The Prose Merlin in Middle English

[ecosophia]

Dipping a toe back into the water after a long dry spell...

Just now I'm doing the research for a nonfiction project that centers on the legends of the wizard Merlin, and so I've been reading (or rereading, in some cases) a lot of medieval Arthurian literature. The book on the end table right now is The Prose Merlin, edited by John Conlee, and I'm startled to find it's not just a good source for research -- it's a really lively read. 

Okay, it's in Middle English, which may not be everyone's flagon of ale. Still, the author (nobody knows who he was any more) knew how to write. Here's a bit from an early chapter. Merlin is at Vortigern's tower; they've just drained the underground lake and revealed the two dragons sleepng there: 

"Tho spronge up the two dragons and foughten togeder with teeth and feet, and never herde ye of so stronge bataile betwene two bestes, ne so crewell fight. And so they foughten to mydday, and the peple semed that the reade sholde overcome the white, till that the white threwe so much fiere and flame that he brente up the reade, and so was he deed. Then the white leide hym down to reste for werynesse, and ne lived after but thre dayes. And thei that this syen seyde that never so grete merveile hadde be seyn beforn."

(If that doesn't make sense, try reading it aloud.) 

There's a lot of lame Merlin fiction out there, so it's good to run into a reminder of just how lively the legend was before the purveyors of canned fantasy got to it. 

Comments

Thanks plus Merlin and Vortigern as a mythic archetype

[neonvincent]

Welcome back to Dreamwidth! Both your most recent blog post and this entry are demonstrations that you do grant reader requests, in this case, mine. Thank you.

As for the topic of the entry, I'll note that much is made of The Hero's Journey in myth and legend. That is the story of the quest for the Holy Grail, if not of Arthur himself. However, the authors of "The Fourth Turning" note there are other archetypal tales. Merlin's interaction with Vortigern is one of those they use as an example of the Prophet's Journey. It's on page 77.

They also have stories about Nomads (Rogues) like Aladdin and Artists (Good Children) like the Little Dutch Boy, which are on page 77 and 78. There is more than one way to live a noteworthy life in myth and legend.

Re: Thanks plus Merlin and Vortigern as a mythic archetype

[ecosophia]

That's a very important point. The notion that there's just one kind of mythic narrative -- a monomyth, in Joseph Campbell's unfortunate phrase -- is to my mind an unusually cramped sort of Procrustean bed. In fact, the Grail legend is one kind of story -- a tale of loss, quest, and recovery; the story of Arthur himself is a very different kind of story -- a tale of glory and its fall; the story of Merlin, if you pay attention to all of it, is yet another kind of story -- a tale of the irruption of nonhuman power into the human world, and the human being who as child, man, and elder must mediate between the two. (Then there's the story of Taliesin, which is a straightforward tale of initiation.) There are others; the old Arthurian literature is immensely rich in types of tales.

[auntlili]

I love Middle English exactly because you don't have to learn it. It's like getting your ear accustomed to a brogue. Once you've identified the variation in constituent sounds, your brain makes the necessary adjustment and off you go. Secretary hand is another matter. Having to identify unfamiliar letters in addition to orthography is quite challenging, especially if you're trudging through legal documents, which were no more lucid then than they are now. Long, long sentences with parsimonious punctuation. So it's a real delight to see Middle English in a modern typeface.

Current Mood characters

[(Anonymous)]

Yay, endless page checking rewarded. I always wonder where the "current mood" ideograms come from. This one is "xue" (rising tone), in basic Chinese meaning "to study" or "school" - hence "geeky" makes sense. Are these by any chance something from the I Ching?
-Dewey

Re: Current Mood characters

[ecosophia]

Heck of a good question. Dreamwidth has a doodad that allows you to put in "current mood," and I thought the ideograms looked less goofy than the other options. ;-)

Arthurian sources

[(Anonymous)]

Are you familiar with The Realms of Arthur by Phillip Boardman? It is apamplet published by U Nevada Press.

Rita