Was Merlin the Wizard a Real Person?

Was Merlin the wizard a real person? The legend grew out of a man the old stories of the north call Lailoken, and the Welsh call Myrddin Wyllt, Myrddin the Wild. He saw something in a battle that broke his mind, ran into the forest, and said things about the future that nobody wanted to hear. A couple of months ago I stood at Merlin's grave at Drumelzier in the Scottish Borders, where the Powsail Burn runs into the Tweed, and found a rusted marker nobody can read.In this episode:The madman in the forest, and the three deaths he foretold for himselfHow Geoffrey of Monmouth made the wild man into Merlin in the 1130s: the boy with no father, the falling tower and the two dragonsMerlin's hand behind every turn of the King Arthur legend, from the conception to the sword in the stone to the lakeNimue, and the most powerful man in the legend shut under a stone by his own teachingThomas the Rhymer's rhyme about Merlin's grave, and the flood of 1603Why we keep Merlin on a screen and leave the real thing to rust by the riverWhat have you seen that you've stopped saying because nobody wanted to hear it?If you want to look at what you already know, start with the Atlas.

The Atlas names the pattern running your life in a single sitting. It takes about forty-five minutes and costs nothing. Begin at codexofthearchitect.com, or here: https://app.codexofthearchitect.com/get-started?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=pod-537This is the last of five episodes on the stories that won't die: Robin Hood (Ep 530), Supernatural (Ep 532), Excalibur (Ep 533) and King Arthur (Ep 535).If this stirred something up, leave a comment wherever you're listening.

How this page was made: the text is the episode's own show notes from The Architect Speaks, written by Michael Lauria.