Time-Travelling Magic?
Stephanie Crowell
A Thesis Submitted to the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies for honors
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina
2017
1. Introduction
The main two questions at play in this piece are: How can we define medieval magic? and
How or why has that definition survived in popular culture of the present? These questions are
gargantuan and would take years of study to begin to pin down, but throughout the process of
writing this essay I learned how to narrow down those questions. A result has been that I had to
accept that this project would likely breed more smaller questions than it answered.
The main inspiration for these questions came from attempting to figure out for myself why
I am interested in fantasy literature and somewhat more broadly why I chose MEDREN as a major.
In my mind, I knew that there was a connection between those things, and I set myself the task of
attempting to figure out what that connection was. After discarding a few project ideas, I eventually
decided to settle on the big question: magic.
Because it’s such a complex and nuanced concept with a history to match, I decided to
restrict myself to primarily literary analysis coupled with historical interpretations of context. The
challenge was… Did I know any medieval fantasy?
I brainstormed for a long time in the early stages. The only book that stood out in my
imagination as something that was both an “adult book” (much of the fantasy I love tends to be
children’s literature) and fit the bill of being magical and medieval; in the end, I hovered on Malory’s
Morte D’Arthur and, by extension, the Disney film Sword in the Stone, both of which I had experienced
around the same time as a teenager. My memory of Malory was admittedly dry, but in the early
stages of the project I thought that the world was just magical enough to warrant exploration.
As I began to work on it, though, and became introduced to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
version, it hit home for me just how much this project would require- even just attempting to define
a creature like Merlin requires looking at a lot of source material—and that, somehow, there still
existed an imagination of Merlin like in Sword in the Stone. In Malory, he is “Merlin the Prophet,” a
man who successfully helps a king seduce a nobleman’s wife, a man who is a stoic and mysterious
mentor to Arthur.1 In Disney, he is kind and giving, and has valuable lessons for young Arthur about
perspective, but he also is unable to cast spells correctly a lot of the time and is distracted easily.
From that point of confusion, I decided it would be more useful to attempt to get inside
Merlin’s skin and try to understand how magic works with him and around him. When I thought
about Merlin in the beginning, I immediately also thought of Simon Magus, so I made him function
as a point of comparison across time; I was also intrigued by the idea that morally questionable
magic could be used in the service of good and remembered the strange case of the medium of
Endor.
So, after a discussion of proposed definitions and those two characters, this project launches
into the question of Merlin. The canon of Arthurian material is too large to be adequately handled in
a project of this scope, but I attempted to have a selection that I could present in chronological
order and also that could represent him (and magic) in different genres.
I am by no means arrogant enough to assume that I understand the entire scope of the
subject I’ve jumped into, but I attempted to take the time to dive as deeply into primary sources as I
could in order to understand them before attempting to make something out of them. I also made
the decision to exclude Malory with the main justification that I was concerned that I would not be
able to separate my opinion of the piece from my writing about it. Most of the pre-conceived
notions I have about Arthurian legend comes from the Malory and I wanted to push myself to look
at it outside of that perspective and to dig into things that could possibly be Malory’s sources.
Further, I want to be as specific as possible in defining the character of Merlin and how he works so
it seemed detrimental to allow the study to continue into another compilation-driven work.2
1
Malory, 22-23.
The first thing to be looked at, Monmouth’s Historia and Vita Merlini, are already an example of an author
bringing together multiple sources and adding some personal input to create canon. This process repeats for
2
Without further ado, let the definitions begin.
Arthurian legend and, because Malory is another compilation/original effort as well as occurring as far away as the
fifteenth century, I decided that it would do more of a service to Malory to study it in the future in light of the
things found in this study and with a focus on the early modern culture emerging in the late fifteenth century.
2. Definitions
Before work can begin investigating how magic is presented in literature, one must first
attempt to pin down what precisely magic is. The challenge in this, as with all historical imagining, is
to learn how to separate one’s own, modern views from the source material and to become
immersed, as much as is possible, in how a person living at the time being studied would view the
phenomenon being studied. Because magic is such a subjective area and the time of focus is as
distant as the early middle ages, this task requires an opening of perspective which can begin to be
obtained by studying the scholarship that has risen around it. What literature do scholars point to
when deciding the lines between magic, science, and religion? What are they hoping to gain from
such study?
In 1990, a book was published called Magic in the Middle Ages. In it, Kieckhefer paints a
picture of magic as a crossroads. For both a medieval mind and a modern mind, he says, magic is, “a
point of intersection between religion and science.3” This breeds the idea that instead of attempting
to differentiate magic from science and religion, instead one should view it in terms of its
counterbalances, to see not only astronomy but also astrology and attempt to evaluate what aspects
of both have potential to explain what we see in the stars. From this viewpoint, attempting to rigidly
separate magic from its counterbalances would be a disservice not only to our own understanding of
magic, but of our understanding of the people believing in it, the people writing about it, or the
people enjoying it as part of what they consider to be fanciful stories.
Valerie Flint acknowledges the same perceived divide between magic, science, and religion
and instead describes it as a borderline with the potential to become an “impassable frontier.”4
Magic, though, exists to flout the border, able to mask itself however necessary to appear respectable
3
4
Kieckhefer, 1.
Flint, 7.
to the person beholding it.5 This presents a challenge to historians in that it makes us wonder: by
whose perspective is this phenomenon magical? When looking at a document seeming to show a
magical healing by an herb woman, for example, the historian must ask: who were the people writing
the story? Did they believe that this healing was an act of God and therefore a religious act? Did the
herb woman act in a way that constituted demonic magic? Or will the historian look beyond all
pretense of magic and stipulate that the event that occurred was no more than utilization of the
natural healing properties of the plants used?
It is from examples such as these that we begin to ask the question: what kind of credence
should we give to episodes of magic? Do they exist only as stories meant to educate about right and
wrong or the things in the world that are difficult to understand? Eugene Dukes in his book Magic
and Witchcraft in the Dark Ages, writes a critique of Flint, stating that, despite the obvious heavy
amount of work she had put into her book, not once does she use the term “credulous” in
descriptions of the magical acts she had written about. 6 His rationalist book is written with the
intent to draw out whether magic is “credulous,” and he concludes his analysis with a blanket
statement saying that for rationalists, magic and witchcraft have “no factual, objective reason for
belief.”7
Initially, this hard denial of magic is stunning. Written six years after Kieckhefer’s book,
Dukes’ analysis shows one place where magic is unable to form a crossroad: between the medieval
and the modern mind. To the modern, rationalist thinker, magic is a superstition or a delusion8, but
to what extent is Dukes mapping a modern, post-Enlightenment perspective onto the subject?
Throughout, there is no moment where he attempts to assume the position that there is something
5
Flint, 8.
Dukes, 3.
7
Dukes, 265.
8
Dukes, 265.
6
about magic that can or should be believed; the focus is on the lack of evidence supporting that it
could be rational subject matter.
His criticism is helpful as a reminder to remain mindful of how the subject of magic relates
to the real world, it fails to acknowledge the fact that, while there most certainly have been skeptics
throughout mankind’s history, narrowing one’s view of history to a skeptical one or a thoroughly
rationalist one blocks progress in studying the subject. The great caution of Dukes’ work, then, is to
both be wary of the limitations of a modern perspective, given the modern analyst’s long separation
from the ideological and cultural elements that support ideas as foreign as magic in the medieval
period and to allow oneself to attempt to take such a concept seriously.
How do scholars like Kieckhefer and Flint take magic seriously? How are they able to
straddle the boundary between religion and science to grasp at what it means for something to be
magical? For both, it comes down to understanding the many faces of magic. For Kieckhefer, this
includes a vast study of different types of magic, rituals associated with them, and attempting to pin
down any cultural phenomena that lent themselves to support magic as fact in the medieval mind.
For Flint, it means dissecting the magical elements of Christianity and tracing how native magic
began to be adopted into Christian doctrine and the grey area between magical belief systems and
Christianity.
With Flint, there is a strong temptation to see magic as part of a pagan religion, rather than
an independent entity, somewhat disregarding her own definition. Addressing this, she sets magic at
two extremes: magic seen to be paganism and magic seen to be miraculous9. The variety of religious
words historically used to document types of magic, like pagan or miracle, for Flint do not show that
magic is separate from religion, rather that the base preternatural phenomena function similarly, but
perceptions of the events differ wildly. A vast amount of what we know of early medieval magic
9
Flint, 6.
comes from religious texts10 and the religious language used to depict it is inseparable from it. What
we can learn from religious texts, though, is what sorts of preternatural experiences were looked
upon favorably and which were not. This seems to be the key for Flint in determining what magic is:
what practices or ideas were viewed unfavorably? How did the church attempt to silence the
unfavorable?11
Kieckhefer attempts to subdivide magic initially from a practical standpoint: natural and
demonic. Natural magic, he says, “exploits ‘occult’ powers within nature and is essentially a branch
of medieval science,” whereas demonic magic, “invokes evil spirits and rests upon a network of
religious beliefs and practices.”12 In this definition, we see Flint’s point at work: while aspects of
magic may seem scientific or religious, what sets them apart from either is a sense of otherness,
stemming from a view of the practice at work as unfavorable.
To help differentiate between what is favorable or unfavorable in religious terms, one might
say that magic takes place as manipulative action and that religious actions take place in a
supplicatory manner. Kieckhefer quickly disregards this, citing the frustration of dealing with early
medieval material: there simply isn’t enough information available. On both sides of the fence,
Christian and magical, there are surviving records of ritual, reward, and punishment, but there is
little to no evidence showing exactly where the power behind preternatural acts came from13. The
church had and has its own set of rituals but in the early Middle Ages, there was little uniformity:
10
Penitentials and sermons; McNeill and Gerner, A List of Superstitions and Pagan Practices and Turin, 74 (against
moon magic), 107 (refuting that Jesus’ healing has something to do with nature or potions), and 237 (on vigilance
against soothsayers).
11
Flint, 6. For the purposes of this project, it is important to note that the primary focus will be on natural magic
rather than demonic magic. The demonic will be touched on, as the two ideas are inseparable from the religious
perspective of the Middle Ages and especially the Early Modern Period, but the idea of magic from nature and
interacting with nature is the focal point for what follows.
12
Kieckhefer, 1.
13
Kieckhefer, 15.
Christianity in Rome looked a great deal different than Christianity in, for example, Wales and
Ireland where magic was an integral part of the culture of native people.
Delving deeper into a definition for magic seems to make one perpetually wind up at the
starting point: magic functioning as a counterpoint to religion and science but inseparable from
either. Though a concrete definition differentiating it from those other forces seems impossible, can
we find something concrete about trends and tropes? The impression that arises from sermons such
as Maximus of Turin’s is of magic as a foreign, dark, yet imprecise power. In a classical sense, magic
originated from the acts of magi, Zoroastrian priests who migrated to the west. Among their powers
was the ability to read the stars (astrology) and the ability to cure people through ritual, which
Kieckhefer describes as ‘bogus,’ implying that a deceitful element was associated with the magi’s
abilities14. Beyond this, there are no concrete definitions or methods associated with the magi’s
activities other than the broad term that remains confounding today: magic.
As time went on, magic began to be concretely divided into types. Divination (also known as
fortune-telling) and its subdivisions of geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, hepatomancy15, and
pyromancy are listed as some of the most common but most abhorrent practices to the church.
Magical practices also include the making of amulets and talismans, occult healing powers,
necromancy, enchantment, and ligatures16. Natural magic is explained as having two basic principles:
that objects have animistic qualities (or, that things found in nature have distinct personalities), and
that those animistic qualities can have inherent sympathy or antipathy for other objects. Where a
sympathy is usually associated with a positive effect, antipathy represents the opposites in nature.
14
Kieckhefer, 10.
Probably one of the branches of divination that brings out the concept of magic from a foreign soure the most;
in Rome, haruspices were recruited from Etruria “because of their expertise,” and the practice grew wildly popular
in the ancient Mediterranean. (Kieckhefer, 320-321).
16
Kieckhefer, 11.
15
For example: a wolf has antipathy for a sheep while being dominant over the sheep, so items made
of a wolf’s hide would naturally be stronger than those made of a sheep’s17.
While these divisions of magic are seemingly concrete, it is important to note that there are
analogous practices in both science and religion. The sympathies of objects, plants, and animals can
now, and to an extent in the early medieval period (and to an even greater extent in the Early
Modern Period), be understood to be scientific properties. Divination has parallels with prophecy in
the Christian religion. In a later chapter, these similarities will be discussed through an analysis of
sections from the Bible that depict magic. As the ultimate authority of the Christian faith, a faith that
seeks to push out the use of magic in the early middle ages, the Bible is the earliest viable source to
be used to establish a foundation of medieval religious context for magic18. Since the writings
available about magic come from religious sources, the Bible, both Old and New Testament, offers a
chance set both a precedent for a medieval definition of magic and a standard for how magic is
treated in the context of literature.
Given such a disclaimer, one wonders: is it even possible to set a hard definition for magic
when so much of its definition relies on perception? Not only does it rely on the perspective of the
historian, but ambiguity abounds in the source material. Karen Jolly proposes that, “a viable
alternative, however, is to reject any effort to arrive at a universal definition of magic and instead
work towards contextual definitions of the concept19” and the “dynamic interactions20” between
magic, religion, and science. If there must be a concrete definition, she writes, “Magic is most often
a label used to identify ideas or persons who fall outside the norms of society, and are therefore
marked.21”
17
Kieckhefer, 13.
Though its long history of translation presents no small problems in interpreting it, it remains the authority.
19
Jolly, 11.
20
Jolly, 12.
21
Jolly, 6.
18
In this view, magic can only be truly defined as ‘otherness’. It is the other in society who is
seen as the magician, the figure of fear and ambiguity. As evidence, Jolly also resorts to language to
determine what magic means. The root word, magia, she says, as the root of our word magic,
connotes ‘otherness.22 Flint corroborates this but takes it a step back, clarifying its use in the Roman
Empire “as a term of condemnation” because “[magia] is a foreign word.”23 For Flint, magia is not
exactly analogous to magic: over time, magic has veered away from the term of abuse and found a
new home as a “type of excitement, or wonder, or sudden delight, that is not wholly proper.”24
Jolly’s exploration also delves into the terms magi and magus. These will be explored in depth a bit
later, but for now it is important to summarily note that magi is an ambiguous term with
connotations of both the sorcerer and the wise man, and magus immediately brings to mind the aptly
named Simon Magus.
The modern model of magic brings us again to square one. Due to the evolution of
languages, it is difficult to draw analogies across time between even magia and magic. The two terms
are ambiguous, hold a wealth of meaning despite of and due to their ambiguity, are dependent on
the perception of the user, and, though related, are almost opposites. Magic, by Flint’s record, has a
positive connotation, and magia represents the foreign and holds a more negative connotation, yet
they help describe the same sets of phenomena.
It would seem, then, that there is growing support for the idea of a definition of magic that
is fluid and dynamic. How does this hold up in a real medieval context? How did perceptions of
magic change from the early to late middle ages? What kinds of narrative arise from popular
opinions about magic? What can narrative teach us about what magic means?
22
Jolly, 6.
Flint, 3.
24
Flint, 3.
23
3. Simon Magus
While definitions of magic are intersectional to the point of creating difficulty for analysis, the
figures who used such powers are somewhat more firmly defined, but in a written tradition
controlled by the church, it can be troublesome for an historian to extract a picture of what popular
beliefs existed surrounding occult themes. Non-canonical biblical texts such as The Apocryphal Acts of
the Apostles, however, provide an intermediary between how the clergy writing texts viewed occult
phenomena and discussed it around each other and how the everyday people would have been
exposed to and would have understood what function the occult had in their society. Also, the
supplemental information provided in the non-canonical texts gives greater specificity of how to
separate the religious from the magical.
Simon Magus is a pristine example of a magic user who varies widely between his biblical
story and his story in The Apocryphal Acts of Peter. His sole mention in the Bible spans Acts 8: 9-25,
and primarily deals with establishing the sin of simony, or the buying of privileges in the church.
Any interest in his magical life is diminished to Acts 8: 9-11, saying he “used sorcery, and bewitched
the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one [10] to whom they all gave
heed… saying, this man is the great power of God.” Further, he is said to have “[11]…bewitched
them with sorceries.” Directly following this teasing description, Simon is saved through the
preaching of Philip, and Peter and John come to Samaria to connect people with the Holy Ghost.
Seeing the laying on of hands, Simon, “[18] offered them money,” and was rebuked and sent away.
In English, this vague piece does little to help someone understand with depth what exactly
Simon’s background was as a sorcerer. Unpacking some of the terms in the Vulgate, though, yields
more promising material to work with. The first startling difference is in verse 9: in English, the
King James Version says that Simon ‘used sorceries’ and ‘bewitched’ the people. In Latin, this is
instead written as seducens, meaning to lead away or apart and doing so by dicens se esse aliquem magnum,
asserting himself as great powerful. Nowhere in this verse is a mention of a potentially magical force
other than the hint of the root word mag (seen in magia) in magnus and magnum. Since the verse is so
heavily associated with Simon as magician or as sorcerer, the Latin creates an undercurrent
associating that idea with deceit. Not only deceit in perhaps reaching to a power other than the
Christian God for help and miracles, but deceit that what the magician presents is a trick. The most
important characteristic from this passage is that Simon not only deceives people but does so with
the intent to lead them astray.
The next explicit mention of magic in the King James Version in verse eleven repeats that he
“bewitched them with sorceries.” This time, the Latin is a bit more on the mark with the English.
The translation to the word sorceries comes from the use of magiis, which comes directly from the
root magia25. Although that word is on the mark, the use of bewitching again fails to address the
depth of what is done in the text. In the Vulgate, the term used is dementasset, related more closely to
the English word demented, having a broader meaning to encompass the process of driving
someone mad. This is an intensely psychological and disturbing turn of phrase; even if the things
that Simon had done were trickery, the effect is such that people would lose their minds upon
exposure to it. This makes the matter far more serious to a reader and reinforces the dangers in
humoring magical practice.
These two, small phrases, while not the focus of Simon’s story, are poignant. It establishes a
magic user as someone who not only may draw power from a wicked source, but whose motivations
are selfish. Simon’s greatest downfall in the biblical story is that he tries to pay for the acquisition of
the ability to lay hands on people and give them the Holy Spirit. Peripherally, though, considering
what is learned from the Vulgate, his selfishness takes a darker turn as he uses presentations of his
25
Also at play is a connection to the word Magus, where Simon is fully bound to his title of Simon Magus. The
tradition behind the Magi lends more weight to his fleeting treatment in this passage, making him even more
memorable to a reader.
‘power’ to lead people astray and to hold him in high regard. He is self-serving to the point of
driving people mad, and therein lies the danger of a magic user like Simon.
The extent of Simon’s misuse of power is expanded in the non-canonical writings of The
Apocryphal Acts of Peter. After his act of simony, his magical prowess is developed and acts as a
hindrance to the work of the apostles because his sorcery creates ambiguity for the townsfolk
regarding how to classify the works of the apostles: are they working magic or acting on behalf of an
almighty God?26. Needing to put an end to the confusion, following a vision Peter goes to confront
him and show the people both that God’s power and Simon’s power are not the same and that
God’s power is the only true power to believe in. Moreover, he sets out to prove his belief that,
“Satan… by his craft and working” has supplied Simon with power27.
At great urging from his fellows to “join battle with Simon and not suffer him any longer to
vex the people.”28 Sorrowfully, Peter agrees that such a battle is necessary and is met with a miracle:
after freeing a large dog from its chain, it speaks to Peter and he commands it to relay his challenge
to Simon who, in his pride, openly rejects the miracle29. After a series of back and forth jabs,
including a passage where Simon denounces Jesus as only “the son of a carpenter, and a carpenter
himself, whose birth is recorded”30it is ultimately decided that Simon and Peter should have a
contest in front of the community to determine which of the men’s power is greater.
The prefect in charge of the ordeal instructs that the best way to accomplish a clear cut
winner is to have a contest of the highest stakes: the death and resurrection of a young man. He says
to Simon: “Take this man and deliver him unto death [by your arts],” and to Peter: “And do thou
26
Elliott, IV.
Elliott, V.
28
Elliott, IX.
29
Elliott, IX.
30
Elliott, XXIII.
27
revive him.”31 The decision of the prefect to proceed so is symbolic of the problem presented in the
biblical account: magic such as Simon’s is inherently destructive, while power given by God is
constructive and regenerative. After given the task, Simon immediately, “…spake in the ear of the
lad and made him speechless, and he died.”32 The lack of hesitation, and the use of spoken word to
accomplish his aim puts Simon in to the spotlight as a truly horrifying creature: not only does he
straightaway take the life of a man, but his magic does not seem to require any sort of ritual, object,
or supplication to a higher power in order to occur.
Shocked, the widow who is the man’s mother entreats Peter to raise him up again33, as does
the prefect who is moved with pity, having picked a man who, “is dear unto the emperor,” and who
he considered to be the truest “trial of [Peter] and the God whom [he] preachest.”34 In stark contrast
to Simon’s lack of hesitation, Peter takes the time to remind those watching that the true God “is
not tempted or proved… but if he be loved and entreated he heareth them that are worthy.”35 After
explaining himself, Peter instructs the prefect to “take hold on his right hand, and thou shalt have
him alive and walking”36. This adds another level of distinction: where Simon had personal contact
with the man in order to slay him with sorcery, Peter does not personally interact with the man in
any sense. This distances him from the act and the distance, coupled with lack of personal
generation of power and thankfulness to God afterwards, proves the action a miracle.
A bit later, thrilled by the miracle, another dead man is brought before Peter. Instead of
following the same process again, Peter instead calls for Simon to have a chance to prove himself,
this time by raising the man instead of killing him, raising the stakes to say that if Simon is
31
Elliott XXV.
Elliott, XXV.
33
Elliott, XXV.
34
Elliott, XXVI.
35
Elliott, XXVI.
36
Elliott, XXVI.
32
successful, Peter should be burned for what had transpired37. Without explanation or hesitation,
Simon kneels down at the head of the man, and “said thrice: Raise thyself.” The man appears to do
so, raising his head and inclining it towards Simon. There is a mad rush to gather materials for a
burning, but Peter, the voice of reason, reminds the people of Simon’s previous deceit and that this
seeming miracle should be put to the test. The prefect then pushes Simon away from the dead man
who falls back to the ground, dead, and it is uncertain whether Simon has performed yet another
trick or an act of necromancy.38 Either way his ungodly power fails.
His failure leads to Simon being cast out and is the final proof for the destructiveness of his
magic. Whether it is ultimately fueled by Satan or through himself is left ambiguous, but the inability
to heal with the powers at his disposal or even to successfully perform a necromantic spell places
religious power on a tier beyond his abilities as a prideful and selfish man.
Consistent with the biblical text, this episode highlights deception in non-Christian sources
of magic. For a modern reader, this seems a strong precursor for the sorts of magic shows involving
card tricks or vanishing acts that one pays to see and be amazed by. The extended version of
Simon’s deceit in The Apocryphal Acts of Peter and the unnerving use of dementasset in canonical
scripture, however, show that a true magician’s power is far from harmless. With it, Simon could kill
a man by speaking to him- what are the implications for a society in which individuals have such a
power? The crowning problem Peter attempts to solve in going to confront Simon is the effect of
Simon’s deceit on the people: they are scared, they are led away from the truth of Christ, they are
even driven to actively rejecting Christ’s representatives. The fact that the prefect resorts
immediately to a task of death to finally resolve the social disquiet brought about by Simon’s
37
38
Elliott, XXVIII.
Elliott, XXVIII.
activities is indicative of just how seriously a community should handle the threat of magic- such
extremity cuts through the magician’s disguise and differentiates his magic from God’s miracles.
After this episode, the seemingly final defeat of Simon turns out to be not quite final. Pride
wounded, he continues to try to upset the faith and community of those around him by his own
works to very little effect, so he makes the decision to “fly up unto God whose Power I am, though
I am become weak. Whereas, then, ye have fallen, I am He that standeth”39 On the day of the event,
Simon is initially successful: the community watches him soar above them. Peter, worrying that they
could be swayed by deception yet again, prays to God: “hasten thy grace, O Lord, and let him fall
from the height and be disabled; and let him not die…. [but] break his leg in three places.”40 It
comes to pass as he says and Simon is once and for all “banished from Rome upon an accusation of
sorcery. And there he was sorely cut by two physicians, and so Simon the angel of Satan came to his
end.”41
There are three important points to Simon’s end: first, that while Peter prays for his fall42 and
the failure of the act, it is not to the death. Instead, he prays for Simon to become disabled.43 This
leads into the second point: Simon’s banishment from the community by decision of the
community. While initially the community was confused and deceived by Simon’s powers, in the end
they band together to rid themselves of his evil, showing the power of a community against the
‘other’ elements that would otherwise seek to harm it. The third point is that Simon dies anyway. His
fate is death, but his death is only presented after a display of kindness from the apostle and the
decision of the community.
39
Elliott, XXXI.
Elliott, XXXII.
41
Elliott, XXXII.
42
Reminiscent of Satan’s own fall from Heaven.
43
The use of disability to humble is a familiar from the Bible as well; in Acts 9:9 Paul is stricken blind on the road to
Damascus which leads to his conversion.
40
Pride, selfishness, discord, deceit, and even avarice are characteristics that define Simon in
both texts. He is headstrong, prideful, and uses occult forces to accomplish his own destructive
goals. His power is portrayed as a tool to express his inherent corruption and to raise himself up
above his fellow men. It is resoundingly clear that whatever his power is, it is something that the
common man and the community should fear and revile. In both the Apocryphal Acts of Peter and the
Bible, Simon is not shown to have friends or close acquaintances. The only interactions he has are
characterized by fear and confusion, leading to a strong basis for fear and even hatred of occult
power for the reader.
4. The Medium of Endor
A counterpoint to the obtrusive Simon is the Medium of Endor. Another biblical figure, she is
an augur asked by the panicked king Saul to raise king Samuel from the dead, hoping for some peace
of mind about an upcoming battle.44 This comes after Saul has issued an edict that bans such people
from practicing in his lands and she, instead of exhibiting the rage one would expect from a magic
user like Simon, is afraid. Afterwards she feeds the king and his men and sends them on their way.45
Initially, it is important to try and define what, exactly she is and how her magic works. The
ban on magic users in the beginning of 1 Samuel in the Vulgate says that Saul “abstulit magos et
hariolos de terra.”46 The word magos is no surprise: its root mag, seen earlier, makes up the words
magia and magus- representing people like the terrifying Simon Magus who could use occult powers
to gain power. The word hariolos, though, is harder to pin down as it encompasses such labels as
soothsayer, prophetess, or augur. One word brings together both prophecy and magic, suggesting
ambiguous classification where future-telling phenomena occur; it is this classification of being,
along with the purely magical, who are banned.
When asking for his men to find a practitioner of this grey area between magic and
prophecy, though, Saul begins to tease out what makes these banned people special and distinct
from prophets. Preparing for the battle, he is distressed that God had not responded to his
enquiries, “neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.”47 Unable to be satisfied, he asks his
men to bring in not a magus but someone under the broad umbrella of hariolus: someone who has a
pythonem, translated as a spirit, familiar, possessing demon, or spirit of prophecy.48 Because his own
44
1 Samuel 28: 11.
1 Samuel 28: 3, 23-25.
46
1 Samuel 28: 9.
47
1 Samuel 28: 6- this is consistent with the Vulgate.
48
A spirit of prophecy not connected to the church, an independent person using a prophetic gift without sanction.
45
prophets failed to meet his needs, Saul turns to what could be called an alternative prophetess who is
the medium of Endor.
Further, when he meets her, he demands: “Divina mihi in pythone,”49 This sentence
provides the starkest contrast between what the medium practices and what an accepted prophet
practices. She must divine through an occult power such as a demon, familiar spirit, casting of
bones, etc. whereas a certified prophet gets power from God. Both are in a sense vessels through
which another power operates to create visions or perform certain actions, but only prophets are
certainly acting under the will of God.50 This is the first great difference between the medium and
Simon- he portrays himself and is portrayed by others to be the one who controls and even
generates his own power through the ease of spoken word- the medium is bound by traditions of
prophetic and magical practice and is acknowledged to work with or through a pytho.51
The true terror of this medium is also that her power functions in a necromantic way. After
being convinced to perform her task, the medium immediately identifies who Saul is after seeing
Samuel, saying that she sees, “Deos… ascendentes de terra,” gods ascending out of the earth.52 The
main figure that she sees is Samuel, and the language of ascension coupled with Saul’s subsequent
conversation with him indicate that in some form the medium was able to raise him from the dead
for a short window of time. Also distressing in the message that Samuel gives to Saul: because he
went against both his and God’s ruling against magic users and for his failings in battle, that the
“Lord will also deliver Israel with [Saul] into the hand of the Philistines.”53
49
1 Samuel 28: 8.
R.V. Foster suggests in Hebrew Prophets and Prophecy that this appearance is more due to the social status of
prophets in their time than necessarily to a solidified ideology defining prophets, that they “became teachers of
the people” and “wore a kind of uniform, and could be identified as prophets at sight.” (110-112).
51
“familiar spirit, demon possessing a soothsayer” (Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary).
52
1 Samuel 28: 12.
53
1 Samuel 28: 19.
50
Luckily for the medium, the question of taking out bad news on the messenger is an
impossibility, because Saul perceives that he speaks directly with Samuel. Seeing perhaps the danger
and that Saul is sorely distressed by the news, the medium reminds him: “thine handmaid hath
obeyed thy voice, and I have put my life in my hand, and have hearkened unto thy words which
thou spakest unto me.”54 Here is the second fundamental difference between the medium and
Simon- she is determined to live a quiet life, humbly and carefully.55
Where Simon was centered on building an audience and promoting himself as powerful, the
medium is reluctant to practice her art. There is a long span of time between her episode in the Old
Testament and his in the New Testament that is difficult to account for, but the differences show
even more about their characters. While both live in societies where sorcery is condemned, it is
important from a Christian perspective to also take into account that Simon had the option to
become saved by the apostles, whereas the medium predates Christ. Simon, according to the Bible,
was baptized by Philip56. Even after declaring faith, though, Simon asks to pay for the apostles’
unique power to bestow the Holy Spirit onto people57 and further, in the Apocryphal Acts, commits
greater and greater displays of his own, existing power.
The medium, though, shows reluctance and, even if through fear, compassion to Saul. The
fact that she shows such compassion is almost counter-intuitive: she lives in a society that rejects her
and her kind, does so through deception, and has a terrifying occult power under her control. It is
unknown how the servant who told Saul about the medium at Endor knew about her, but it makes
clear that there exists a gap in knowledge between those in power and those who serve; is a figure
54
1 Samuel 28:21.
Women are expected to be meeker than men; is her mild-mannered interaction with the king due to her fear of
his power has king, due to her woman nature? One would think that because of her plunge into necromantic
magic, that seed of goodness and mildness would be gone, be she plays all the roles she should: gracious hostess,
faithful servant to the king, and cook for the king and his men, all without a suggestion of malice.
56
Acts 8: 13
57
Acts 8: 18.
55
like the medium meant to fill in the gap? She possesses knowledge that both man and king desire
while retaining a servant identity in the face of those that need her help. She is kept in check by the
king’s might and he is reliant on her power for relief.
The medium of Endor is a crucial figure to observe to understand the development of
gender in magic as it is being explored in this project. Over time and into the early modern period,
she begins to be known as the Witch of Endor58, displayed here:
“Saul and the Witch of Endor” by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, 1526
The fact that this image is heavily modified from the original story is quickly evident. Much
in the way that the Apocryphal Acts expanded the story of Simon in a non-canonical way to
emphasize his worst characteristics, the medium’s story is woven into a broader narrative of
witchcraft to emphasize the worst possibilities of her powers. In an introduction to the journal
Preternature in 2014, Alison Findlay and Liz Oakley-Brown suggest that the darkening of the medium
of Endor is due to “A fear of female learning, of sources of knowledge or understanding that
threatened exclusive male control.”59
58
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-A-668 ; currently located in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Findlay, 1.
59
The first glaring difference between this image and the biblical story is the setting: instead of
taking place in the privacy of the medium’s house, this scene is dramatically in the open, a bit away
from the town, and in the ruins of what could have been a home. The second is that a sense of
privacy is abandoned; there are a number of people witnessing the witch’s ritual. Third is a
transformation of the medium herself: she sits in a magic circle, wand raised, half-naked and reading
from what can be assumed to be a spell book. There are also magical creatures surrounding her and
there is so much activity that it is easy to miss the leading character in the story: Samuel, rising from
the dirt, hand over his head, seemingly blinded by the sun or horrified at the scene unfolding around
him.
The visceral nature of this depiction of the medium of Endor somehow makes her into an
entity more terrifying than Simon. On the far left, one can see her as she meets Saul and his men at
the entrance to her dwelling, but this aspect of the image is dwarfed by its lewd elements. The
shocking view of nakedness and the chaotic revelry that appears to be happening around her as she
casts her spell from the circle draw the eye away from the witch’s more domestic visage. This shows
an early modern idea that a woman can have two faces- one shown to the public and one that could
be a horrifying witch.60
The thing that is so striking about the painting in the context of this project is how well
many of Simon’s qualities can be projected onto the medium to create the image of a witch. She
seems to be the head of her company of women, showing that her power is the greatest in the
60
Interestingly, the Persian Sibyl in the Sistine Chapel (image linked here, along with the others:
http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Prophets.html) looks incredibly similar to the portrayal of the witch of
Endor. Michelangelo’s work (1508-1512) came first by a narrow margin of about fifteen years, but Oostsanen’s
portrayal of the witch of Endor also has the pink shawl, the idea of the powerful woman as older, and the wise
woman in the act of reading. To contrast, Michelangelo’s Sibyl’s face is turned away from the viewer, modestly
while the witch of Endor, whose face is still turned from the viewer, is far from modest. The witch is a perversion
of the noble tradition of women prophecy- although strangely similar to the Sibyl, who is pre-Christian but still
respected and considered respectable, she flouts her gift and dabbles in necromancy to take the appearance of a
Sibyl-like character to the king.
‘room,’ and her very posture, raising her wand to the sky, is reminiscent of Simon’s ever-present
need to be seen, and to have a fantastic image. Her nakedness also adds to this point- as a woman,
her modesty is supposed to be one of her greatest virtues, but here she sits, flaunting her body.
The tension in this recreation pits the benign rendition of the medium in the Bible against
the possibility for chaos that a figure with her power could create. In the Bible, she is not the focus
of her story, rather the focus is Saul’s disobedience and the consequences of his disobedience. Her
ritual brings to light that his army will fall in the coming battle, but the prophecy is understood not
to come from her, but rather Samuel. Even while the story recognizes her pythonem and therefore her
power, she is a secondary character to that power due to Samuel’s placement as the center of
attention and knowledge in the story. Whatever occult forces she calls upon are understood not to
be generated by herself, but rather through a separate and unseen entity that acts independently of
her.
The transformation of her story through Saul and the Witch of Endor portrays her as in control
of her power. There are obviously demonic forces at play, but she is the figure of most prominence.
The implication of her forceful appearance is that she has control over the entity she summons, and
therefore, possibly, the message it presents. Biblically, Saul and Samuel have a conversation between
themselves without the medium as a mouthpiece and once the conversation takes place she is
removed from the story until it comes time to feed the king and his men. She is passive, a far cry
from the figure with an upraised wand seen in the painting.
Another possible element of her change in portrayal has to do with the function of prophecy
and future-telling, and the responsibilities it generates. It had been established in the introduction of
her story that her power comes from an occult source that is separate from God. If one chooses to
read her episode as a true medium experience instead of a necromantic one, it is implied that she is
the mouthpiece of Samuel. There is a possibility that she, like Simon who manipulated the corpse of
a boy to make it seem as if the boy was raised from the dead, could manipulate the situation to her
advantage if she so chose.
Whether the words came physically through her mouth or Samuel’s, the message given was
still prophetic: Samuel foretold doom which was carried out. So, whether psychic, necromantic, or
something else, the witch of Endor was able to tap into an occult source of knowledge and, in the
early modern period, is portrayed as dangerous because of it. Within her story, it is easy to see her as
a neutral presence because of the truth of Samuel’s prediction, but outside of that truth, we are
reminded of Findlay and Oakley’s point: that there is an historical fear of women with occult
knowledge who could upset the balance of power.
There is no way of knowing what exactly transpired in the medium’s home, but what is clear
is the gray area she represents for Christian views of magic. While it is certain that Saul did wrong by
seeking out an agent of a power other than God, the effect of the meeting is consistent with that of
a proper prophecy: Saul is properly chastised and the prophecy made about his defeat because of his
wrongdoing comes to pass. Is prophecy a possible crossing-point between occult power and faith,
since it propelled the biblical narrative? This problem is not presented in Simon’s story; he is
disconnected from this world completely, except for a thirst for other and bigger kinds of power.
The medium, while possibly having the ability to use great power, is decidedly more focused on
remaining outside of the limelight.
5. Merlin in Historia regum Britanniae
Far from the magical ambiguity that perhaps was expected from an initial exploration of
scholarly definitions of medieval magic, the cases seen so far have shown what seems to be the
opposite. Simon the Magus is a magician whose wickedness is unable to be tamed, leading to his
demise. A conjurer who dared hold for himself the title “power of God” among the common
people61 was shown in the Apocryphal Acts not only to be guilty of the sin of simony, but of
broader transgressions such as: denying Jesus as the savior, challenging his apostles to feats of magic,
dabbling in necromancy, having excessive pride, and more.
The biblical account of the Medium of Endor is closer to the ambiguity suggested by
scholars like Kieckhefer (due to the fact that her magical presence exists to be of service to a grander
plot), but resolves with her evolution into the Witch of Endor. Again, the unforgivable and demonic
power of necromancy is used. While her power and actions ultimately help king Saul to find the
answers he seeks, that fatal flaw is what is drawn out of her narrative to stay.
Hagiography and prophets are likewise difficult to use to try and understand the suggested
crossroad that magic represented in the medieval mind. Stories written and edited over time show
the saint at his or her best but never show the saint complaining of earthly discomforts- they place
the saintly on a pedestal that a modern mind comprehends more as a hero rather than an historical
figure. But this begs the most interesting question so far: bearing in mind that medieval people were
just as capable of discerning the differences between the portrayal of a saint and the life of a regular
man, how did they interpret those differences? How did they relate to the unrelateable? What stories
did they tell among themselves that connected the fantastic and the mundane?
61
Acts 8:10.
In the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth took the bold step of fleshing out the
character Merlin in his Historia regum Britanniae. His Historia regum Britanniae brought the figure of
Merlin into the public eye and, although now known to be inaccurate, became a prominent piece of
popular history, even influencing subsequently written histories62.
It is the dramatic placement and incredible depth of Merlin’s exposition in the history that
makes one wonder whether Merlin was a driving factor in its popularity. Roughly at the midpoint of
the Historia, Merlin’s fantastic entrance into the tale is made as Vortigern, who is facing certain
death, finally calls upon his magicians (“vocatis denique magis suis”: noting the use of magis as the term
for their profession63) to advise him. The solution was twofold: construct an incredibly strong tower
and sacrifice a fatherless boy whose blood could then be sprinkled on the foundation of the tower to
ensure its stability64.
The boy Merlin is found in a nearby village after his men overhear a conversation between
Merlin and a friend stating he had no father. Sparing no time, the mother and son are brought
before the king to verify the fact and the mother reveals that, during her time as a nun, a man
appeared in her life who could become invisible. After talking with her while invisible, she confirms
that, “he would often make love with me, as a man would do.” It is verified in the court by Apuleius’
De deo Socratis that this phenomenon could credibly be caused by an incubus demon.65
Surprisingly, this news is not met with harsh rebuke and punishment. Rather, Merlin the boy
approaches the king and, much like Moses, offers to “prove that [the magicians] have lied.” Unlike
Moses, however, Merlin does not accomplish this with miraculous feats: he instead informs the
court that the advising magicians are simply ignorant of the real obstruction under the tower. He
62
Tolhurst, 5.
Monmouth, 166. Note: the Latin comes out of the footnote to this passage in my copy.
64
Monmouth, 167.
65
Monmouth, 168. They define an incubus demon as beings who “have partly the nature of men and partly that of
angels, and when they wish they assume mortal shapes and have intercourse with women.”
63
authoritatively informs the king that there are, “two hollow stones. Inside the stones you will see
two Dragons which are sleeping.66“ Upon finding that he told the truth, the people were, “equally
amazed at his knowledge, and they realized that there was something supernatural about him.”67
This is an important scene in Merlin’s development because of the cleverness with which it
was executed. Already having to suspend disbelief to read that as a boy Merlin approached a king
and accused his advisors, the use of magi to describe the king’s magicians pushes the scene past the
point of absurd; to use that term utilizes the word’s previously discussed lineage of knowledgeseeking and wisdom. To have a boy confidently and accurately denounce these respected people not
only establishes Merlin’s peculiarity and power, but the humiliation of being discredited by a boy
severely damages the image of the magi.
For Geoffrey of Monmouth, this wasn’t enough: directly following the conclusion of the
scene he immediately switches from his third-person narration of events into writing in first person
to the reader to introduce what is perhaps the most curious part of the book. In this introduction, he
affirms his claim that the history is not of his own creation but a translation68. With all humility
expected of him, he reveals that he only undertook this section, titled “The Prophecies of Merlin,”
to please those for whom Merlin was becoming popular, and particularly for Alexander Bishop of
Lincoln.69 Sharing his message to Alexander with readers, his humility reaches a high point at the
66
Interestingly, this episode is found in Nennius’ Historia Brittonum. While nowhere near as extensive as
Monmouth’s version, Nennius’ history includes the basic elements of Monmouth’s story: the search for a boy to
put to death, the boy overcoming, and the finding and interpreting of the emergence of the two dragons. Nennius
42.
67
Monmouth, 168-169.
68
A translation of a text that isn’t known to exist?
69
Monmouth 170-171. Alexander is described by Monmouth as, “a man of the greatest religion and wisdom,”
famous for his “never-failing piety” and “open-handed generosity.” To be able to claim such a respected patron
undoubtedly helped to boost Monmouth’s credibility to those who were about to read this strange section,
perhaps especially given the final line of their correspondence, given above.
end, when he offers that, “If [Monmouth] produces any sound which is wrong or unpleasant, force
him back into correct harmony with your own Muses’ baton.”70
The lengthy prophecy section then unfolds. The triggering event is that, as Vortigern and
Merlin were still by the foundations of the tower, a red and white dragon emerge, only to fight each
other immediately. Crying, Merlin “went into a prophetic trance”71 and began to interpret. As
expected, the prophecy is one of destruction as the Red Dragon (Britain) is overcome by the White
Dragon (Saxons). Not only is Britain overrun, but Merlin claims that, “The cult of religion shall be
destroyed completely and the ruin of the churches shall be clear for all to see.” The complete and
utter destruction is offset by the fact that “The race that is oppressed shall prevail in the end,” and
the many prophecies to follow outline Britain’s long path to recovery72.
After his exciting entrance into Monmouth’s history, Merlin continues to be a character
bound to action in the development of Arthur’s kingship. First serving Arthur’s father Uther
Pendragon, Merlin accomplishes spectacular feats, such as the building of Stonehenge73 and Arthur’s
very conception. Now king, Uther falls in love with Ygerna, “who was the most beautiful woman in
Britain” but also, regrettably, married to the Duke of Cornwall.74 This was no obstacle to Uther and
he begins to openly favor her.
Unfortunately for Uther, his power was not deterrent enough for the Duke not to express
his outrage. Refusing to enable Uther, he flees with Ygerna, leaving her in an estate by the sea and
This seems humble, but also urges some suspicion about his ‘translation’ if he is offering to let someone edit it
based on their “Muses’ baton.” It also appeals to a reader who sees that Monmouth is in touch with a presumably
powerful person (a bishop) who loves the work he does; it makes the work more credible. Monmouth, 170-171.
71
Monmouth 171.
72
Monmouth 171. As in the biblical tradition of prophets, Merlin’s function in the story here is to herald doom, but
also to rebuild the troubled nation. The conquered people of God are promised a return to liberty and prosperity
in spite the hardships to come.
73
Monmouth 197-199. Called the Giants’ Ring in the Historia, Merlin assists troops with machinery to claim the
stones from Ireland, transport them back, and assemble it as a monument to those who had died in the conflict
thus far.
74
Monmouth, 205.
70
proceeding with his troops to a defensible position. Uther chases after him, besieging the Duke’s
position until one night, he cannot control himself any longer and decides he must be with Ygerna75.
He calls for his friend Merlin and Merlin provides a solution: “By my drugs I know how to give you
the precise appearance of Gorlois, so that you will resemble him in every respect.”76 With this
solution, not only can Uther satisfy his need but he can do so without dishonoring the lady. During
his absence, however, his army acted without him, attacking and killing the Duke. News reaches
Ygerna as Uther still lies disguised beside her.
Cleverly, Uther insists he is the Duke and manages to convince the men to let him go out
and settle the dispute with Uther, allowing Uther the chance to escape and, most importantly, cover
his trail.77 The two are quickly married and “lived together as equals, united by their great love for
each other; and they had a son and daughter,” Arthur and Anna.78 Here, the more fantastical part of
Merlin’s story in Monmouth’s history ends. After Uther becomes ill and later poisoned the history
markedly shifts towards creating Arthur’s legend; Merlin’s appearances from then on are primarily in
the role of advisor. Remembering the magician advisors Merlin shamed as a child, this new status
effectively closes his main arc in the history by naming him the new magus.
75
Monmouth, 206. This embodies courtly love: the lover yearning for an inaccessible but beautiful woman, a need
to love so strong it becomes something potentially fatal, and the ever present possibility of shaming himself or his
beloved.
76
Monmouth, 207.
77
Monmouth, 207.
78
Monmouth, 208.
6. Merlin in the Vita Merlini
Merlin’s exploits under Monmouth’s pen continue in a work called the Vita Merlini. Strictly
from the title it is obvious that Monmouth is playing with a different genre than his previous work.
The bold title of Vita is a hagiographic one and recalling Merlin’s demonic origin creates confusion
and makes us wonder: how can this magus or demonic being possibly be written into an
approximation of a saint?
It is important to note that the Vita as a genre was also seen in older writings as primarily
biographical and about a variety of heroic characters, such as the Vita Constantini. The format of
Monmouth’s Vita writing lends itself to being interpreted as this alternative form of Vita as well; it is
written in Dactylic hexameter in Latin, connoting the epic, and bringing to mind Ovid’s
Metamorphoses. The analysis given here deals with the Vita primarily through the lens of hagiography
because, as Neil Thomas argues when discussing Merlin as a Celtic wild man, that the image of
powerful, boy prophet Merlin expressed in the Historia would have been more palatable than the
“traumatized soldier of the Vita.”79 By this view, Monmouth is bringing together a Merlin composed
of both the prophetic (as also seen in Nennius’ Abrosius) and the ‘wildness’ of medieval Welsh,
Scottish, and Irish sources, such as the Myrddin Fragments, the Lailoken Fragments, and the saga of
Suibhne.80 The peculiarity of magic in a Christian world is what I’ve chosen to look at, so while it is
important to note that the genre expresses some of the nuance of Merlin’s character, it is more
practical for this piece to draw out those nuances by taking a more focused approach in discussing
the genre.
79
80
Thomas, 28.
Thomas, 28-29.
The Vita begins with an introduction by Monmouth: “I am preparing to sing the madness of
the prophetic bard, and a humorous poem on Merlin”81 and the placement of Merlin as a prophet
king in Wales. As prophet king of Wales, what would possibly prompt Merlin to undergo
transformation in the Vita? He has family, wealth, and temporal power; what more could he need?
The first situation where the reader sees Merlin enter the story is amid a battle. In a clever
maneuver by the enemy, many of Merlin’s men are killed; this brings on his first bout of insanity.
For three days he grieved without food, deciding finally to flee to the woods where his countrymen
would be unable to find him. Descending into his madness, he was, “like a wild animal, he remained
buried in the woods, found by no one and forgetful of himself and his kindred.”82 When winter
comes, though, he is forced to remember himself as, “he had nothing to live on” and proceeds to
once again mourn, this time for the animals and plants that sustained him.
This brief flash of humanity leads to humanity bringing him back; his lament is heard by a
traveler. The traveler reports to one of the men Merlin’s sister Ganieda sent into the world to find
him, and before long the vassal finds the place where Merlin has hidden away, still vocalizing his
displeasure. Like the Pied Piper, the vassal soothes Merlin by playing him a song, causing the
madman to become aware of himself once again and insist on returning home.83
In a transformative experience, there is often a theme of the saint or apostle (or even Jesus
himself) retreating into the wilderness to get away from the world to purify himself.84 Initially, it
seems like this bout of madness will encourage the same for Merlin: the extent of his grief signals
that perhaps the battle is the final straw for Merlin concerning the outside world and his purification
Vita Merlini, 1. Invocation to his muse in Latin: “musamque icosam,” the muse who laughs.
Vita Merlini, 2.
83
Vita Merlini, 4.
84
Luke 5:16: “And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.” While Merlin’s retreat is not a peaceful
one of prayer and meditation, he wants it to be. Needing to get away from the horror of war and worldliness, he
retreats to find a measure of peace, though mad.
81
82
can begin. Instead, almost like magic the vassal’s song pulls him back from the wilderness into the
world.
There isn’t long to be disappointed by the relapse. Upon being confronted with a mass of
men waiting to meet him, Merlin is again filled with the madness and tries to escape back into the
woods.85 Rejecting gifts and kind words, he continues to try to escape until Ganieda’s husband, a
king, orders him to be chained in place.86 Unhappy, Merlin becomes the picture of solemnity and
grief until, one day at court, Merlin begins to laugh when Ganieda’s husband plucks a leaf from her.
Confused, the king bargains Merlin his freedom for the joke and Merlin replies in his enigmatic way:
“You were by a single act both praiseworthy and blameworthy,” because while plucking the leaf was
a form of faithfulness, the cause of the leaf was from, “when she went under the bush where her
lover met her and lay with her.”87
To defend herself, Ganieda demands that Merlin’s ability to know be tested: he must predict
the death of a single boy who is presented to Merlin in three guises. As all are different (regular
appearance, after his hair is cut off, and then as a girl) and all of Merlin’s predictions are different,
the king is convinced Merlin is a false prophet88. Nevertheless Ganieda’s husband is a king of his
word and Merlin is released, but his final test begins.
At the gate his sister begs him to stay and is quickly joined by his wife Guendoloena. With a
“hard heart” he denies both. After the pair go so far as to suggest that Guendoloena go with him
into the wilderness, he replies firmly, “Freed from both of you I shall remain without the taint of
love. Let her therefore be given a proper opportunity to marry and let him whom she shall choose
have her,” along with an admonition not to let the man she marries cross his path.89
85
Reminiscent of the role of the woods in fairy tales as preparation for initiation ritual
Vita Merlini, 5.
87
Vita Merlini, 6.
88
Vita Merlini, 6. The three ways are in order: falling to his death, being hung, and drowning.
89
Vita Merlini, 6-7.
86
At this point in the story Merlin is undeniably on the road to transformation. Although his
madness is still the presiding factor in his decisions, the decisions he makes are consistent with the
hermit trope. His decision to come back to the world is his own, but once arriving he is unable to
stay in it. Further, he renounces his marriage and his sister, severing his primary ties to the world.
His first exit from the world showed a mourning leader retreating from his larger community; this
departure marks his retreat from the more intimate community of his family. If it were not for his
madness and bouts of rage or complaining he would fit the profile Monmouth’s title of Vita
suggests.
To further exaggerate the discord between the potential of Merlin’s decisions and the
interference of his madness, some elements from his foray back into the world yield some
unexpected fruit. The first is the fate of the boy with three guises. After reaching adulthood, the
young man unfortunately died in a hunting accident where his threefold death unfolded: he fell from
his horse, one of his feet gets caught in a tree, hanging him, but his top half becomes submerged in
the river, drowning him. All the people recognized the prophecy and Monmouth states that the
boy’s death, “made the prophet a true one.”90
In a similar way to how he becomes the new magus figure in the Historia, Merlin has been
endorsed by Monmouth as a true prophet. As a boy, he embarrassed the king’s advisors by showing
his knowledge was greater than theirs; here, he starts by embarrassing a king by way of impossibly
knowing that his wife (and Merlin’s sister) has been unfaithful. After the initial, humiliating episodes
that serve to start arcs where Merlin is recognized, he proves that he deserves to be recognized in
full for it. In the Historia, his accumulation of knowledge and wisdom is shown by his creative and
natural remedies. Although he is regarded as supernatural for the kinds of knowledge he possesses,
his actions revolve around his creations and wits until finally he takes his place as advisor to Arthur.
90
Vita Merlini, 7.
In the Vita, the embarrassing episode is followed by an accurate and complicated prophecy so that
he is acknowledged as a true prophet.
At this point in Monmouth’s overall story, Merlin exists as both magus and prophet.
Merlin’s next excursion back into the world, though, is problematic. Thinking of his
remarried wife, Merlin decides to visit and bring her a herd of deer and stags as a gift. It is a happy
occasion until Guendoloena’s new husband laughs from afar and is seen by Merlin.91 Suddenly filled
with rage, he “wrenched the horns from the stag he was riding and shook them and threw them at
the man and completely smashed his head in.”92 Once again Merlin is put in chains and unable to
return to the woods but, like last time, he is able to bargain for his freedom by finding two people to
laugh at.
This time his jokes are not about embarrassment, and each demonstrates an aspect of his
dual title of magus and prophet. To summarize, one joke is that a poor man is inadvertently standing
above an underground treasure and that another man who has just bought shoes and shoe patches
has drowned in the river and will be unable to use them93. The first reminds us of his ability to know
that dragons lay under the foundations of Vortigern’s tower, showing Merlin has some sort of ability
to know the earth so well that he can know what exists underground. The second is another display
of prophecy as he foresaw the man’s death beforehand with no natural indications that it would
happen.94
91
Merlin warns Guendoloena in their last encounter that she should not allow Merlin to see the new husband in
case of remarrying, so somehow Merlin recognizes beforehand that violence will come to pass. Is this because he
is angry at the thought of his wife remarrying? In the text, he discusses it with her seemingly nonchalantly- except
for his dire warning. Is he warning her against his anger or against an episode of his ‘madness’ that he is able to
predict? It isn’t completely clear when reading through the text.
92
Vita Merlini, 8.
93
Vita Merlini, 9.
94
Vita Merlini, 10.
This time when Merlin is released into the woods, he gets helped by those in the world.
Being released in winter was not ideal and, though he maintains that, “tempests cannot frighten me,
nor icy Boreas… neither does Auster disturb me,”95 he still requests for his sister to build him a
house in the woods and to furnish him with servants and food in the winter.
The violence of Guendoloena’s wedding is so shocking not only because of its graphic
description but because it goes against the concepts of magus and prophet. It takes so long and so
many works for the titles to be bestowed on him by Monmouth, but just after he reaches it, he
murders a man. As demonstrated above, the evolution of magus to be associated with magic and
trickery was demolished in the Historia, and Merlin seemed to be the realization of a knowledge and
wisdom-based definition, worthy of respect. In the Vita, though, Merlin has a madness to deal with
that twists him into being, for a moment, the villain in his story, seemingly acting impulsively and
violently (though he did warn everyone what would come to pass if he laid eyes on the new groom).
Time passes, Merlin releases a string of prophecy, and suddenly Taliesin appears, apparently
having been summoned by Merlin to discuss a complicated weather pattern approaching.96
Monmouth’s decision to bring Taliesin into the story is an intriguing one: he is a man whose
knowledge of the world maybe even surpasses Merlin’s and he proves this with an introductory
discourse into the creation and organization of the world and space. Taliesin as a historical figure is
one that exists in the world of Welsh poetry. Said to have been the bard to King Arthur among
other royal figures, his work still exists in the collection of poems simply called The Book of Taliesin.97
Similarly to Merlin, there are instances where Taliesin’s poetry is prophetic but the main body of the
work is dedicated to tackling metaphysical questions and piecing together the mystery of the
95
Vita Merlini, 10.
Vita Merlini, 11.
97
Haycock, 12.
96
macrocosm’s relationship to the microcosm.98 Trying to understand Taliesin’s poetry would require a
project all on its own, but the pervading idea is a drive to understand not only nature, but the
planet’s role in a larger stage.
In the midst of Taliesin and Merlin’s discussion of Britain’s past, a return to the Historia, a
servant appears and informs the pair of a new fountain nearby that “was pouring out pure waters.”
Naturally they went to explore and Merlin, being thirsty, decides to, drink “freely and bathed his
temples in its waves.” Miraculously as the water flows through his body “all his madness departed
and the sense which had long remained torpid in him revived.” He rejoices to God that he is no
longer afflicted with the ability to know “the acts of past peoples and predict[ed] the future” because
it “vexed [him] and denied a natural rest.”99
With this final act, Merlin is finally cleansed of the troubling madness that has prevented him
from reaching his full potential as magus and prophet. The cost, however, is the removal of his
powers. His mind was unable to handle both and the kind of baptism he gives himself in the water
cleanses him of the burden. He expresses profound gratitude to God to finally be free of it, but then
immediately asks Taliesin for all the information he has about the mysterious water that healed him;
even though the ability to know things in a supernatural way is gone, the need to know things on the
level he did previously remains.
After much celebration among Merlin, Taliesin, the servants, and his sister something
unexpected happens: Ganieda comes to the woods to live with her hermit brother.100 Stricken with a
grief of her own at the death of her husband, which coincidentally happened upon the arrival of
98
Haycock 13, 514, 526.
Vita Merlini, 14.
100
Vita Merlini, 17.
99
Taliesin,101 she decides to leave her life behind. Living with the men for a while, it is discovered that
she has inherited Merlin’s gift of prophecy and the end of the Vita is her own prophecy.
Throughout the story it is easy to see that Monmouth made good on his decision to title it in
a way that associates with the genre of hagiography. Merlin’s repeated hermitage with compounding
effects results in his purification. What is less obvious is that this cleansing fits into ideas of magic as
a crossroad as well, where Geoffrey brings to light the struggle of writing and talking about magic.
Merlin needs to be sorted and his madness needs to be cured, but by curing the madness (and thus
the demonic) in him, his holy power of prophecy is also lost. By pulling apart the aspects of Merlin
that are demonic or magical and those that are religious, Monmouth effectively removes Merlin
from the world.
Monmouth’s Merlin is a strange one. His ability to tell both past and future events gave him
an inhuman knowledge of nature and science, which plays to the side of him defined as magus and
implies association with his magical or demonic qualities inherited from his father. His knowledge of
the future, while lauded as true prophetic ability, became the driving force of his madness as it
clashed with his other set of abilities.
Christianity, demons, and science all coexist in one man and Monmouth, much like the teller
of a fairy tale, makes it his mission to completely disentangle these elements in his protagonist.
Drinking from and submerging in the water drove away his madness and initially it is ambiguous
whether that meant he was cured of his demonic power, his ability of prophecy, or both. The first
thing we see is his appeal to Taliesin for knowledge of the phenomenon, indicating that his
knowledge of nature and/or the past has been wiped clean and one is made to think that perhaps his
gift of prophecy stays- what could be considered the true fulfilment of his potential and the
hagiographic story arc.
101
Vita Merlini, 11.
Pulling one more punch at the end, though, Monmouth makes it clear that Merlin’s gift has
passed. What does this make him at the end of Monmouth’s series? From half-demon boy to magus
to prophet and magus to… If deprived of both, maybe by the end of the story Merlin is ‘just’ a man.
His long life and many experiences keep him able to talk to Taliesin and others in a sophisticated
way which means he can still be considered a man of learning, but his powers are gone. What is left
is the three of them living together in the woods: Ganieda who has the gift of prophecy, Taliesin
who has the gift of supreme knowledge and understanding of the world, and Merlin the wizened old
man. The gifts have been successfully separated and the implication seems to be that as long as they
are separated, they can live in harmony.102
102
Alternatively, it takes experience in both worlds to experience true happiness in the end. That’s more my
feeling and I don’t have anything to substantiate it though.
7. Vulgate Merlin
Written about a century after Monmouth’s Historia and Vita, the Vulgate shows yet another
genre switch for the legends of Arthur and Merlin. How does what we know of Merlin from
Monmouth change as his story is transformed from history to biography to romance? What is the
effect of placing Merlin’s story as a sub-plot to the quest for the Holy Grail? Conveniently, the
Vulgate is arranged in a way that isolates Merlin’s life from the rest of the romance in a section titled
The Story of Merlin, affirming that even in the new genre and setting he plays a part deserving of
individual focus, even while his place is small and entwined into a much larger fabric (this set of
legends focuses on Lancelot and his relation to the Grail quest).
Consistent with Monmouth’s telling, the Vulgate begins with Merlin’s strange conception
story of a demon mating with his pure mother. Unlike Monmouth, however, Merlin’s mother is not
a nun whom the demon frequently visited; rather, she is a pious woman who made the mistake of
letting her anger distract her from her evening prayers, allowing the demon an opportunity to
strike.103 In this version as well, we are shown her and Merlin’s struggle against punishment when the
officials of the town learn that she has become pregnant.
The law of the land states that a woman who becomes pregnant out of wedlock is to be put
to death unless, as a convincing old woman counsels Merlin’s aunt104, “[you] give yourself up to all
men… you will do what you will with your lovely body; no judge can say anything about it, and you
will be out of harm’s way.”105 While the sister gladly accepts this proposal and becomes a woman of
the night, Merlin’s mother finds such behavior abhorrent and instead turns to a priest for council.
103
Lacy, 170.
No names given.
105
Lacy, 169.
104
When it comes time for Merlin’s mother to stand before the court, it is this priest who
advocates for a stay of execution on behalf of the not-yet-born Merlin, saying, “he child has not
deserved death, since it did not commit the sin.”106 It is decided, then, that Merlin’s mother along
with two attendants should be locked in a tower until Merlin, “can eat by [himself] and ask for what
[he] needs.”107
Time passes and Merlin is eventually born and grows into a young boy. His growth astounds
the women in the tower as, at nine months, he is “so hairy” and “looked as if he were two years old
or more,” then later at eighteen months he speaks to his distressed mother, promising that she
“never will die for what has happened to [her] because of me.”108 His mother is unnerved by this
episode and attempts to make the boy speak in front of the attendants. In typical Merlin fashion, he
remains mute until a teachable moment when, desperate, his mother and the ladies attempt to trick
him.
Figuring that her distress was the catalyst for his previous speech, Merlin’s mother requests
that the ladies speak loudly and confidently about her impending doom as she cries a little ways
away.109 Surprising them all with his insight, Merlin responds: “You are lying. My mother has made
you say this.”110 For the rest of their time in the tower, Merlin remains mostly silent until, tired of the
fear of the attendants who call him a devil, he scolds them, calling them “foolish and more sinful
than [the mother] is.”
Even at eighteen months, the Vulgate Merlin has an unnatural knowledge of the world, made
more unnatural by his extreme youth. This continues as, after he and his mother are brought down
from the tower for a final judgement, Merlin becomes their legal representation. After hearing the
106
Lacy, 172.
Lacy, 172. Reminiscent of Danae and her tower; death is postponed until a later date.
108
Lacy, 173.
109
Lacy, 173.
110
Lacy, 173.
107
women of the court claim that no woman can conceive without knowing a man carnally,111 Merlin is
outraged and claims that, “if all those who have been with someone other than their husbands or
wives were brought to justice… then he would already have burned half or more of the men and
women who are already here.”112
Showing the courage to confront authority that was prevalent in Monmouth’s telling, Merlin
then confronts the judge directly and issues a challenge: “I know my father better than you know
yours, and your mother knows better who sired you than mine knows who fathered me.”113 The
accusation of infidelity is reminiscent of Monmouth’s Vita, where Merlin informs his brother-in-law
of the infidelity of his sister. In both cases, he is proven correct and as a result is granted freedom.114
The episode of Merlin at Vortigern’s tower in the Vulgate remains consistent with
Monmouth’s telling, with the exception of Merlin’s prophecy about the dragons living underneath.
Where Monmouth creates a grand, lengthy set of prophecies about the future of Britain, the Vulgate
reduces the symbolism of the dragons: “the great red dragon stands for [Vortigern’s] wicked heart,
and that its body was so huge means your great power. And the white dragon stands for the
birthright of the youths who have fled because they fear [his] rule.”115 Although this episode still
showcases some prophetic ability by Merlin, the immediate and short-term application of it puts into
question whether this feat is a result of actual prophecy or of his demonic connection to hidden
knowledge of the present. It is not explicitly stated that this revelation is a prophecy as it is
repeatedly stated in Monmouth and at this point it seems as if the Vulgate is framing Merlin
according to his demonic gifts rather than a combination of the demonic and prophetic.
111
Differing from the episode where Vortigern’s scholars confirm the existence of incubus demons
Lacy, 173-174.
113
Lacy, 174.
114
Lacy, 175. “This is how Merlin’s mother was saved…”
115
Lacy, 185.
112
The next milestone in Merlin’s story in the Vulgate as in the Historia is his role in the
conception of Arthur. It is important to note that, as a romance, much more attention is given to
Uther’s struggle of being in love.116 In typical fin amour style, he describes his need for Ygraine as
causing “distress and agony,” that it was “killing him and he could neither sleep nor rest.”117
Somewhat consistent with Monmouth’s telling of the help Merlin gives to Uther, an herb plays a
vital role in Uther’s transformation into the likeness of Ygraine’s husband, but unlike Monmouth’s
there is no potion, rather Uther “rubbed himself with [the herb]; and after he put it on himself, he
looked unmistakably like the duke.”118 This is accompanied by a speech by Merlin where he says,
“you will see what power I have to deceive her… I will bestow upon you the likeness of the
duke.”119
The transferal of power from a potion to Merlin’s own power plus an herb to deceive
Ygraine is an important semantic difference that places him more in the ballpark of a figure like
Simon Magus. Though in the end this trickery is for a good cause, in this version Merlin is proud of
his power to deceive and owns that power rather than attributing it directly to a potion. Also in this
version, Merlin sets the condition that in order to help Uther, Uther must promise that the morning
after his encounter with Ygraine he will grant Merlin the first thing Merlin asks of him.120 The
established friendship between Uther and Merlin is not enough for this kind of help as it is in
Monmouth’s telling, instead necessitating an exchange.
While in the scheme of things this is again a good decision as Merlin’s request is for Arthur
to be raised away from Uther which sets up the chain of events that creates Arthur’s legend, the
Romance defined by the OED: “A medieval narrative… relating the legendary or extraordinary adventures of
some hero of chivalry.” As figures of temptation, fair maidens are a danger to the chivalrous knight.
117
Lacy, 199.
118
Lacy, 204.
119
Lacy, 204.
120
Reminiscent of Rumpelstiltskin. Also, Lacy, 203.
116
exchange aspect of Merlin’s magic remains strange and alien from the Merlin of Monmouth’s story.
We’re familiar from the Vita and from earlier in the Vulgate with the notion that Merlin would
exchange his insights for his freedom, but the Vulgate takes that idea to the next level: Merlin’s
services outside of his prophetic inclinations also have a price tag, even to his friends.
Merlin’s role as advisor to Uther and Arthur continues in the Vulgate as it does for
Monmouth, without any particularly striking differences. However, the greatest difference of them
all comes from the nature of the genre: Merlin’s romance with a young noble lady named Viviane.
Strangely, she is a noble lady of the time but Viviane is also blessed by the goddess Diana, who is her
father’s godmother.121 In her father’s youth, Diana promised that one day Viviane would, “be sought
by the wisest, most learned man on earth, that he may show her the greatest part of his learning…
all through the power of necromancy, so that he might be so much under her sway… that he lacks
the power to do anything against her will.”122
The first interaction between Merlin and Viviane happens in the woods near Viviane’s home,
a setting that implies something big is about to happen: remembering Merlin’s portrayal as a wild
man in the woods in the Vita and Viviane’s connection to Diana, the woods are where both of these
characters can be at their best.123 True to Diana’s prophecy, Merlin is immediately stricken and needs
a few moments to compose himself before addressing her, thinking to himself that it would be
“most unwise to fall asleep in sin and lose his mind and his knowledge just to know the delights of a
young lady, to shame her and to lose God.”124
In this one thought, Merlin not only acknowledges that Viviane is a threat to his composure,
but that she, like Delilah was to Sampson, could be the key to his undoing. Nevertheless, he is
121
Lacy, 281.
Lacy, 281.
123
Merlin as hermit and wander VS Viviane’s goddess-given protection
124
Lacy, 282.
122
compelled to get to know her and immediately offers to teach her his “tricks,” claiming himself to
be a “wandering apprentice, seeking [his] master; he used to teach me my trade, which is most
praiseworthy.”125 Curious about his trade and his tricks, Viviane vows that if Merlin would teach her
all that he knows she “would swear to be your lady love and your friend forever, without any
baseness.”126
Thus the two enter into an agreement, despite the knowledge on both sides that such an
agreement would lead to Merlin’s eventual fall. Much later and after many successful battles fought
with Arthur, Merlin’s end arrives. Declaring to his companions, “I am so overwhelmed by love for
her that I could not leave her,” Merlin gracefully takes his leave and returns to his lady.127
Immediately their lessons begin again in the woods, until one day Viviane requests the
knowledge of how to, “keep a man imprisoned without a tower or walls or irons, but through
wizardry, so that he could never get away but through me.”128 As one would expect, Merlin realizes
immediately that the intent is to trap him and tells her that he knows; she responds by, “put[ting] her
arms around about his neck and said that he had to belong to her, for she was his.”129 Together they
agree that Merlin’s entrapment is for the better because of their love and Viviane modifies her
request.
Instead of asking how best to imprison a man, she asks: “teach me how to make a very
beautiful, proper place that I can make so strong with magic that it cannot be undone. And we’ll stay
there, you and I, in joy and delight whenever we wish.”130 Perhaps trying to retain some kind of
control over the situation, Merlin offers to build such a place himself but Viviane insists: “you will
125
Lacy, 282.
Lacy, 282.
127
Lacy, 416.
128
Lacy, 416.
129
Lacy, 416.
130
Lacy, 216.
126
teach me how to do it and I’ll do it… more to my liking.”131 She writes down everything that he
instructs her to do to create the place and, enticing him to sleep, creates a tower around him.
While he is unable to leave the tower for the rest of his days, Viviane may come and go as
she pleases, once and for all placing all of the power in their relationship into her hands. It goes well,
and “she kept her oath to him faithfully, for few days or nights went by when she was not with
him.”132 What Viviane decides to do outside of the tower is never explained and here Merlin’s tale in
the Vulgate ends, reverting back to a focus on Arthur, his knights, and the Grail quest.
Although similar to the Vita in that Merlin’s end eventually comes after dedicating himself to
his space in the woods, the Vulgate radically transforms the source of that dedication. No longer is
Merlin cured by the stream and dedicated to live as a hermit with Taliesin and his sister who
succeeds him in prophecy, but rather he gets a strange sort of happily ever after with Viviane. Where
the Vita splits apart Merlin’s abilities and takes a more traditional approach to finding a successor
for his power, the Vulgate makes Viviane the successor to all of his power by virtue of her
connection to Diana and by Merlin’s choice to teach her his magic.
The romantic ending muffles any sense of the profound from Merlin’s end and replaces it
with a kind of irony: a man like Merlin who lives according to his tricks is essentially tricked by a
woman into giving them all away. More important than a journey towards self-discovery and healing
(after all, Merlin’s madness is not featured in the Vulgate at all) is love’s power over Merlin. His love
for Viviane and her love for him forces him away from his position of power and mystery in the
world. Although it is technically his choice to return to her, it is repeatedly emphasized that his will
is bound up with Viviane’s through love and it is because of her rather than because of him that the
choice is made.
131
132
Lacy, 216.
Lacy, 217.
Without his transformative hermitage, the Vulgate makes one wonder yet again how to
classify Merlin. The use of “tricks” and deception as well as his bargains pour him into the mold of a
Simon Magus figure, but he also occupies the space of a romantic hero in his own right. The more
prophetic elements of his character are somewhat purged in the Vulgate and replaced with situations
where he instead draws on some hidden knowledge of the present to create an advantage up until he
can no longer use his knowledge to escape or to gain advantage for love of Viviane.
8. A New World for Magic?
a. Part One: Lord of the Rings: A Male Lineage?
Leaping forward in time once again, we come to perhaps one of the most popularly
consumed pieces of fantasy in the modern world: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The surprisingly
realistic-yet-fantastical world of Middle Earth is enticing and creates a fascinating new approach to
magic. It begins to blur the lines of how far a reader can relate to a story and, as Rosemary Jackson
writes: “the purely fantastic text establishes absolute hesitation in protagonist and reader: they can
neither come to terms with the unfamiliar events described, nor dismiss them as supernatural
phenomena.” Further, she describes the feeling as a kind of anxiety that is “incorporated into the
structure of the work to become its defining element.”133
To understand this anxiety, a variety of factors require attention, including: the genre of the
work itself, Tolkien’s agenda in writing it (if any), his influences, and how the work is received. The
easy solution to the question of genre is to label it as sheer fantasy: the existence of elves, orcs,
magic, and a debatably realistic world all lend themselves to a fantasy label but critics and scholars of
Tolkien see more to it. The extent of secondary scholarship on Tolkien is greater than the capacity
of this project to contain, so a narrower focus is required: in what ways should genre be questioned
to see if the work is a suitable successor to the Merlin tradition? The figures of Gandalf, Saruman,
Sauron, Galadriel, and the other powerful, wise, and magical characters throughout Lord of the Rings
immediately create a question of applicability to the evolution of Merlin or even the more
straightforward magus figure in their centrality to the progression of the plot as caretakers of
inexplicable or ancient wisdom and distinctly otherworldly power. Do any or all of these figures
133
Bowman, 288.
actually link back to Merlin? Is the genre of Lord of the Rings even compatible with Merlin’s historical
telling, his Vita, or his role in the later romances?
In Tolkien’s own words Lord of the Rings “is largely concerned with Hobbits, and from its
pages a reader may discover much of their character and a little of their history.”134We’re introduced
to Middle Earth in the world of Hobbits, and soon Gandalf the Wizard, but it isn’t until much later
that we’re introduced to any Men. Yet, in Bag End one feels comfortable. Their “commonly brown”
hair, their aptitude for “shoe-making,” and their “good-natured rather than beautiful” faces are
homely; a reader can imagine themselves in Bag End or in the tavern with the halflings and in some
ways they seem more real to a reader than the Men of Middle Earth, who are often mysterious and
grim. In the films, this becomes a little different as the viewer sees the Hobbits’ hairy feet along with
the soothing narration given by the books, but the distraction of the Hobbits’ otherness is mediated
by subtle humor added to the narration.
In the same way that the genre of the Vita Merlini was ambiguous by having the possibility of
being either/both a religious genre emulating the progression of a saint’s life or/and a more classical
form of biography135, it is hugely debatable whether Lord of the Rings should be interpreted as
religious. In Tolkien’s own words, “it has no allegorical intentions general, particular or topical;
moral, religious or political… It is a monotheistic world of ‘natural theology’… [and] is simply part
of the historical climate depicted,” and, further, that, “the ‘Third Age’ was not a Christian world.”136
Still, studies of Tolkien question whether the influence of Tolkien’s “Catholic imagination,” born of
his belief in Roman Catholicism, is present enough to be considered relevant to the discussion of
how to interpret Tolkien’s writing.
134
Fellowship of the Rings, 1.
As well has having ties through the invocation of the Vita to Ovid (and his laughing muse).
136
Glover, 39.
135
As emphasized in Thomas Smith’s essay, “Tolkien’s Catholic Imagination: Mediation and
Tradition,”137 there are “no religious sanctions for behavior in any of the cultures Tolkien creates…
the story happens before Christ’s birth, and has nothing to do with historical Christianity.”138
Despite his seemingly negative outlook on the possibility from the onset, he goes on to quote
Tolkien: “many confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’; but one resides in the freedom of the reader,
and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”139 Unpacking these statements, one gets
the sense that, though Tolkien has a firm belief that allegory is an unfair tool for an author to use,
allegorical interpretation is welcomed if the reader chooses to interpret a work as allegorical. This
puts the power of defining genre or intent in the hands of the reader and with this justification in
mind, Smith continues with his essay to attempt to locate instances in the narrative where Tolkien’s
own interpretation of his religion is presented in the fiction.
If there is to be a Christian influence or purpose interpreted in the text, what is its
foundation? Is it pedagogical like in the Vita? Does the possibility exist that Christian allegory is
alive and well in Tolkien’s work despite his insistence on the contrary? Providing a concise line from
Robert Barron to sum up the most base reason Christianity is a valid lens through which to view
Tolkien’s writing, Smith posits that, “Christianity is, above all, a way of seeing.”140 This sentence
separates Christianity from the cultural rigidity of doctrine that was so prevalent in the lives and
work of medieval writers and instead shifts the conversation to be about the modern author’s
personal relationship to the doctrine and how s/he acts on that doctrine, both in real life and in
137
From here on I’ve chosen to put a lot of emphasis on Christian modes of reading Tolkien primarily because of
the lineage looked at so far. In all of the medieval texts one was forced to consider the Christian perspectives that
went into the writing and, while Tolkien’s work is set in a pre-Christian, non-theistic world, there is a wealth of
Christian perspective applied to it, which makes it somewhat easier to relate to the views of magic put forth in the
Merlin cases.
138
Smith, 73.
139
Smith, 74.
140
Smith, 74.
writing. It becomes a matter of seeing religion as “not merely a matter of holding certain
propositions,” but as “an existential orientation towards God and the world that illuminates every
aspect of experience.”141
Further binding Tolkien’s writing with Christianity is mediation, the idea that seeing the
world through the lens of Christianity necessitates, “believing that everything and everyone we
encounter is a vehicle or a go-between for divine presence,” rather than in a distant God whose
work is not “something that happened a long time ago and ceased,” a theme that will appear again
later in discussing the implications of Lord of the Rings. The idea that any and everything in the natural
world can be a conduit for God is a difficult concept to come to terms with, given that the Bible, the
source of Christian beliefs, is a concrete object.142
The Bible as an object creates tension between modern people and Christianity’s
fundamental ideological goals. In a world where atheism is accepted and, in certain places,
encouraged, one notices a certain rhetoric regarding Christianity’s holy book, and thus the rules of
Christianity itself, that posits it as “something that happened a long time ago and ceased.”143 In the
face of such rhetoric, the idea that Tolkien’s work may be interpreted as a new, fresh look at
Christian ideals is hopeful. It could be said, in terms of Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism, that “Tolkien’s fantasy is an attempt to ‘re-enchant’ a world that… had been
‘disenchanted’ through the powers of modern science and technology.”144 Though the medium of
141
Smith, 74.
Although pre-modern Christians would have memorized the stories in the Bible so its teachings were not
exclusively limited to the availability of the book or the literacy rates of the area. Also, technology has allowed for a
fundamental transformation of the object; now one can find the Bible in many languages in digital formats as well
as hard copies. Maybe the idea that God can be everywhere and in everything isn’t so wild after all.
143
See note 128. The limitations of print technology to the modern mind is somewhat off-topic but a necessary
thought experiment for dealing with how a modern person interacts with the religion.
144
Smith, 82.
142
Tolkien’s work is still print, it manages to engage a modern audience in a way that encouraged the
making of six movies devoted to his universe and the ideals within it.
In this line of thinking, the role of popular perception of Christianity in the face of science
and technology is uncomfortably reminiscent of medieval views of magic in the face of Christianity.
The use of “re-enchant” and “disenchanted” to describe the phenomenon brings the point even
closer to home; it creates a vision of the world in which a possibility exists for religious belief to be
the next casualty of human progress. There is also some dissonance in the realization that, if
Tolkien’s writing is so theologically relevant to the modern Christian, why is it so heavily reliant on
magic, when the church was initially a driving force for the attempted removal of magic from the
public eye?
At this point in pondering Lord of the Rings as a work placing magical figures into a modern
theological treatise of sorts, it is necessary to ground the discussion in a discussion of a second
question of Tolkien’s work: to what extent is Lord of the Rings a historical project? Is it grounded
enough in the Christian tradition to warrant being interpreted as religious allegory? To what extent
can it be said that Middle Earth is related to the Middle Ages? Tolkien admitted that Middle Earth is
a pre-Christian world; is it compatible with a hyper-theological Middle Ages?
Conveniently, Tolkien is known for his historical scholarship as well as his literary work. In
his fantastic review of Lord of the Rings, Douglass Parker offers the highest praise of Tolkien’s ability
to create a viable world: “To write or talk of real dragons, however, or real elves, or real dwarfs, as
Professor Tolkien does, is quite another thing… it demands both that the author create his own
reality and that he somehow render it acceptable to his readers.”145 He also encourages even more
145
Parker, 598. Given this, it is also interesting to think some about Tolkien’s sources for his creatures and his
distaste for the easily recognizable Celtic tradition one might popularly associate with such creatures (or, even,
Merlin). In dealing with his publishers for The Silmarillion, he said that the Celtic stories have, “bright colour, but
are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact ‘mad’… but I don’t believe I
diversity in considering the genre of Lord of the Rings, noting that “it has been praised as ‘super
science fiction’ and damned as an ‘overgrown fairy tale;” the difficulty in distinction being that
science fiction “clings always to a necessary and handy peg in some facet of physical reality” where
the fantasy or fairy tale “having chosen to soar into the void, must create… a structure that is so
self-consistent and varied that it will withstand any amount of probing.”146
How can two such opposing worlds of narrative converge? A first thought is that, while
Middle Earth and its inhabitants are unquestionably Tolkien’s own creation, even the “geography
may reflect the mindset of a scholar of ancient and medieval languages.” Such a scholar would be
preoccupied with “the pervasive sense in the middle ages that Rome and its glory had been lost,”
and “that it may reflect the medieval and Renaissance sense of being under siege from powers
outside the west.”147 Essentially, Middle Earth exists in between: between the former Age of Men
that has been dismantled by the power of the Ring and the departure of the Elves (thus the revival
of the kingdom of Men) after the Ring has been destroyed, marking it as a Middle Age… though
perhaps one that diverges slightly from the historical Middle Ages of Europe.
Even if Middle Earth is in a Middle Age, it still represents aspects of Tolkien’s modern life as
well, namely connecting the novels to looming remnants of World War I and its effect on the minds
of those who were forced to experience it. The profound sense of loss that accompanied World War
I created yet another way for Tolkien to be interpreted and found popular in a contemporary
audience, by appealing to their “identification with the experience of losing a tradition that provides
an overarching sense of meaning.”148 In the context of the war, the great disillusionment was shown
am.” Even so, he admits to having affection for the Welsh language and how it describes those mad elements. Fimi
describes it as a love-hate relationship with “things Celtic.” Fimi, 156-157.
146
Parker, 599.
147
Smith, 77-78.
148
Smith, 76.
in people “turning their backs on the western tradition;” providing Tolkien with the opportunity to
create an “imaginative reconception of tradition through fantasy.”149
What exactly does the “western tradition”150 mean? How is his connection to the western
tradition shown in Lord of the Rings? In attempting to answer this question from a historical
perspective, it becomes necessary to evaluate the text independently of its fantasy genre. As Mary
Bowman elegantly states: Tolkien’s work to create Middle Earth included “tales of people and events
which, within the fictional world, are historical rather than fictional.” Tolkien admits himself in the
Foreword to Lord of the Rings that he has a preference for “history, true or feigned.”151 It seems, then,
that Tolkien’s work in writing Lord of the Rings was primarily an historical exercise rather than
theological; while he speaks out against imposing religious allegory on his work, he enthusiastically
welcomes an historical view. But what is the historical view?
For Tolkien this exists along two main routes: his engagement with literary history and with
early medieval culture. To cite a short example of the first, Aragorn’s telling of Lúthien’s story (a tale
of an elf woman who falls in love with a human and therefore becomes mortal) is directly
reminiscent of Dante’s Paolo and Francesca. Just as Paolo and Francesca152 were consumed by
insatiable desire that went against either lover’s best interests, Aragorn uses the parable of Lúthien to
help describe his own love for an elf princess as “a treasure no less dear than the treasure of Thingol
that Beren once desired.”153 In Aragorn’s statement the tension between real history and Tolkien’s
149
Smith, 81.
Perhaps relating to the idea of an alternative Middle Age? Tolkien’s work is geared towards rebirth, from the
resurrection of Gandalf the White to the re-emergence of power among Men.
151
Bowman, 278.
152
Interesting to note that Dante’s Paolo and Francesca directly relate to the story of Lancelot and Guenivere; not
only are the lovers reading about Lancelot when they kiss, but their relationship mirrors that of Lancelot and
Guinevere. Inferno V, Hatcher and Musa, 97-100.
153
Bowman, 279.
150
invention is clear: while the sentiment being expressed is directly relatable to Dante, in the context
of Middle Earth it is traceable back to Middle Earth’s own set of historical documents.154
Accepting all of that to mean that Lord of the Rings is both an historical work and, as
previously discussed, also able to be interpreted under a religious lens, what about the missing
element of romance that would tie it neatly in with the varied genres of previous Merlin stories?
Citing Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism, scholar George H. Thomson affirms that Lord of the Rings
fits the six phases of a romance: birth of the hero, innocent youth of the hero, the quest, the
“beleaguered castle and the monster controlled by the virgin,” assertion of fertility and establishment
of a romance between lovers, and the transition from active adventure to contemplation.155 Middle
Earth is large and full of rich characters who exemplify these narrative pieces, but for simplicity
these phases can be represented as follows: the birth of Frodo, his easy youth in Bag End living
among the peaceful Hobbits of the Shire, the instatement of the Ring quest, the assault of Minas
Tirith and Éowyn’s defeat of a Ringwraith, Aragorn’s marriage to his elvish bride, and the retirement
of the Elves, Gandalf, and Frodo upon completion of the Ring quest.156
Further, Lord of the Rings follows the traditional medieval and early modern pattern of a
tapestry romance, or a series of stories brought together into a single mythos that, theoretically,
could continue beyond the main narrative.157 A comparable example would be the Arthurian
romances, where each knight of note has his own tale in the search for the Grail but are all
connected to the grand narrative of Arthur’s rule. Also similar to the romances, as seen in discussion
of the Vulgate, the driving quest for the object of power (in the Vulgate, the quest to find the Grail
and in Lord of the Rings the quest to destroy the Ring) overpowers any individual narrative; just as
154
Silmarillion and the Red Book of Westmarch, for example.
Thomson, 43-48.
156
Fellowship of the Ring 1-10, 266; Two Towers ; Return of the King 75, 90, 310 .
157
Thomson, 48
155
Merlin was pushed aside in the overall Vulgate to serve the grander plot, so are the supporting
characters in Lord of the Rings, even while both worlds include a wealth of material to develop those
supporting characters.
This melting pot of a world seems perfect to contain a Merlin of its own, but does it? The
primary magical figures in Lord of the Rings are its Elves (like Elrond and Galadriel) and Wizards (like
Gandalf the Grey/White and Saruman the White); magic lies beyond the race of Men, except when
Men are gifted their own rings of power and subsequently become corrupted by them. Already there
is a disconnect with Merlin who was, even with his demonic heritage, human and his human magical
successor Viviane. Are Men in this world too weak to handle magic? Or are the magical beings who
are able to use magic more human than they would appear?
Another barrier to attempting to discern a Merlin figure in Tolkien is Lord of the Ring’s
seemingly strict way of presenting the goodness or badness of its magic users. Merlin is a conflicting
figure: his powers are both demonic (his ability to cast spells and manipulate nature) and divine (the
power of prophecy) and it is his actions that define him as a power of good in the world, even
though he is treated with caution. In Lord of the Rings, though, characters seem to have more
explicitly defined functions, given even in their names. Gandalf’s Elvish name Mithrandir, for
example, can be related to the Zoroastrian savior Mithra who, like Gandalf, is resurrected into a
purer form; or, less outlandishly, Sauron’s name which translates into English as, loosely, “learned
reptilian,” marking him as the Serpent, a traditional Christian symbol for evil.158
Even so, due to the presence of supreme magical evil in the land in the form of Sauron,
distrust can still be seen towards benevolent figures like the Elves and Gandalf. In a particularly
striking scene in the film adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf is met with a chilly gaze
Parker, 606. The full translation given by Parker is “the ‘learned reptilian suggestion’… the Worm, the Serpent,
and thus evil. Reminiscent of Simon’s power to persuade by his power.
158
from two local Hobbits as he makes his way through the Shire with Frodo on his cart; his response
is to release some fireworks for the children present, which elicits a smile from one adult Hobbit and
a continued scowl from the other.159 Granted, Gandalf does have a history in the town from his
previous adventures with Bilbo, but the core reason of the Hobbits’ distrust of Gandalf is that he is
from the outside; he is other, he represents adventure and a disruption of the regular program of
peaceful Hobbit life.
Generally, though, in Middle Earth Gandalf and the Elves are regarded with at least respect
due to their incredible wisdom and good actions. They compose the magical counterpoint to
Sauron, who is the darkness of Middle Earth and Gandalf particularly embodies the trope of ‘old
wise man,’ advising the Fellowship in their quest to destroy the Ring.160 Gandalf in this system is,
then, somewhat reminiscent of Merlin in his purpose: as the Arthurian legends expand, Merlin is
relegated to being an advisor, a giver of mystical knowledge to help Arthur and his knights on their
own quest. Strangely, Gandalf and the other Wizards also mirror Merlin in their origin. In the realm
where the Wizards come from before arriving at Middle Earth, the Wizards are creatures known as
Maiar, an intensely magical class of being (a class which also encompasses the entity known as the
Balrog).161 The Balrog is the closest thing in Middle Earth, Sauron excluded, that resonates as
demonic, a being of fire and ash; the Wizards are only differentiated from the Balrog through their
choice of action: the Balrog remains a destructive force while the Wizards decide to dedicate
themselves to betterment.
To increase the amount of strange resonance Tolkien’s creation has with the Arthurian
mythos, if one looks at the overall story and the function of magic within it in somewhat
reductionist terms, one sees a parallel in reverse of the Grail quest. The Grail quest is the search for
159
Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 14:00-14:30.
Thomson, 50.
161
The Silmarillion, Valaquenta, “Of the Maiar.”
160
the most powerful of holy objects where Lord of the Rings is the quest to destroy the most powerfully
corrupt of objects162. Merlin, as a primary magical figure, is essentially a helper on the quest; he has
his own mysterious methods, but his role in the Grail universe is to be a mystical guide. In Lord of the
Rings this power to guide and the power of wisdom is distributed among its magical races, but there
are still relatively few who directly aid the Fellowship on their quest (and none so hands-on as
Gandalf).
Also like the Arthurian world, there are few but exceptional women characters. Galadriel,
Éowyn, and Arwen, like in Monmouth’s world are powerful and aristocratic. Tolkien is surprisingly
conservative in his use of women characters; all three of the above have their specific places in
which they remain, not travelling and being part of the men’s adventures except when part of a
caravan or when travelling towards a marriage. One also notes the seeming lack of evil women or
temptresses in his universe as are common especially in the Arthurian romances. They are all written
to have power in their own right, but true to a universe that mimics the medieval period they are
excluded from the main action due to their inability or unwillingness to travel and the quest for the
destruction of the Ring is chiefly driven by its male characters.
In reading scholarly interpretations of Tolkien’s world, a strange tension appears: while the
primary driving force of the novel is a quest for destruction, scholars seem to agree that Tolkien is
not only teasing out the end of an era (in both Middle Earth and in reality), but also creating a space
to rebuild in the face of loss. Smith writes that, “One explanation for the appeal of Tolkien’s fiction
can be found in contemporary readers’ identification with the experience of losing a tradition that
provides an overarching sense of meaning;”163 Parker draws out that not only are the magical
creatures like the Elves and Dwarfs slowly fading out through the series, but that because Tolkien
162
Parker, 604. Bowman, 286. Bowman explicitly pulls out the idea that Lord of the Rings is Arthurian because of
this quest, even though its purpose is destructive rather than exploratory.
163
Smith, 76.
has “ransacked the available mythologies” and effectively created a “reflection… of England before
the triumph of Christianity,” the loss of magical creatures in Middle Earth can be directly related to
the Celtic story of “that island which sank beneath the wave,” which we would understand to be
Avalon.164
Whether Tolkien intended to follow in the lineage of Arthurian legend or not, the parallels
for readers remain, especially in the role of magic and magical beings in the narrative. The question
becomes what to do with those parallels? How does one begin to think about the Ring quest in light
of those parallels? Like the Grail, it tests the goodness of characters, but, instead of the Ring
disappearing if the test is failed, if one fails they become like the Ringwraiths or the unfortunate
Gollum, smitten with its power and disfigured; it truly takes a Hobbit of exceptional character to see
the quest through, and even Hobbits fail occasionally in the face of its power.165 Even with his
occasional failings, though, Frodo in particular is an ideal character: humble, pure of heart, and
cautious but brave when necessary, making him a prime candidate to handle such an object.166
Where the Grail represents hope and a departure from the magical into the realm of the
holy, the Ring represents pure corruption of… of what? Of power? Of magic? It was forged to be a
source of great power but its maker and user, Sauron, imbues it with evil arguably as great as the
Grail’s imbibement of good. But even though the two objects are opposites of each other, the
power they hold in their respective worlds are similar and Lord of the Rings seeks to put an end to its
immeasurably powerful object in a way unthought of in the quest for the Grail. The main quest of
Lord of the Rings is determined to bring an end to the object and its power, determined to free Middle
Earth from the influence of such a power.
164
Parker, 604-606.
Thomson 52.
166
Bowman, 283.
165
This frenzied need to bring a source of magic to an end is something seen in every iteration
of Merlin’s story included here. Merlin is always isolate in the end and rendered powerless in the
world. The means change, but the result is the same and after his removal from the world of men, a
new quest for the Christian Grail emerges. The tension between the magical and the holy is resolved
through the object; who needs a wild magic man when God’s power is in the world in the form of
holy men and holy objects?
Attempting to view the Ring as an anti-Grail raises its own problems. Namely, how can one
interpret what it represents? Like in Arthur’s world, does it symbolize the removal of magic from
Middle Earth, as the flight of the Elves seems to suggest? Is one to take it as a corrupted Grail that
is being removed from the world, or as a continuation of the Grail in a world where it was obtained
and its owner was unable to handle the responsibility? It seems a stretch to imply that Tolkien is
using the Ring to symbolize the destruction of the Grail and its theological values in a world that is,
in his own words, not Christian, but in his own words the possibility exists if the reader but think it.
Regardless of what exact flavor of mystical energy is being lost with the destruction of the
Ring, its role as representing the end of a mystical era is clear. Somewhat less clear is the possibility
of the rebirth of the mystical in Middle Earth. While the Elves and Wizards who contain the magic
of the age remove themselves upon conclusion of the quest, there is one Elf who remains: Arwen.
Further, Arwen marries a Man, Aragorn, with whom it is expected that she will have children who
would then be half-Elf, half-Man. Although the full-blooded and complicated magical beings of
Middle Earth leave it for its own good, magic has the potential to be reborn, this time in the world
of Men, and this time without the corruption of the Rings of Power.
In Tolkien’s world, the loss of magic is not permanent; it is given a way to remain, to spread.
Though diluted, in the future of Middle Earth who is to say that magical abilities would not be able
to manifest themselves in Arwen and Aragorn’s descendants? Given Tolkien’s vehement arguments
in On Fairy Stories, it would be reasonable to connect this sense of possibility and the rebirth of magic
to Tolkien’s own goal of prioritizing fairy stories and magical stories as adult stories to be considered
critically in academia and fiction; the prevalence of The Lord of the Rings in popular culture and the
wealth of adult fantasy literature written since would imply that such a rebirth went beyond the
world of Middle Earth.
b. Part Two: The Female Lineage?
Another facet of the prevalence of Arthurian themes in modern literature comes in the form
of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon. As Tolkien’s work as well as a number of other, less
popular fantasy struggled to find their ways into the public eye, Bradley decided to pursue a career
writing science fiction. But, after reflecting on the Tales of King Arthur by Sidney Lanier and stories
like Bellini’s Norma, she decided to undertake the project of writing her famous interpretation of the
Arthurian legend that focused heavily on the role of feminine spirituality and druidism in the magical
climate of Britain in King Arthur’s time.167
The setting and cast are familiar, but her interpretation of the cast is wildly different than
anything seen before. Its timeline is from Arthur’s conception to his death, via a flashback from the
narrator, Morgaine (Morgan le Fey); rather than women taking a more passive role in the face of the
actions of the men, Bradley writes the epic from the point of view of her female characters. She
solidifies Avalon as a mystical island of solitude for the druidic culture of Britain that is dominated
by priestesses (with Viviane as the High Priestess), distinct and separate from the rest of Britain
where Christianity is beginning to take hold.168 This physical separation makes it possible to divide
the women into two groups: the familiar image of a medieval woman in Britain with Igraine and
Gwenhwyfar (simplified from here on as Guinevere), and the magical image of woman of Avalon
represented by Morgaine and Viviane.
Igraine and Guinevere form two sides of a coin where Igraine is a woman raised on Avalon
and married into British culture to fulfill her destiny to conceive Arthur and she is filled with
determination to “do as was best for her people, whether it meant going to death in sacrifice… or
167
168
Paxson, 110-111.
Bradley, ix-9.
marrying where it was thought meet to cement alliances.”169 On the other side stands Guinevere, a
lady not from Avalon who is meek, deeply unhappy, afraid of the outside world, and almost
fanatically Christian, and frequently described as having her face “burn” when addressed by the men
in her life, or frequently finding that she “could not breathe” in anxiety when addressed.170 Both
women are restricted to their places of dwelling upon marriage and are extremely limited in what
they are capable of doing outside of the patriarchal structure surrounding them.
In contrast, the ladies of Avalon retain their independence and are able to move between
Avalon and Britain at will. Viviane, as High Priestess, generally attends to affairs on Avalon, such as
the training of novices and caring for the community, but is ultimately responsible for many key plot
points in the narrative, most notably Igraine’s marriage171 (and therefore the birth of Arthur) and
Morgaine’s participation in the rituals of Beltane, where she conceives Arthur’s child172, in spite of
being his sister.
In this new system of telling Arthur’s story, where does Merlin fit? In her version, Bradley
shows her thorough research by making Merlin into a title rather than a person’s name, and
throughout the course of Mists this title is passed from the old keeper (Taliesin) to a man named
Kevin.173 Far from becoming the heroic and wise magician of the previous iterations of this story,
however, the Merlin is instead representative of a betrayal. Not only does Kevin have a romance
with Morgaine that ends badly for both of them, he is the strongest voice among the old world
proclaiming that Christianity will win out in the end (consistently prophetic as with his other forms),
leading him to betray Avalon to the Christians. As punishment, Morgaine sentences him to be
buried underneath a great oak and to, “forget all, to be reborn without priesthood and without
169
Bradley, 4.
Bradley, 448-449.
171
Bradley, 4.
172
Bradley, 218.
173
Bradley, 183.
170
enlightenment… A hundred lifetimes will [he] return, Kevin Harper, always seeking the Goddess
and never finding her.”174
This effectively removes him from the playing field as a positive powerful figure in the story,
despite his ability to effectively deal with the male-centric Christian world outside of Avalon’s
borders, a luxury not permitted to the women of power in the novel. Further, in the tradition of
Monmouth’s Merlin he is credited with the conception of Arthur, but in this version that duty is
taken over by Vivianne, who sends Igraine off to marry. He is only Kevin Harper, a man who
inherited the title of Merlin from the great Taliesin, who the reader spends half of the novel getting
used to and learning to respect as the Merlin. He seduces women including Nimue, Viviane’s
granddaughter, who kills herself after being forced to betray his misdeeds, despite being next in line
to be the Lady of the Lake (who holds the most power in Avalon, even above the High Priestess).175
He becomes the harbinger of doom for Avalon and its practices while Morgaine survives to clean up
the mess.
Bradley shreds the Merlin character and instead introduces a world in which women are the
strong players in the tension between old magic and new Christianity, and in doing so creates a new
tension: the tension between women of Avalon and the women outside of it. There is open hatred
from both sides, shown when Nimue and Viviane visit Camelot to speak with Guinevere; to put it
lightly, “Nimue and Vivien also share a feeling of contempt for most other women” and Nimue
“despises the maidens of the court.”176 In this moment of hatred, Bradley tastefully represents the
opposing kinds of women usually seen in the romance: the obedient, noble lady (Guinevere) and the
shameless seductress (Nimue), but in this version the two are brought together through a High
Priestess (Viviane) for the sake of cooperation.
174
Bradley, 799-801.
Bradley, 808.
176
Fuog, 73-75.
175
Ultimately this cooperation proves to bear no fruit as, despite all of their machinations,
conflict ensues: Arthur is mortally wounded by his bitter son and Britain’s ties to Avalon are
irreparably severed. In a last effort to save him, Arthur is brought by Morgaine back to Avalon but
to no avail, and his stubborn “wound does not go as it should.”177 Where the Vita described
Morgana bringing Arthur back to Avalon to treat his wounds and to live the rest of his days in exile,
Bradley decisively ends his reign, keeping to her stance that Avalon is no place for a man of power
to reside.
Throughout the rich drama of the novel and after many deaths, the only woman left
standing of the great cast of Avalon women is Morgaine, who takes up the mantle of High Priestess
and Lady of the lake. In the end-point of the novel, after its incredibly rich tapestry of drama and
spite, she is become who she states in the introduction: “wise-woman, priestess, Lady of the Lake,”
able to transcend the barrier between Christian and pagan under the belief that “all the Gods are one
God.”178 In coming to terms with herself, she also comes to terms with the fact that Avalon’s time in
Britain has ended and “turned her back on the convent and walked down to the Lake,” where she
crosses the mists one last time to get to Avalon and disappears.179
There is an implication in the novel that Avalon disappears with her, although it is not
explicitly stated; the misty disappearance of Morgaine into Avalon and then of Avalon itself
continues with the theme explored in examining Tolkien of a retreat of the magical from the world.
As the Merlin foresaw, the new world of Christianity wins out and the old world is made to
disappear, but this time the secret of magic and of the old ways rests exclusively in women’s hands.
Bradley’s labor of love, though shorthanded here for the purposes of this project, is an
exemplary piece in a literary trend of reclaiming Arthurian stories under new perspectives. These
177
Bradley, 329.
Bradley, ix-xi.
179
Bradley, 876.
178
new tellings of the stories are both fantasy and science fiction, even expanding into the world of
comic books.180 The characteristics of the new age of Arthurian storytelling are consistent with
Bradley’s work: Arthur represented as less than the golden boy (extreme in Mists, given his
incestuous child), praise of previously negatively regarded characters such as Morgan le Fey, and a
wealth of feminist literature.181
The value of these branches of Arthurian study and creativity we can begin to see in Mists.
Rather than magic as an unknown force used by unknown processes, Bradley focuses in on her
interest in druidic religions to form a community dedicated to training priestesses who, to the
Christians, are considered ‘magical.’ In doing so she brings to the modern eye understanding of the
tensions in the world of Arthur between emerging Christianity and the old ways, and understanding
that perhaps magic isn’t so magical as we think: perhaps it has its own traditions, methods, and
book. She presents it as something genuinely sacred to characters a reader can find rapport with.
While the gender politics of Mists is not entirely true to how it would have been in Arthur’s
time, Bradley teases out the interesting question of who would have really had magical power
according to the old ways. In the iterations of Arthur seen before this, power was always in the
hands of Merlin until he met his end or until it passed to a successor. The romances opened a door
for Merlin to lose his power not through retirement in the woods but through seduction by a
woman, with various iterations of the story showing Merlin with different levels of awareness of the
seduction, ranging from knowing and consenting to being truly tricked by Viviane and Bradley takes
this idea of feminine power to its logical extreme.
It makes one wonder, though: as a modern writer, Bradley’s understanding of her reading
about feminine spirituality and its convergence with her reading of the Arthurian legends led her to
180
181
Matthews, 3.
Matthews, 3.
create a story in which women held almost a monopoly on the magical power of the old ways. She
creates the question for herself and her audience of what happens to Avalon? What happens to the
women of Avalon? Could Avalon possibly re-emerge?
Taking that train of thought and attempting to apply it to the context of a world in which the
Vulgate and the other romances flourished, one wonders what the people hearing about Viviane’s
monstrous betrayal of Merlin or of his mother’s seduction by a demon could have thought about the
role of women in magic.
Remembering the transformation of the Witch of Endor into a horror figure, it has to be
questioned whether stories like Merlin’s provided fuel to the proverbial fire of what grew to be the
witch scare of the Early Modern Period or, given the popularity of the Arthurian stories, rather to
what extent the stories impacted people’s view of women and magic. The Bible itself casts a natural
suspicion on women: after all, it was Eve who first bit from the apple in Eden and then caused her
husband to do the same.182 It is beyond the scope of this project to delve into the demonic and rich
history of witchcraft, but the question comes up of whether witchcraft is yet another means by
which magic becomes re-introduced into the world after Avalon disappears into the mists.
182
Genesis 3:6.
9. Conclusions?
The journey began by questioning how we define magic. What emerged was a beautifully
intricate image of magic as a crossroads of how to approach the unknown, a delicate struggle of
perception between what is science, what is religion, and what is other.
As Christianity pushed to be the dominant ideology in the early Middle Ages, rules and
regulations restricting magical practices increased, but the stories of magical people and events
endured. This project attempted to dive down the rabbit hole of magic’s survival in narrative by
exploring how the ancient title of magus and the concept of magical Other found their ways across
time in the stable legends of King Arthur and Merlin and, tentatively, found a connection.
The greatest difficulty in this attempt has been to find a balance between pure literary
analysis and the pieces’ historical contexts, drawing out how a writer’s voice could represent not only
the story being told but also how that voice attempts to define magic and magic users in constantly
changing genres and cultural norms of the times the works were written. The works presented, while
representing a limited view of the entire catalog of materials available about Arthurian legend, were
chosen primarily because of their fleshy portrayals of Merlin.
Even with a limited view of all the materials available on the subject, it has been amazing to
see just how resilient magic has been. Despite the consistent theme of the removal of the magical
figure of Merlin from the world, he and magic always return. Every time they take a new form,
whether it be the prophet/magician Merlin, the wise old man, or the demonic and mysterious helper
figure, there was always a need for magic, even upon the removal of Merlin (and the variety of
power he represents, also seen in this project as the magic of Avalon or the Wizards’ power in
Middle Earth) from the world.
The idea of successor became the puzzle to solve. Can Merlin be split neatly as in the Vita
into the scholar and the prophet, where his demon-caused madness is healed from him and his
successor is part of his bloodline? Or can magic be written down, taught, and passed on as Merlin
passed his knowledge down to Viviane? Does the knowledge of magic have to be stolen from the
powerful? Is it a knowledge or is it an innate skill (perhaps brought on by contact to the demonic?
Looking into modern fantasy, we see writers struggling with these questions. Tolkien
decided the best route for succession was to invest magic into certain kinds of being who would
then mingle with Man to unknown results; Bradley suggests that the power was in women all along
and that their traditions may have continued, albeit away from the mainland of Christianity.
Beyond the realm of strictly Arthurian fantasy, though, there seems to be a growing need in
(young) adult literature to explain and use magic. In the Harry Potter universe, for example, magical
students (who are born with the ability) are brought to Hogwarts where they learn multiple facets of
magic to have a truly well-rounded magical education. In Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, set in
modern day America, there is a university for people who possess the magical talent necessary to
successfully complete a strict entrance exam. In less institutionalized versions of magical education
such as in Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, magic is taught to two people chosen by two
competing educators for the sake of a contest.
Looking once more at our definitions of magia, we can see how its close relation to the word
magi has persisted. No matter the version you read, Merlin as magician is deeply learned. Whether it
comes from his prophetic knowledge, through his demonic knowledge, or through his study may
remain unclear or inconsistent, but the need for such a force to be used with knowledge and wisdom
remains clear. While modern fantasy may be able to delineate magic from a purely genetic
succession, it retains magic as something closely related to knowledge.
That leads to a second point: can it be said that modern fantasy’s concern with teachable
magic also works to eliminate the ‘other’ principle of magic? Who in a world like the world of The
Magicians is considered the other? In the modern stories another ghost of Merlin persists: how do we
classify the magic user? While Merlin had demonic origins that made him a mad wild man in
Monmouth’s telling, he was still a character of good. There were those who feared and demonized
him, but in the end his works redeemed him. In modern stories, the conflicted magician remains. As
in Tolkien there are many examples of bad magic and bad magicians, they are always balanced by
good magic and magicians, and the reader is drawn to sympathize with both kinds.
Yet there is still a stigma against magical stories. In his essay On Fairy Stories, Tolkien writes a
powerful and lengthy statement about this stigma, stating that the bias that connects children with
magical stories as strongly as “the connexion between children’s bodies and mind” is misinformed,
an “error of false sentiment.”183 Where does this stigma come from? At the time this was written,
medieval Church no longer was the power promoting anti-magical sentiment, and Tolkien himself
was a Roman Catholic who found himself interested in magic.
With examples like the parents across the United States who moved to ban Harry Potter from
public schools due to its magical content, it has to be said that religious bias against magic has by no
means disappeared entirely, but it is no longer socially monolithic power that it was in the Middle
Ages. What rules now in secular society is the third branch of the crossroads, scientia. The Latin word
itself means knowledge, but as the modern science, it is understood to mean the ability to
demonstrate and recreate a process. Is magic viewed as childish because of the rule of science in our
post-Enlightenment world? Is that why there is a push in fantasy to figure out what it would look
like to teach magic?
This project opens up more questions than it answers, but it does make clear that the
medieval crossroad of magic has carried on. We may know how electricity works, or at least be able
to understand it as a machine built by man (even from an early age), but how do we deal with what
we currently have no way of knowing? Have we become re-enchanted? Our dynamic of how we
183
On Fairy Stories, 11.
relate science to magic to religion is drastically different than it was when Merlin’s stories were being
told and then written down, but the tension between those methods of understanding remains and
so does our use of narrative to describe it.
As a personal anecdote to attempt to bring the project into real life, in the last week there
was a lively debate in a fairy tale class I’ve taken this semester around the reason popular culture has
a need to reinvent fairy tales in film. When prompted by the professor to attempt to answer this
question, as well as to try and explain why people make the changes that they do to the tales (for
example, placing Maleficent, the villain from Sleeping Beauty into the role of hero, villain, and helper
in the remake Maleficent), a classmate said, to paraphrase, “We just refuse to demonize the Other
anymore. If there’s something or someone we don’t understand we do our best to understand.”
What happens in the world of Mists after the island disappears? In that world, people are
born with the Sight and other gifts, but traditionally went to the island to train; without the island,
one has to assume that the gifted would simply remain in Christian Britain. What would happen to
those people? Would they be labelled as witches? Would they repress their skills for fear? Would
secret universities or training institutions spring up?
In the real world, magic is something that existed and that was driven out. Is it possible for
the Mists scenario to play out? Eastern religions as well as religions like Wicca (that encourage and
teach magic use) have become popular; real life witches came together to curse Donald Trump and
got attention by the news;184 adult fantasy is rapidly becoming more magical. Although impossible
for a project of this magnitude to pin down if a mechanism is at play that encourages the resurgence
of magic, it has tried to figure out how people access it in their imagination. Is it a biological trait? Is
it a tool? Is it more? I would say that here, at the end of the journey, it is more applicable than ever
184
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39090334, http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/02/25/witches-castspell-donald-trump-crescent-moon-removal-office, http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/how-donaldtrump-is-making-witches-and-christians-fight-again-w468647
to assert that magic is indeed a crossroad linked to multiple roads and that we can reach an
understanding of how different roads lead to it.
Perhaps this conclusion is biased due to the exclusivity of the subject addressed. Merlin does
not represent all kinds of magic, he represents an evolution of medieval magic: part prophet, part
natural magician, part sage, part demon, and connected to the past and future he is representative of
the confusion of attempting to disentangle magic from its counterarguments; he and it persists, even
if locked in a tower.
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