Then said Merlin to the King's magicians, "Tell me, ye false men, what is there under the pond?"
But they were afraid to answer.
Merlin turned to King Vortigern and said, "Command the pond to be drained, and at the bottom you will see two hollow stones, and in them are two dragons asleep."
The King had the pond drained, and he found all just as Merlin said it would be. And as the King sat on the edge of the drained pond out came the two dragons, one red and one white, and, approaching each other, they began to fight, blowing forth fire from their nostrils. At last the white dragon got the advantage and made the red dragon fly to the other end of the drained pond.
When King Vortigern asked Merlin to explain what this meant, Merlin burst into tears.
Then commanding his voice, he spoke: "In the days that are to come gold shall be squeezed from the lily and the nettle, and silver shall flow from the hoofs of bellowing cattle. The teeth of wolves shall be blunted and the lion's whelps shall be transformed into sea-fishes."
And unto this day nobody knows exactly what Merlin meant, or what Geoffrey thought he meant, although there has been much guessing.
Geoffrey must have been very fond of looking out of his window and seeing Merlin, for many a story he tells about him. There is the story of how Merlin helped to remove the stones of the Giants' Dance from Ireland. Giants of old had brought them from the farthest coast of Africa. They were mystical stones and had value to heal and cure men. When these stones were found too heavy to be lifted by human hands, Merlin found a way, nevertheless, to lift them. Then the stones of the Giants' Dance were carried across the sea and placed in England at Stonehenge. It is an exciting story Geoffrey tells about the Giants' Dance, yet I fear we know no more really how the big stones got to Stonehenge than we know about the ribs of our solid earth. Certainly those stones were set up in Stonehenge even before men began recording history or Geoffrey of Monmouth sat in his golden window.