and the Abduction of the Queen | publisher=McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers | year=2012 | isbn=978-0-7864-9234-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K0Cmn4ps-X4C&pg=PA96 | page=96 | access-date=2023-06-04 | archive-date=2023-06-04 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230604041332/https://books.google.com/books?id=K0Cmn4ps-X4C&pg=PA96 | url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last=Koch | first=J.T. | title=Celtic Culture: A-Celti | publisher=ABC-CLIO | series=Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia | year=2006 | isbn=978-1-85109-440-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&pg=PA131 | access-date=5 June 2023 | page=131 | archive-date=4 June 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230604041340/https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&pg=PA131 | url-status=live }}</ref> monastic writers of Arthurian prose romances would even directly equate it with the Christ himself.<ref>{{cite web | title=Vision de Galaad, Perceval et Bohort | website=BnF Essentiels | url=https://essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/image/4bb51312-b22d-4f61-83c3-74a25e516198-vision-galaad-perceval-et-bohort | language=fr | access-date=5 June 2023 | archive-date=4 June 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230604041340/https://essentiels.bnf.fr/fr/image/4bb51312-b22d-4f61-83c3-74a25e516198-vision-galaad-perceval-et-bohort | url-status=live }}</ref>|group="note"}}
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Around the turn of the 13th century, [[Robert de Boron]] retold and expanded on this material in ''[[Merlin (Robert de Boron poem)|Merlin]]'', an [[Old French]] epic poem inspired by [[Wace]]'s ''[[Roman de Brut]]'', an Anglo-Norman creative adaptation of Geoffrey's ''Historia''. The work presents itself as the story of Merlin's life as told by Merlin himself to be written down by the "real" author while the actual author claimed merely to translate the story into French. Only a few lines of what is believed to be the original text have survived, but a more popular prose version had a great influence on the emerging genre of Arthurian-themed [[chivalric romance]].

As in Geoffrey's ''Historia'', Merlin is created as a demon spawn, but in Robert's account he is explicitly to become the [[Antichrist]] intended to reverse the effect of the [[Harrowing of Hell]]. The infernal plot is thwarted when a priest named {{ill|Blaise (Arthurian legend)|fr|Blaise (légende arthurienne)|lt=Blaise}} (the story's narrator and perhaps Merlin's divine twin in a hypothetical now-lost oral tradition{{#tag:ref|Blaise also figures within the text as its supposed original author, decades later writing down Merlin's own words in a third-person narration. According to Philippe Walter, Blaise, whose name resembles ''bleiz'', the Old Breton word for wolf, may have originally been a wolf-man double figure of Merlin in pagan-influenced tales before he was thoroughly Christianized and turned into Merlin's scribe and confidant. This association would explain Merlin's animal-like appearance at birth and the name Lailoken, 'the twin'.<ref>Philippe Walter, "Merlin, le loup et saint Blaise". ''Mediaevistik'' 11 (1998).</ref>|group="note"}}) is contacted by the child's mother; Blaise immediately baptizes the boy at birth, thus freeing him from the power of Satan and his intended destiny.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/conlee-prose-merlin-birth-of-merlin |title=The Birth of Merlin |website=University of Rochester Robbins Library Digital Projects |access-date=19 June 2019 |archive-date=19 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190619170330/https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/conlee-prose-merlin-birth-of-merlin |url-status=live }}</ref> The demonic legacy invests Merlin (already able to speak fluently even as a newborn) with a preternatural knowledge of the past and present, which is supplemented by God, who gives the boy prophetic knowledge of the future. The text lays great emphasis on Merlin's power to [[shapeshift]],{{#tag:ref|Merlin appears as a woodcutter with an axe about his neck, big shoes, a torn coat, bristly hair, and a large beard. He is later found in the forest of [[Northumberland]] by a follower of Uther disguised as an ugly man and tending a great herd of beasts. He then appears first as a handsome man and then as a beautiful boy. Years later, he approaches Arthur disguised as a peasant wearing leather boots, a wool coat, a hood, and a belt of knotted sheepskin. He is described as tall, black and bristly, and as seeming cruel and fierce. Finally, he appears as an old man with a long beard, short and hunchbacked, in an old torn woolen coat, who carries a club and drives a multitude of beasts before him.<ref name="loomis" />|group="note"}} his joking personality, and his connection to the [[Holy Grail]], the quest for which he later foretells.

''Merlin'' was originally part of a cycle of Robert's poems telling the story of the Grail over the centuries. The narrative of ''Merlin'' is largely based on Geoffrey's familiar tale of Vortigern's Tower, Uther's war against the Saxons, and Arthur's conception. New in this retelling is the episode of young Arthur (who had been secreted away by Merlin) drawing the [[Excalibur|sword from the stone]],<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/conlee-prose-merlin-arthur-and-the-sword-in-the-stone |title=Arthur and the Sword in the Stone |website=University of Rochester Robbins Library Digital Projects |access-date=19 June 2019 |archive-date=19 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190619170258/https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/conlee-prose-merlin-arthur-and-the-sword-in-the-stone |url-status=live }}</ref> an event orchestrated by Merlin in the role of kingmaker. Earlier, Merlin also instructs Uther to establish the original, quasi-religious chivalric order of the [[Round Table]] for fifty members, following his own act of creating the table itself as a replica of both the [[Last Supper]] table and the table of [[Joseph of Arimathea]].<ref name=bnf/>{{#tag:ref|Merlin's apparently own creation of the Round Table as described in the Prose ''Merlin'' (it is not included in the surviving fragment of the poem), absent of any Biblical connections, contradicts the plot and themes of ''Joseph d'Arimathea'', a related work also attributed to Robert de Boron. This may be thus an invention of the prose author. Furthermore, the Modena manuscript of the ''Didot-Perceval'' continuation of ''Merlin'', sometimes also attributed to Robert, features only 13 seats at the Round Table instead of 50.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8ywEEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA267 |title=The Arthur of the French: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval French and Occitan Literature |date=2020 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-1-78683-743-1 |language=en}}</ref>|group="note"}} The text ends with the coronation of Arthur. The prose version of Robert's poem was then continued in the 13th-century ''Merlin Continuation'', telling of King Arthur's early wars and Merlin's role in them.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/conlee-prose-merlin |title=Prose Merlin |website=University of Rochester Robbins Library Digital Projects |date=January 1998 |access-date=19 June 2019 |archive-date=19 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190619170258/https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/conlee-prose-merlin |url-status=live }}</ref> In this text, also known as the ''Suite du Merlin'', the mage both predicts and, wielding elemental magic,<ref name="ab" /> influences the course of battles,{{#tag:ref|In one example of Merlin's interventions, the Vulgate version has him conjure a magical mist that causes the forces of Arthur's enemy King Amant to clash with the Saxon army at Carmelide. On another occasion, Merlin comes to aid Arthur a dragon banner that comes to life and throws fire and flames out of its mouth. Merlin's part in these wars is depicted in more detail in the recently-found Bristol ''Merlin'' fragment.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://bristol.ac.uk/news/2021/september/bristol-merlin-update.html|title=September: Bristol Merlin update &#124; News and features &#124; University of Bristol|access-date=2021-09-11|archive-date=2021-09-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210910192048/http://bristol.ac.uk/news/2021/september/bristol-merlin-update.html|url-status=live}}</ref>|group="note"}} in addition to helping the young Arthur in other ways. Eventually, he arranges the reconciliation between Arthur and his rivals, and the surrender of the defeated Saxons and their departure from Britain.

{{multiple image
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| image1            = Conception of Merlin.jpg
| image2            = Merlin from Le Morte d’Arthur - Beardsley - Early Works plate 67.svg
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| caption1          = The conception of Merlin as depicted in a circa 1494 manuscript of the [[Lancelot en prose|Prose ''Lancelot'']]{{#tag:ref|As noted by Miranda Griffin, "while demons are often portrayed with quite extraordinary bodies in illuminations in manuscripts of the ''Merlin''," actual descriptions of Merlin's father tend to talk of an airborne spirit, sometimes taking material shape of a handsome man.<ref>{{cite book | last=Griffin | first=M. | title=Transforming Tales: Rewriting Metamorphosis in Medieval French Literature | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=2015 | isbn=978-0-19-968698-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T6hBCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA185 | page=185 | access-date=2023-06-05 | archive-date=2023-06-05 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605082808/https://books.google.com/books?id=T6hBCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA185 | url-status=live }}</ref> One version of the [[Prose Tristan|Prose ''Tristan'']] also makes Merlin essentially a "half-brother" of the monster known as the [[Questing Beast]].<ref name=ll>{{Cite journal|title=Merlin and the Ladies of the Lake|author=Berthelot, Anne|year=2000|journal=Arthuriana|volume=10|issue=1|pages=55–81|doi = 10.1353/art.2000.0029|jstor = 27869521|s2cid = 161777117}}</ref>|group="note"}}
| caption2          = "Merlin", an illustration in the 1894 Dent edition of [[Thomas Malory]]'s ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]''
}}

The extended prose rendering of ''Merlin'' was incorporated as a foundation of the ''[[Lancelot-Grail]]'', a vast cyclical series of Old French prose works also known as the Vulgate Cycle, in the form of the ''Estoire de Merlin'' (''Story of Merlin''), also known as the Vulgate ''Merlin'' or the Prose ''Merlin''. There, while not identifying his mother, it is stated that Merlin was named after his grandfather on her side. The Vulgate's Prose ''Lancelot'' further relates that after growing up in the borderlands between 'Scotland' (i.e. [[Picts|Pictish]] lands) and 'Ireland' (i.e. [[Argyll]]), Merlin "possessed all the wisdom that can come from demons, which is why he was so feared by the Bretons and so revered that everyone called him a holy prophet and the ordinary people all called him their god."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cTY44q6n0MgC&pg=PA19|title=Lancelot-Grail: Lancelot, pt. I|isbn=9781843842262|last1=Lacy|first1=Norris J.|year=2010|publisher=Boydell & Brewer }}</ref> In the Vulgate Cycle's version of ''Merlin'', his acts include arranging the consummation of Arthur's desire for "the most beautiful maiden ever born," Lady Lisanor of Cardigan, resulting in the birth of Arthur's illegitimate son [[Lohot]] from before the marriage to [[Guinevere]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3WXzagvAprIC&pg=PA254 |title=The Fall of Kings and Princes: Structure and Destruction in Arthurian Tragedy |last=Guerin |first=M. Victoria |date=1995 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-2290-2 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JwB78lRKStoC&pg=PA134 |title=Lancelot-Grail: The Story of Merlin |last=Lacy |first=Norris J. |date=2010 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd |isbn=978-1-84384-234-7 |language=en}}</ref> Merlin seems to be inherently evil in the so-called [[Prose Lancelot|non-cyclic ''Lancelot'']], where he was born as the "fatherless child" from not a supernatural rape of a virgin but a consensual union between a lustful demon and an unmarried beautiful young lady and was never baptized.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dover |first=Carol |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KkBSujrlYRAC&pg=PA22 |title=A Companion to the Lancelot-Grail Cycle |date=2003 |publisher=DS Brewer |isbn=978-0-85991-783-4 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Cartlidge |first=Neil |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2a22CNzigcAC&pg=PA101 |title=Heroes and Anti-heroes in Medieval Romance |date=2012 |publisher=DS Brewer |isbn=978-1-84384-304-7 |language=en}}</ref>

A further reworking and an alternative continuation of the Prose ''Merlin'' were included within the subsequent [[Post-Vulgate Cycle]] as the Post-Vulgate ''Suite du Merlin'' or the Huth ''Merlin'', the so-called "romantic" rewrite (as opposed to the so-called "historical" original of the Vulgate). It added some content such as Merlin providing Arthur with the sword [[Excalibur]] through a [[Lady of the Lake]], while either removing or altering many other episodes. Merlin's magical interventions in the Post-Vulgate versions of his story are relatively limited and markedly less spectacular, even compared to the magical feats of his own students, and his character becomes less moral. In addition, Merlin's prophecies also include sets of alternative possibilities (meaning future can be changed) instead of only certain outcomes.<ref name="ab" /> The Post-Vulgate Cycle has Merlin warn Arthur of how the birth of his other son will bring great misfortune and ruin to his kingdom, which then becomes a [[self-fulfilling prophecy]]. Eventually, long after Merlin is gone, his advice to dispose of the baby [[Mordred]] through an event evoking the Biblical [[Massacre of the Innocents]] leads to the deaths of many, among them Arthur.