Merlin: The Prophet and His History

By Geoffrey Ashe

Geoffrey Ashe's book on this legendary figure offers a succession of surprises. The Merlin of legend was born to be a magician. He was 'immaculately' conceived and was able to interpret dreams and utter prophecies. Even his fate was imbued with magic. Like Arthur, he acquired immortality and sleeps on Bardsey Island, in a subterranean chamber with nine companions. Ashe reveals the man behind the myth, establishing beyond doubt the historicity of a Welsh prophet called Myrddin Emrys. Despite his 'supernatural' status it is Merlin, of all the great characters of the Arthurian world, who has the strongest claim to have existed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Nov 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9780752475424

Geoffrey Ashe

Geoffrey Ashe (1923–2022) wrote several books, including King Arthur’s Avalon and The Discovery of King Arthur. Widely regarded as one of the leading Arthurian specialists in the world, Ashe became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1963 and was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2012.

Reviews for Merlin

[ed9pendragon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ashe produced his first book on the Arthurian legends – King Arthur’s Avalon – in 1957, and fifty years on he still returns to the Matter of Britain, most recently in this overview of Merlin (first published in 2006 as a hardback by Sutton, now subsumed into The History Press). In his own words Ashe “traces the evolution of the legend, the growth of Merlin as a character, his possible historical aspect, and the principal treatments of him in literature,” and adds a supplementary list of modern transformations. There is a select group of illustrations which reflect different aspects of Merlin’s developing story, and a useful bibliography (would that it had been divided up into fiction and non-fiction).Ashe was famously described as a “middlebrow” author, and here he writes with his customary confidence, born of long familiarity with the material, eschewing scholarly references (or even, disappointingly, an index) and revisiting old themes of his. As always, he writes with flair and ease, and there is the usual oblique approach to some of the strands he teases out which means the subject is illuminated as if by flashes of lightning. This is, above all, a personal response, as befits someone who lives on a site in Glastonbury chosen as Merlin’s “nest” by novelist Persia Woolley.