The Merlin

By Benjamin Parsons

Down-to-earth falconer Rowland is determined to marry his childhood sweetheart Rowena, just when her life is turned upside down by bereavement, illness and debt. A strange old jeweller forges the perfect engagement ring for the proposal, but Rowland refuses to pay the unusual price the jeweller demands. From that moment on, Rowland is drawn further and further into the realm of the supernatural, as everything he loves slips away from him. Part of the collection The Green Man and Other Stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benjamin Parsons
• Release date: Jan 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215795729

Benjamin Parsons

I am a writer and artist from the Westcountry of England now living in London. I write and illustrate stories about love, hate, ambition, revenge, beauty, and the supernatural.

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The Merlin

by Benjamin Parsons

Copyright 2023 Benjamin Parsons. First published in 2009.

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There was a young woman called Rowena who had great faith in her beliefs and her feelings; and there was a young man called Rowland who had great faith in the practical and straightforward —and Rowena. His faith in her was perhaps his most earnest and devoted doctrine, but also the hardest to adhere to, because his pragmatic turn was often at odds with her more emotional and creative outlook.

She lived with her father, who was a sculptor and painter, in a Cornish country cottage, with a view of woods and hills, and tors on the horizon. They were not rich, or even well to do, as the parent’s business must suggest, but they did well enough for themselves. Rowena’s father was gifted with both talent, and a taste for creating what would sell. He drew on myths, legends and old romances as subject-matter for his works, and sold fairly everything he made at Tintagel, where the spell of Arthurian mystique still creates an inexhaustible demand for artworks and souvenirs on the theme. Whenever he painted, carved or cast something new, he would name it, and tell his daughter the story of it, recounting the legend that had inspired him; the things he produced needed to be woven into a folktale history to give them their special appeal.

So surrounded by, and involved in, a world of storytelling and legend from the earliest age, it was natural that Rowena should be interested in, and stimulated by, this world; but her interest stretched further, into the belief that there are sides to things that we can’t see, influences we don’t appreciate, forces we can’t detect and truths we won’t recognise. She would go to Tintagel with her father and bring back books that discussed such ideas, books that accepted and sought to understand these mysteries. They described the apparent and the hidden as linked; that not only are there four elements (earth, air, fire and water), but four elementals to represent them too, and besides these, realms of spirits and angels and more things than God alone in his Heaven. It used to be commonly believed that the movements of stars orchestrate our lives, that gods and demigods push us every which way, and that on the other side, the underside of this world, is another, a fairy world, and only thin veils separate the two; Rowena, often meeting people who still believed these things, began to believe them herself.

Rowland admired her vision (indeed he admired her altogether), but his was a very different disposition. His father was a metalworker, who specialised in bedsteads, and among the six siblings Rowland grew up with, there was little inclination for ethereal thinking. It may be that he admired Rowena because she was such a contrast to his own plain-dealing and boisterous relatives; but nevertheless, their stamp was upon him, because he was fundamentally plain-dealing too, no matter how he interested himself in Rowena’s pursuits.

When they first met as children, they had made a great play of being half alike in all things, because they shared half a name, and from this nominal alliance a friendship and understanding had developed that, unusually for childhood playmates, developed into a romantic attachment as they grew older.

Rowland worked near Rowena’s home as a falconer, training the majestic birds to hunt and show off their skills for displays. The girl would often sit for countless hours watching them wheeling and gliding through the air, vanishing into the distance as Rowland sent them out, and gracefully returning to his summons. He was tender and stern with his elegant wards, and gained their respect; they, in their turn, gained his devotion. Rowland was a relaxed, gentle man; quiet, because keenly alert and perceptive. His eyes were more expressive than his tongue, and they reflected entirely his thoughts. When he spoke, it was to the purpose, and Rowena was accustomed to, and happy with, his laconic manner.

A favourite haunt of theirs was a shady grove in Rowena’s garden, where her father had erected a sculpture in the long grass. This artwork resembled a giant, twisted sword