When she came back, and when she met him in the hidden garden, she caught hold of his hands, and she would not let go of them. Nor would she tell Merlin why this change had come over her, and why she would keep close to him now and not apart. At last she said to him, “What ladies and what maidens have you known, O my master Merlin?”
Then Merlin took his Magic Glass into his hands, and in it he showed her all the ladies who were at the court of the King of the Isle of Britain, and he showed her all the lovely maidens who lived in far countries and in distant castles whom he knew. Vivien threw herself on the ground with her face to the rock after she had looked into the glass.
Then afterward she watched him in a way different from the way she had watched him before. What he said and what he did she remembered well. Soon she understood his magic figures and could make them. She came to understand his magic words and to be able to repeat them. And Merlin would say to her, “O my little hawk, fly at this—and this—and this.”
One day as they wandered through a forest Vivien asked him to tell her the mightiest spell that he knew. The Enchanter told it to her. She stood still, with all her quick mind in her face, while he put aside the tangles of her red hair and spoke into her ear.
It was a spell that would hold in a place the one whom it was spoken over. When he had told her he went at her bidding and seated himself under a forest tree. Vivien, laughing, made a magic circle around him and repeated the spell that he had given her. When she did this the Enchanter was enchanted. Merlin stayed under the forest tree, and there he would stay, for he could not move until the spell that was said over him was unsaid by Vivien.
And Vivien danced around him, her red hair shaking, her bright eyes gleaming, her quick hands waving. She called to him, “Merlin, Merlin Enchanter, come to me.” But Merlin, under the forest tree, could not move. She ran through the woods and he could not follow after her. In a while she came back and stood beside him.
Said Merlin to her, “Why have you worked this spell upon me, and why have you left me here so that I cannot move?” She knelt down on the ground beside where he sat.
“O Merlin,” said she, “I would leave you here enchanted, for fear you should leave me and go amongst the maidens and the ladies who are so lovely.” And when she said that her face was so hard that he knew she would hold him there.
But Merlin smiled, and he said to her, “I would stay always where you are, Vivien, blossom of the furze.”
“Nay,” said she, “you would go from me. Why should you not? You have great works to do for the King of the land. And when you see again the ladies and the maidens who are the loveliest in the world you will not come back again to Vivien. I shall hate the castle and the garden that you made for me, and I shall hate every one who will come near me. I shall hold you, Merlin, here, even until the wolves come out at night and devour you and me.”