Author : Markale Jean
Title : Merlin priest of nature
Year : 1995

Link download : Markale_Jean_-_Merlin_priest_of_nature.zip

Merlin the enchanter is universally known. He has had the good fortune of becoming a popular figure not only through literary texts but also by way of numerous adaptations for children, comic strips, and films in which he appeared with King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. But that does not mean that one really knows this exceptional figure. For the most part, the source of all the adaptations has been the English text of Thomas Malory who, drawing upon various sources, recapitulated in Le Morte d’Arthur, sometimes brilliantly, the great fantastic epic of the Arthurian knights. The text of the version called Lancelot in Prose has been equally useful, particularly in its development of the enchanter’s love affair with the fairy Vivian. We know neither the real person who gave birth to the legend and in whose name we possess poems in the Welsh language, nor the original form of the legend - that of the Wild Man, the man of the forest - that contains all the recollections of an ancient mythology linked to Carnival, to Gargantua, and ultimately, to druidism. Moreover, confusion has arisen from the different adaptations. Merlin has been considered a simple sorcerer or magician, when in fact we are dealing with a divine representation. Especially among the French public, the belief still exists that Merlin is a character from folklore whose domain is the forest of Paimpont-Brocéliande in Armorican Brittany, when in reality he is a native of the Scottish Lowlands. Having had occasion to write a dramatic text on the forest of Brocéliande for French televisions, and having myself played the role of Merlin in this evocation, I was struck by the ignorance of our contemporaries as to the precise role and significance of this fabulous (in the proper sense of the word) figure who far surpasses the amusing profile that we are sometimes offered. ...