Myrddin Wyllt
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Myrddin Wyllt (pronounced [murθɪn wuɬt]) or Merlinus Caledonensis is a figure in medieval Welsh legend, known as a prophet and a madman. He is the most important prototype for the modern composite image of Merlin, the wizard from Arthurian legend.
Myrddin Wyllt appears to have been an historical person living in 6th century Britain. He was probably born sometime around AD 540, and is said to have had a twin sister called Gwendydd or Gwenddydd. Myrddin Wyllt is said to have gone mad after a certain battle in AD 573. He fled into the forest and lived with the animals. There he is said to have found his gift of prophecy.
Myrddin reportedly prophesied his own death, which would happen by falling, stabbing, and drowning. This was fulfilled when a gang of jeering shepherds drove him off a cliff, where he was impaled on a stake left by fishermen, and died with his head below water. His grave is reputed to lie near the River Tweed in the village of Drumelzier near Selkirk, although nothing remains above ground level at the site.
[edit] In Welsh literature
The earliest (pre-12th century) Welsh poems that concern the Myrddin legend present him as a madman living a wretched existence in the Caledonian Forest. There he ruminates on his former existence and the disaster that brought him low: the death of his lord Gwenddoleu, whom he served as bard. The allusions in these poems serve to sketch out the events of the Battle of Arfderydd, where Riderch Hael, King of Alt Clut (Strathclyde) slaughtered the forces of Gwenddoleu, and Myrddin went mad watching this defeat. The Annales Cambriae date this battle to AD 573, and name Gwenddoleu's adversaries as the sons of Eliffer, presumably Gwrgi and Peredur.
A version of this legend is preserved in a late fifteenth-century manuscript, in a story called Lailoken and Kentigern. In this narrative, St. Kentigern meets in a deserted place with a naked, hairy madman who is called Lailoken, although said by some to be called Merlynum or "Merlin", who declares that he has been condemned for his sins to wander in the company of beasts. He added that he had been the cause for the deaths of all of the persons killed in the battle fought on the plain between Liddel and Carwannok. Having told his story, the madman lept up and fled from the presence of the saint back into the wilderness. He appears several times more in the narrative until at last asking St. Kentigern for the Sacrament, prophesying that he was about to die a triple death. After some hesitation, the saint granted the madman's wish, and later that day the shepherds of King Meldred captured him, beat him with clubs, then cast him into the river Tweed where his body was pierced by a stake, thus fulfilling his prophecy.
Welsh literature has examples of a prophetic literature, predicting the military victory of all of the Celtic peoples of Great Britain who will join together and drive the English – and later the Normans also – back into the sea. Some of these works were presented as prophecies of Myrddin; while others such as the Armes Prydein were not.
[edit] Geoffrey of Monmouth
The modern depiction of Merlin began with Geoffrey of Monmouth. His book Prophetiae Merlini was intended to be a collection of the prophecies of the Welsh figure of Myrddin, whom he called Merlin. He included the Prophetiae in his more famous second work, the Historia Regum Britanniae. In this work, however, he constructed an account of Merlin's life that placed him in the time of Aurelius Ambrosius and King Arthur, decades before the lifetime of Myrddin Wyllt. He also attached to him an episode originally ascribed to Ambrosius, and others that appear to be of his own invention. Geoffrey later wrote the Vita Merlini, an account based more closely on the earlier Welsh stories about Myrddin and his experiences at Arfderyd, and explained that the action was taking place long after Merlin's involvement with Arthur. However, the Vita Merlini did not prove popular enough to counter the version of Merlin in the Historia, which went on to influence most later accounts of the character.
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