Merlyn:

Wizard Extraordinaire

    Merlyn (commonly spelled "Merlin") was known as the greatest wizard of all time.  Along with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, his existence is shrouded in mystery. There are many different adaptations of how Merlyn came to be and why.

Merlyn was an old magician in the time of knights and magic. Whether or not he was an actual wizard, or a person for that matter, is unknown.

There are many different stories of his upbringing. In the book, The Sword and the Stone, T.H. White describes that his father was a Daemon and his mother was a Gael, which is a race of the Old Ones. The Old Ones were of ancient, royal blood, long before King Arthur.. Another story of his birth was that his mother was a nun that was seduced by an evil spirit.     Both fathers, a daemon or an evil spirit, had magical powers, which gave him his magic. Since his mother was a nun, he could only use his powers for good. Merlyn had great powers over three specific elements: water, stone, and metal.

Examples of these great powers are impaling an anvil, such as he did in The Sword and the Stone. He could also make stones float on water, control stormy seas,  and could make the walls of Camelot throw people off itself.   Merlyn could also see the future, due to being born backwards in Time.   However, King Arthur did not always believe his premonitions. 

    Although he was a wizard and had magical powers, he still was vulnerable to human weaknesses. Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, forced Merlyn to fall in love with her. She tricked Merlyn into teaching her various spells and incantations. When she learned all of his spells and no longer needed him, she used one of his own spells to imprison him in an oak tree. He will have to stay in the oak tree until the Lady of the Lake relents.

Merlyn's power's have been said to have created some of today's most mysterious relics. Some people say that it was Merlyn who arranged the stones of Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, England. Stonehenge was believed to have played a vital part in Druidic rituals. It is believed that the structure was used in rituals for the passing of seasons, because of it's use also as a massive sundial. The stones are positioned so that when midsummer day comes on June 21, the sunrise will be visible behind a central stone know as the Heel Stone

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