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Loading... Merlin: The Prophet and His Historyby Geoffrey Ashe
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Geoffrey Ashe's book on this legendary figure offers a succession of surprises. The Merlin of legend was born to be a magician. He was 'immaculately' conceived and was able to interpret dreams and utter prophecies. Even his fate was imbued with magic. Like Arthur, he acquired immortality and sleeps on Bardsey Island, in a subterranean chamber with nine companions. Ashe reveals the man behind the myth, establishing beyond doubt the historicity of a Welsh prophet called Myrddin Emrys. Despite his 'supernatural' status it is Merlin, of all the great characters of the Arthurian world, who has the strongest claim to have existed. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)398.21Social sciences Customs, Etiquette, Folklore Folklore Folk literature Tales and lore of paranatural beings of human and semihuman formLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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In his own words Ashe “traces the evolution of the legend, the growth of Merlin as a character, his possible historical aspect, and the principal treatments of him in literature,” and adds a supplementary list of modern transformations. There is a select group of illustrations which reflect different aspects of Merlin’s developing story, and a useful bibliography (would, however, that it had been divided up into fiction and non-fiction).
Ashe was famously described as a “middlebrow” author, and here he writes with his customary confidence, born of long familiarity with the material, eschewing scholarly references (or even, disappointingly, an index) and revisiting old themes of his. As always, he writes with flair and ease, and there is the usual oblique approach to some of the strands he teases out which means the subject is illuminated as if by flashes of lightning. A useful introduction this, but for more detailed argument you would have to go elsewhere. This is, above all, a personal response, as befits someone who lives in Glastonbury, that most legendary of Arthurian places, on a site subsequently chosen as Merlin’s “nest” by the romantic novelist Persia Woolley.
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