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Post by lorna on Jun 6, 2016 11:56:31 GMT -1
Link to my review of Scotland's Merlin by Tim Clarkson. This clearly written and well-researched book traces the origins of the Arthurian wizard to a Dark Age warrior who fled in madness from a terrible battle and found solitude and discovered the arts of prophecy in the forest of Calidon/Celyddon in southern Scotland (then part of the Old North). One of Clarkson's more contentious claims is that Merlin was a Christian. I grapple with that and other questions in the review. lornasmithers.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/review-scotlands-merlin-by-tim-clarkson/ |
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Post by Heron on Jun 7, 2016 9:24:05 GMT -1
Link to my review of Scotland's Merlin by Tim Clarkson. This clearly written and well-researched book traces the origins of the Arthurian wizard to a Dark Age warrior who fled in madness from a terrible battle and found solitude and discovered the arts of prophecy in the forest of Calidon/Celyddon in southern Scotland (then part of the Old North). One of Clarkson's more contentious claims is that Merlin was a Christian. I grapple with that and other questions in the review. lornasmithers.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/review-scotlands-merlin-by-tim-clarkson/Looks interesting. Familiar ground but it's good to see it being re-traced. The Christian thing, I think, results from the surviving Myrddin sources being so much later that the period in which he would have lived. So we might think they are bound to have that gloss on them. Also, as they were copied out (in Caerfyrddin!) at this later time there were plenty of opportunities for confusing his name with the town, which is not the same as saying that his name did not exist independently before this confusion took place, and in quite another part of the Brythonic lands. |
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