“La forêt de Brocelinde,” writes Emile Souvestre, in that fascinating and half-pathetic work, Les Derniers Bretons, “se trouve située dans le commune de Corcoret, arrondissement de Ploërmal. Elle est celebrée dans les romans de la table ronde. C’est là que l’on rencontre la fontaine de Baranton, le Val sans retour, la tombe de Merlin. On sait que ce magicien se trouve encore dans cette forêt, où il est retenu par les enchantements de Viviane à l’ombre d’un bois d’aubépine. Viviane avait essayé sur Merlin le charme qu’elle avait appris de lui-même, sans croire qu’il pût opérer; elle se desespéra quand elle vit qui celui qu’elle adorait était à jamais perdu pour elle.” This statement is not confirmed in the English romance, and is opposed wholly to the sentiment of the story as conceived by Tennyson and other modern writers. “On assure que Messire Gauvain (Gawain) et quelques chevaliers de la table ronde cherchèrent partout Merlin, mais en vain. Gauvain seul l’entendit dans la forêt de Brocelinde, mais ne put le voir.” The district of Brocelinde, or Brécéliande, is rich in antiquities, dolmens and menhirs being found together with other relics of early times and the mysterious workers of the stone age. To add to the scenic attractions of the locality there are ruined castles, the remains of machicolated walls, ancient chateaux, and churches dating back many centuries. It is fitting that here, therefore, romance should maintain one of its strongholds and that traditions of the master-magician should linger.
There is yet one other legend which should be noted. It represents the magician as perpetually roaming about the wood of Calydon lamenting the loss of the chieftains in the battle of Arderydd; while yet another tells of a glass house built for him in Bardsey Island by his companion, the Gleam, in which house of sixty doors and sixty windows he studied the stars, and was attended by one hundred and twenty bards to write down his prophecies. Never was such a confusion of traditions and fancies, never were so many deluding will-o’-the-wisps to lead astray whosoever would strive to investigate the truth of Merlin’s story. That story with its abundance of suggestion makes us think of the apt words of John Addington Symonds, who said that the examination of these mysterious narratives was like opening a sealed jar of precious wine. “Its fragrance spreads abroad through all the palace of the soul, and the noble vintage upon being tasted courses through the blood and brain with the matured elixir of stored-up summers.” One needs some such consolation as this for the vexation of finding seemingly inextricable confusion.
Warrior though he was, and all-powerful by reason of his supernatural gifts, Merlin is yet represented as being a peace-maker and as paying allegiance to a “master.” He ended the great battle between Arthur and the eleven kings, when the horses went in blood up to the fetlocks, and out of three-score thousand men but fifteen thousand were left alive. Of this sanguinary battle of Bedgraine, Merlin gave an account to his master Blaise, or Bleys, journeying to Northumberland specially to do so and to get the master to write down the record; all Arthur’s battles did Blaise chronicle from Merlin’s reports. Attempts have been made to identify Blaise (the Wolf) with St. Lupus, Bishop of Troyes. The more impressive part which Merlin plays in the Arthurian drama is as prophet and necromancer. His sudden comings and goings, his disguises, his solemn warnings, his potent interventions, all these combine to strengthen the idea of unequalled influence and of awesome personality. He figures prominently in the story of Sir Balin le Savage, and it was his hand which wrote the fitting memorial of the two noble brothers. Merlin it was again who counselled the king to marry, and who brought Guinevere to London from Cameliard, darkly predicting at the same time that through the queen Arthur should come to his doom.
An ancient Cornish song, to be found in the original dialect, but in reality a Breton incantation which has come down to us from the far ages out of the abundance of Armoric lore, describes Merlin the Diviner attended by a black dog and searching at early day for
“The red egg of the marine serpent,
By the seaside in the hollow of the stone.”
Asked whither he is going he responds:
“I am going to seek in the valley
The green watercress and the golden grass,
And the top branch of the oak,