Mixed FairyTales And Stories

The arrival of Merlin the Wizard at the King's Court

a time, long before the inhabitants of Britain wrote down their histories for us all to read, that country was inhabited not just by people like you and me, but wizards, ghouls, monsters, dragons, tricksters, and worse, demons. And just as the mythical gods in ancient Greece and Egypt had relations with humans, so did these ghouls and demons, and their offspring had strange magical powers that no other creatures on this earth possessed. It is rumoured that is how Merlin came about, his mother a poor noble woman and his father a diabolical ghoul. One dark, sleepless night a ghost came up to me and told me how a long, long time ago, when he still lived his life as a king in Britain, he made the acquaintance of Merlin the Wizard. This is his story.

My name is Uther Pendragon, and I was the third and youngest son of a great king, Constans. When I was still a young child, my father died, and as a result my life was in danger of death. This is how it came about. My oldest brother, and my father’s heir, Constantius, had spent his youth and early manhood in a monastery. He showed scant interest in affairs of state, tournaments, battles and such knightly pursuits as a king’s son is normally trained for. So by all accounts he was not a very good king when he succeeded my father. My father had fought many battles with invading Danes and Saxons, and had always successfully defended his realm, but these foreign invaders rejoiced greatly after his death, when they heard that Constantius the Monk, as people referred to him, had been crowned king. They calculated they would have more success against him. So it came to pass that they raised a great army and invaded Britain.

Now my father had always enjoyed the full support of a quite brilliant warrior and knight, by the name of Vortigern. When my brother Constantius called on him to help him raise an army to take up arms against the Danes, however, Vortigern sent a message to say he was too old and weak. All the battles he had fought for my father had taken their toll, and he was not half the man he used to be. Or so he claimed.

Constantius did what he could, and he did have the support of many of the barons and knights who had been loyal to my father, but the Danes were too crafty and strong, and they inflicted a heavy defeat on my brother’s forces. Havoc and chaos ensued, the Danes went virtually unopposed in their campaign of rampage across the countryside, killing knights, farmers and peasant alike, taking their women and their worldly goods, and occupying their castles and their homes before destroying them and moving on to the next. So the good barons sent a delegation to Vortigern, as they knew full well that Constantius would never be strong enough to drive the Danes back into the sea.

This Vortigern was not just a good warrior, he was ambitious and crafty, unscrupulous, even. He said he would not lift a finger to fight the Danes on behalf of Constantius the Monk. However, he indicated that if a situation arose where Constantius was no longer in the picture, now that would be a different story.

When the barons received this message they were temporarily thrown into a quandary. But then some of them rode into my brother’s castle and murdered him without further ado. My remaining brother, Aurelius and I were still but children, too young to succeed to the throne, so the barons offered the throne to Vortigern, and he, unsurprisingly, accepted the position and immediately set about organising an army to engage the Danes.

During this time some of my father’s most loyal friends took my brother Aurelius and myself out of the country, and across to sea to Brittanny, or Little Britain as it was then commonly known, in a country which you now know as France. This was done in order to protect us, because these good barons knew Vortigern well, and reasoned that he might well mean to have us murdered so as to stop us laying claim to the throne at some point in the future.

Vortigern eventually succeeded in defeating the foreign invaders, and drove them out of the country. A great feast was organised to celebrate the success of the military campaign, and all the barons and knights who participated were invited to join King Vortigern, as he now was. At this great feast, the men who had killed my father came up to Vortigern, and demanded their just reward for this deed, which had resulted in Vortigern becoming King. But Vortigern reasoned that he could not really afford to reward the murderers, as this might encourage others to do the same thing to him. So he feigned to be indignant and horrified, denying that he, Vortigern, had anything at all to do with Constantius’ death and immediately had the men seized and thrown in jail. The men were charged with regicide and condemned to death. But these barons had very influential friends, and before long an insurrection started against the king.