Merlin- Prophecy: Clash of Kings, the first novel in my “Dark Ages” trilogy, came into being because one of the readers who enjoyed the King Arthur series wondered how Myrddion ( Merlin) would have been when he was a young man in those days before King Arthur arrived on the British landscape.

The idea appealed to me.  Apart from being not quite ready to let the Dark Ages, and Arthur, go, I suddenly saw a whole new sweep of the history of the Arthuriad.  Never one to take an easy, straight-forward path when a difficult one beckons, I began to write the first three manuscripts of what proved to be the prequel to the Arthurian Trilogy, of which Merlin- Prophecy: Clash of Kings is the first novel.  Basically, my history of the Kings of Britain consists of:

1.    Prophecy: Clash of Kings.    (Merlin)

2.    The Lord of Light.  (Working title).    (Merlin)

3.    Hunting with Gods.  (Working title).    (Merlin)

4.    Dragon’s Child.    (King Arthur)

5.    The Warrior of the West.    (King Arthur)

6.    The Bloody Cup.    (King Arthur)

7,    Book 1 of The Twilight of the Celts.    (Taliessin)

8.    Book 2 of The Twilight of the Celts.    (Taliessin)

With these eight (8) novels, I feel like I’ve finally outlined my vision of the world of King Arthur.

Prophecy is a really exciting departure for me because so little has been written about Merlin as a child or as a youth. Mary Stewart wrote The Crystal Cave, et al, but there have been surprisingly few interpretations of the legendary magician.   What we do know about him covers his early life to the age of ten or so, and his part in the birth of Arthur at some point in the future.

What the story of Myrddion Emrys offered me was the chance to put my own stamp on a very old story (Gods, I never thought I would ever be able to say such a thing).  As authors, it’s not enough to write a very old tale in a new way for we all desire to create.  Is it a God complex, perhaps?  Regardless of why I needed to create my own world of Merlin, I decided I had to attempt the difficult task.

Those who have read Dragon’s Child and the other Arthurian novels, know that my Myrddion Merlinus is a healer, a man with the god-like power to save lives as a scientist of great skill.  What provided all the challenges of the Merlin trilogy was an opportunity to explain how he became the contained, aesthetic man of Dragon’s Child, while using whatever fragmentary legends were available to build a background to this powerful, enigmatic character.

What do we really know about Myrddion Emrys, as the Welsh still call him, and could he ever have lived?  The evidence available to us is contained in the few manuscripts from about a thousand years or so in the past that refer to him.  These include Geoffrey of Monmouth, Nennius, Malory and others whose works refer back to other manuscripts, long lost and irrecoverable, from which they drew their information.  From these, the following legends can be drawn:

• He was born at Caer Fyrddin  (Moridunum).
• He is reputed to have died at Caer Gai.
• He was a prophet and was reputed to be a Demon Seed.
• He was said by some to have built Stonehenge, which is impossible, but there are references to a link with the Giant’s Dance.
• His name translates as that of the Sun God.
• The authors of old aver that Vortigern intended to sacrifice him at Dinas Emrys, but the young Merlin claimed to have seen two dragons, one red and one white, struggling for ascendency over each other in an underground pool.  Vortigern accepted his tale and set him free.
• Years later, Merlin served Uther Pendragon and devised a way for the High King to rape Queen Ygerne, wife of Gorlois, after arranging the death of the king of Cornwall.
• The rape results in her impregnation and Arthur is the result of this union.  Merlin saves the infant and ensures that he is sent away to a safe place where he can grow in peace.
• Later, Merlin assists Arthur to succeed Uther Pendragon as High King and serves the young man in a number of roles.

Could Merlin have lived?

Probably!!!!

I am inclined to believe he was a real person, but he had to be a far more extraordinary man than a mere magician, which is the simplistic reasoning of superstitious people.  He had to be a genius, a king-maker, a courtier and an advisor of remarkable talent to earn the soubriquet of magician.

During the Dark Ages, anyone who could cure an abscess, a broken limb, an arrow wound or a head injury was believe to be a magician because he could cheat the inevitability of death.

Merlin was reputed to be a shape-shifter, which caused me to experience some mental gymnastics.

Why should you read my Merlin?

Besides the fact that I’d like you to, there is so much history in Britain and on the continent that we have ignored in the past, but which has shaped the current face of Europe.  And it’s exciting stuff!!!  The Merovingian kings, the Visigoths, Hengist and Horsa, Ambrosius Imperator, Flavius Aetius who was Rome’s last great general, the Fall of the Roman Empire, the power of Ravenna and the emergence of Attila the Hun from the darkness of Eastern Europe is just a taste.

So many vast and wonderfully important things happened in Merlin’s life time.

Until I started researching these novels, I had no idea how wrong the title of the Dark Ages is.  This was an era of incredible richness, history, courage and change – sweeping change – that marked the end of the ancient world and the emergence of Modern History.

Perhaps we still retain a race memory of the importance of that far-off time?  Perhaps we weary of casual lies and the decay of our civilization, so we look for hope?  I don’t know – I can’t know, being a child of my time, but I’m sure that there is much we can learn about our Western World if we look backward into our past and see the mistakes made for what they really are – the lessons of history !

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When I first came to Glastonbury in a late November’s afternoon in 2008, I thought I had been transported into the sixteenth century.  Momentarily, I felt enfolded by the past and comforted by a feeling of great age and mysticism that matched the wide plain, the ancient hills and the village staggering its ancient path down the steep incline that leads to Glastonbury Tor.

I was wrong.

As an Australian, I came with the colonial’s sense of great age and respect for tradition, tempered by a generous dose of skepticism.  Surface values only charm for a moment, so I have learned that only trudging the streets and listening to the locals will provide the real spirit of a village.  My sardonic sense of place was initially overridden by Glastonbury’s charm but, as I came to know this ancient and holy town, I found my anger grew as I saw that the village represents the historical and conceptual decay of my vision of England.

The ancient origins of Glastonbury are so clear that only an insensitive clod could ignore them.   The traces of the inland sea is celebrated in the Glastonbury Museum, and institution that reveals the town’s iron age past and the settlers who clustered beside its shores with their stilted structures, boats and the petrified remains of shells.  The Celts are here as well, in Wearyall Hill and its thorn trees, and in the celebration of wood, water and stone that greets the traveler anywhere they care to wander.   On the Tor, the enigmatic carved landscape reminds those with eyes to see how Glastonbury first became a vast temple to the gods and the spirits of the land.  To walk through the remains of Glastonbury Abbey is to be reminded of the medieval past as well as Henry VIII’s grandiose hubris in its destruction.   Sometimes, a ruin encompasses history more fully than any restored structure can.  As I walked its simple streets, the ages rolled away and I could follow the village’s march through the ages.  Even the wars have their memories: in churches, memorials and towering modern sculptures in shocking apposition to the veneer of age that covers everything.

So why was I angry?  The 21^st Century screamed at me with all the manifest flaws that are cracking English culture.  Glastonbury is hip!  Glastonbury is part of the scene!  Glastonbury is out there!  Glastonbury is a place of every “ism” that I can recall, spin-doctored into a crass exercise in moneymaking and catering.  The whole experience is a flawed, godless and essentially tasteless concoction that tastes better under the whipped cream of style that tries to sweeten Glastonbury’s skewed values.

The Celtic deities are gone, except in places like Glastonbury where they are re-birthed in a tasteless melange that ties to channel mysticism.  For instance, the Well on the edges of the Tor has an obvious decorative cover, modeled on Celtic interlace, where people come to meditate on their connection with …..(something or other).  While I don’t mean to trample on another’s beliefs, sitting self-consciously around a decorative cover that looks like a shield and concentrating on the burble of an underground river left me cold.  Perhaps I lack a deep, spiritual link with the earth.

On the other hand, the holiness of Glastonbury is easily felt and I came to the conclusion that the happy accident of the Glastonbury experience doesn’t belong to any particular religion.  What upset me was the ill-informed sacrilege of the many pilgrims who are encouraged to come to its holy precincts and find what they seek in life.  To my mind, money has nothing to do with this experience, but money fuels Glastonbury, not only as a tourist centre but also as a spiritualist, cultish place that appears to revel in its difference.

One quickly became used to people with dreadlocks, or dressed in flowing cloaks or any number of eccentric forms of dress.  There is no self-consciousness here.  The Thorns and Wearyall Hill is draped with hundreds of ribbons for prayers and, although I longed to free this venerable descendant of the first tree from its colourful plumage, I cannot find it in me to argue with the prayers of the obviously sincere.  But the quaint storefronts of Glastonbury are bizarre mixes of magic, witchcraft and the downright odd, including crystals and jewelry, much of which is imported from Bangkok and the East, and brings incredible prices for the delectation of gullible tourists.

You can buy a magician’s staff in Glastonbury.  You can buy an Indian headdress or a Shaman’s prayer wheel, although what American Indians have to do with Glastonbury defies the imagination.  You can study Tantric sex, astrology, necromancy, soul catchers, the Tarot, sand divination and all the Asian religions.  When I described Glastonbury as a melange of beliefs that was exactly what I meant.  One bookstore sells grimoires, which made my blood run cold, while all tastes and beliefs are covered – the good and the bad.  I’m not decrying academic freedom but, for such a small village, the range of information and classes is vast.  Okay, it’s fun to attend a pagan class on the mistletoe, as I did, but its bloody dangerous to take it all seriously – as many do!

Of course, there are lovely people among the locals of Glastonbury.  I met more than my share and luxuriated in their friendship and warmth.  They shrugged at what had been made of their town and continued to live in the Somerset Way, buying “scrumpy” by the gallon, blue cheese and homemade preserves from the farms.  They welcome the peculiar strangers, knowing that these pilgrims bring money to a town that has little employment for its young people.  And so a weird mix exists here – on one side, Somerset practicality and on the other, the ardent oddness of the pilgrims.

I came on a pilgrimage of my own, and I fell in love with a town that is unique in its oddities.  I fell badly for the ordinary people who struggle in these hard times, yet can still welcome a stranger from across the seas who possesses a cynicism and practiced ability to see below surface values.  In this matter, I treasure Glastonbury and celebrate her past that is so rich and rare, and needs no noble dress to clothe her beauty.

Still, if you want a magician’s staff, classes in Tantric Sex or organic paper that is made in slave-labour factories in Thailand, then Glastonbury is the place for you.  If you hunger for a sense of place where all the eras of English history are there to be seen on the streets and in the fields that surround it, then Glastonbury will more than fill your needs.  And if you love art, music, sculpture and the wonderful flavours of the nicest people, then you’ll find also find it here.

Bon appetite!!!!!!

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I am just on my way back to OZ after spending the last couple of months in Copenhagen and the UK.  I had some amazing experiences because this trip was a mixture of research and promotion, so I’ve been flat out.

How about this for the coincidence of the year?

When we were writing the third book of Merlin, I needed a spot in present-day England where Uther Pendragon and, later, King Arthur, would have held regular meetings with the minor kings of the British tribes.

When discussing this with Michael, we spoke of the fact that no-one has ever been able to locate the Round Table, how the table worked for practical purposes, and the methods used by the High Kings to exercise their powers,

I tried to arrive at a logical approach and we decided to select a suitable settlement in central Britain that provided reasonable access for all the minor kings.  I selected Deva (present-day Chester) and duly embedded that location in the third Merlin book as the most
likely site.  It seemed like a reasonable assertion, so I invented my own version of the table to maintain the plot of my story.

I thought no further on the matter as I had other fish to fry, and just got on with my research and writing.

Then, about three months ago, an article appeared in the newspapers that King Arthur’s Round Table had been unearthed in an archeological dig.  Would you believe it ? The table was found at Chester, of all places!

Strangely, it wasn’t a timber table, or the sort that was imagined by many as the original prototype.

The archeologists at the dig had been uncovering a smallish tor that existed on the outskirts of Chester.  When uncovered, it turned out to be a small Roman gladiatorial arena that had been in use during the 2nd century by the local Romans who ruled the area.

Around the perimeter of the arena (about the size of a tennis court) was rock seating (three rows high) where observers could sit and view the meetings of the kings.  Inside the arena was a large flat rock which was the original “Table”, and around this were smaller rocks
where the tribal kings sat.  The High King was believed to have sat in the central place of honour.  In this way all the tribal kings were equal, each with the other, and the High King remained above them as the paramount ruler.

This discovery was a major breakthrough in our observations of the legends but, for me, it was awesome that my “guess” was shown to have a certain amount of accuracy.

See UK Press article

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