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- [00:01]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis.
- [00:03]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaenega and we're.
- [00:05]
Matt Lewis
Just popping up here to tell you some insider info.
- [00:08]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
If you would like to listen to.
- [00:09]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
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- [00:14]
Matt Lewis
History Hit with the History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries such as my new.
- [00:21]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Series on everyone's favorite conquerors, the Normans.
- [00:25]
Matt Lewis
Or my recent exploration of the castles that made Britain.
- [00:29]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
There's a new release to enjoy every week.
- [00:32]
Matt Lewis
Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe or find the link in the show notes for this episode.
- [00:49]
Mario Lopez
Hey, what's up? It's Mario Lopez. Back to school is an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming and kids may feel isolated, a vulnerability that human traffickers can exploit. Human trafficking doesn't always look like what you expect. Everyday moments can become opportunities for someone with bad intentions. Whether you're a parent, teacher, coach or neighbor, check in, Ask questions. Stay connected Blue Campaign is a national awareness initiative that provides resources to help recognize suspected instances of human trafficking. Learn the signs and how to report@dhs.gov blue campaign.
- [01:28]
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- [02:32]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Jennica and welcome to Gone Medieval From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the Normans, from Kings to Popes to the Crusades, we Delve into the rebellions, plots and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here. Let me tell you a story. It's a tale that begins with love, turns to betrayal and ends in the silencing of Britain's most fabled wizard. Merlin had guided kings, brokered peace and shaped the rise of King Arthur.
- [03:29]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
But even a wizard can't foresee everything. Or at least he can't escape fate.
- [03:35]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Once it's set in motion. Merlin spoke often of a white serpent, a woman of beauty and power, who would be his undoing. That woman was the lady of the Lake, foster mother to Sir Lancelot, mistress of hidden magic and important in this version of the story.
- [03:54]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Merlin's lover. At least for a time.
- [03:59]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Merlin and the lady of the Lake met in the forest of Avarsannes. He is besotted, she isn't.
- [04:08]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
She smiles, accepts his company, even shares his bed.
- [04:12]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
But in her heart she despises him. She has never forgotten their first encounter when, as she tells it, he used enchantment to take her virginity in exchange for teaching her magic. Now she's resolved to turn his own arts against him. For 15 months they live together in a hidden dwelling deep in the forest. Merlin, blinded by desire, teaches her everything.
- [04:40]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
How to work with herbs and gemstones.
- [04:42]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
How to weave words into spells. How to lock a place so that.
- [04:45]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
No one can open it. He believes he still knows more than she does. But he does not.
- [04:54]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Her plan is trap him somewhere he cannot leave.
- [04:58]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Not in death, but in a prison.
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Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Of stone where only his spirit can speak. One day she coaxes him to lie inside a tomb like chamber under the pretext of resting together when they're happiest. Merlin knows, he even says it aloud.
- [05:16]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
That he cannot escape his fate.
- [05:18]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
And yet he still agrees to it. The lady lowers the COVID seals it with magic that cannot be broken, and tells him exactly why. She says this is revenge. You taught me the spells, the locking enchantment. You took what was mine to give. Now you will die here and your prophecies will be a ghost's echo. Merlin's body would rot, he warns, but his voice would remain.
- [05:52]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And indeed he continues to speak from.
- [05:54]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
The tomb to chosen visitors, delivering visions for centuries. The lady sails away, tells the Bishop of Wales what she has done, then returns to her lake to raise Lancelot and his kin. She has removed Britain's greatest sorcerer. A deliberate retribution for deceit and magical coercion. And so Merlin's prophecy of his own downfall comes true. Even his greatest magic cannot save him. From the consequences of the past. This version of the legend of Merlin.
- [06:30]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And the lady of the Lake is.
- [06:31]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Not quite the usual one we know from Malory's Le Morte to Arthur. It actually comes from a largely forgotten and until now untranslated book about Merlin and King Arthur, which includes much that is new and exciting about the legendary king and his magical advisor. This discovery was made by the late Martin Haverkamp, a lecturer and researcher at the Hague University of Applied Sciences. An avid collector of rare medieval books for more than 20 years, he acquired a French book from 1498 titled the Prophecies of Merlin that claimed to be prophecies given by the legendary magician. The book was really a compilation of documents collected by an unknown 13th century monk. Working with Arthurian expert John Matthews, Martin spent five years translating the mysteries hidden in this obscure book, which has culminated in the completion of the first English translation of a rare text nearly forgotten for more than 500 years.
- [07:37]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And it's full of surprises. It includes the story of Merlin's birth as the son of a demon, how he was born already able to speak, how his magic ensured that he wasn't.
- [07:47]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Killed by his babysitter, and details of that fatal attraction to the lady of the Lake. It shares stories of Sir Percival's first contact with the Holy Grail and King Arthur's connection with the legendary mystical King Prester John. And it includes early Welsh prophecies attributed to Merlin, prophecies compiled by historian Geoffrey of Monmouth. I'm delighted that John Matthews is joining me for this episode of Gone Medieval to tell us all about the prophecies of Merlin. John has authored more than 100 books and teaches and lectures around the world. On a more somber note, I noted very briefly above that Martin Haverkamp, who found and translated the prophecies, has passed away. It bears mentioning that his loss was incredibly recent and rather suddenly, which is a great loss to scholasticism as well as his loved ones.
- [08:44]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And I'm very, very excited that John has been able to join me to.
- [08:48]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Celebrate their work together today. John, welcome to Gone Medieval.
- [08:55]
John Matthews
Thank you. Hello.
- [08:56]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
So excited about this one because I, as you know, someone who is quite interested in prophecy and preaching, have been a long time admirer of the Prophecies of Merlin. I'm wondering, just to start us off, for those who are not giant nerds like me, can you tell us a little bit about the Prophecies of Merlin? What do we know about the origins of this tradition?
- [09:20]
John Matthews
You have to begin a little bit by looking back at the origins of Merlin. So if that's okay, I'll start with that. Yes, and that in itself is interesting because there's not one Merlin, but at least three, possibly more. But it starts off with the very earliest version that we know of, which is approximately 6th century, around about the same time when King Arthur was around. At that point, there was a real character who lived on the borders between Wales and Scotland, whose name was Merthyn, which is the Welsh spelling, Merlin. And he was known as Merthyn Bilt, Merlin the Wild. Because what happened was, and this is historically true, as far as I know, there was a great battle and he saw a lot of his friends and relatives being killed and it drove him mad. So he ran off the battlefield into the forest nearby, the Caledonian Forest. And he lived there for we don't quite know how long, but quite a while, we think, just living on whatever he could catch. And he stayed that way for quite a long time. And in the process he wrote poetry, which has survived amazingly. And in his poems, he spoke to wild animals, he had a wolf, he had a pig, he spoke to a tree, he wrote poems. And the poems started out as, I'm lost in the wilderness, everything's terrible. And then very gradually they began to be, I see this, I see that. And that was the beginning of the prophecies. And some of them have still have survived, as I say, from that period. And they were mostly, as in a lot of the prophecies are, and were things that had actually already happened. This is the big trick about the prophecies for this kind. They're not usually looking ahead to a time where you can then say, Merlin foretold that, but that is what people were saying. But the point is that a lot of times they were being written of the event. The first version that we have that's actually called the Prophecies of Merlin, is a 13th century, 1, 1279 to be precise, which was gathered material gathered together anonymously in a manuscript and released. And it caused a lot of interest and medieval writer called Geoffrey of Monmouth, who is famous for having wrote something called the History of the Kings of Britain, and he compiled some more prophecies and it became a sensation. It was the medieval bestseller. People were making copies of the manuscript and passing them round. And so when he did his King, his History of the Kings of Britain, he included the prophecies in there and told the whole story of how they came about. It's a long story, so I'll just be brief and say that he was believed to be A prophet and proved himself to be one, basically. So that story gathered momentum from the draft of the 13th centuries when the first official collection called Prophecies of Merlin was published. And that was very successful too. And thereafter through the years, people kept on bringing out another volume. So it'd be like an anorak. It was like Merlin's Prophecies for this year, Merlin's Prophecies for that year and so on. And by the time we get to the, to the 15th century, which is when our version in the book that we're going to be talking about came along, it was, it was a kind of standard thing. It was Prophecies of Merlin. Prophecies of Merlin. Prophecies of Merlin. What makes this one so different and why we were so excited by it was the fact that it was compiled by an anonymous scribe, we think a monk, probably from Venice. And it became one of the first printed books, the first in Cannabula. And it was printed, I've got the exact date written here because I keep forgetting it, in 1498 in Paris by a very famous French bookseller called Antoine Verar, who had a shop on one of the bridges over the Seine. And he put this together and it again, it became very successful. And then gradually as we get into the later periods, once we get into the 16th and 17th century, there was much more hard headedness. Oh, prophecies, rubbish. We don't want anything about those. Merlin who's. That never existed. So they gradually lost interest in it, if you like. And then if you jump forward a long way to our own time, around about 19, the 1940s and 50s, there was an interest because the 13th century manuscript came to light and one or two scholars looked at it and then one of them did an edition. But in this she said, this is rubbish, it isn't worth reading. I don't even know why I'm making all this translation. Look at it. It's rubbish, don't bother. And everybody believed her. And so nobody bothered to reprint it, nobody bothered to translate it into English. Until our version, there had been no modern English translation of the Prophecies of Merlin, apart from the ones in Geoffrey Munler, which are completely different. So then what happened was that my co author Martin Haverkamp, who was a collector of medieval manuscripts, went to Paris to buy a book or manuscript on Charlemagne. And when he got to the store, the guy in the store said, I'm really sorry because it's gone, but would they disinterest you? And he handed him the process of Merlin. Ah. Martin went, yes, okay, I'll take it. Then he came back, and this was in 2017. He came back and he. And then he got in touch with me and he said, look, I've been translating some of these. What do you think? And I thought, prophecies of Merlin. We've all heard that they're not worth bothering with, but in fact, they were very interesting, and not so much for the prophetic part as the additional material. Because, as if you've looked at the book, then you know that it's not so much the prophecies, but the stories around them, which were completely new. Now, I've spent most of my life studying the Arthurian legends. I've written a great deal about it. I thought I'd seen and read everything. These were completely new. And that was what got me excited. And so eventually Martin and I agreed to work on this together. And hey, presto, there's the book. But. And it was full of amazing stuff.
- [15:57]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I mean, it really is. And you know, from my standpoint as a social historian, that's. That's exactly what really sets me on fire, is seeing what the prophecies are embedded in. And you've got this really unusual mix of different types of texts because, you know, there's the prophecies and there's the Arthuriana, which I expect to see, but you also have things like crusade narratives, and you have polemics about politics and you have varying religious allegories. Why do you think we see this. This really interesting, I guess, melange of ideas here?
- [16:37]
John Matthews
One of the things that you have to understand about the prophecies generally, or about prophetic literature at this time, from about, let's say, 13th to 15th century, they were seen because they were anonymous, except attributed to Merlin. You could say what you liked, and that gave you an excuse to be able to attack your nobles, your kings, your emperors, your churchmen, and say all kinds of things that would have got you into a lot of trouble. So this is one of the reasons why you get this huge thing. You'll have realized that in the underlying material of the book, there's a lot about the Antichrist. Now, at that time, everybody was expecting the Antichrist to show up any day, and that would be it. We wouldn't have battle on earth between heaven and hell, and probably hell would win. And they believed that certain people had all the qualities and aspects that made them represent the Antichrist. So one of the main contenders, if you like being identified with the Antichrist, was Frederick I, and then Frederick II who was the Holy Roman Empire at the time. And they, both of them didn't like the Church and they stood up against the Pope and they pointed out a lot of the things that were going on that undoubtedly were going on. And so suddenly, in the middle of all these prophecies, you'd suddenly get, the Antichrist is coming and it's probably him. This sort of thing is there all the way through. This is why you get Merlin having conversations with prelates who start off by being, oh, he's nasty pagan, he must be evil. And end up going, actually, he's quite wise. And the nice thing is that all the people who write down his prophecies, the ones whom he addresses throughout the whole of the text, in every single sent. Every single paragraph starts with, listen, take this down, write this, listen to what I'm saying. And it makes it very real, of course, it sounds like a real person really talking to you. And then he'll say, right, now, listen to this. And he'll say, anything. And of course, it can all go in there. And one of the things that I liked most about this, one of the things that really excited me was the way it presented Merlin not as this rather remote magisterial figure full of magic, a sort of Gandalf, a kind of Harry Potter kind of character, but as a real person, because he comes across as a real person. And he was a bit of a naughty boy, too. Quite openly and flagrantly teaches magic to various young ladies in return for their favors. There's no question of that. It's stated quite clearly, by one person at least, and there are lots of hints and flus. And of course, one of the really interesting stories is the one where he has a relationship with this Morgan le Fay, who, for those who don't know, Arthur in legend is one of the big bads. She's one of the ones. She's Arthur's half sister. She hates him and she does her best to bring down the kingdom. And in various versions, there are different aspects of her that get associated with Merlin. So sometimes she's called the lady of the Lake, sometimes she's called Nimue, but in this version it's Morgan. And she really gets everything she can out of. Squeezes every drop of knowledge and information out of Merlin, but really hates him. She pretends to love him, she obviously sleeps with him, but she really hates him. And. And then in the end, she's got so much magic that she's able to lock him up in a cave under the ground where he'll be left to die. But, of course, being Merlin, his body may just decompose. And he even tells us at one point that my body is turning to dust, but my spirit lives on, and his spirit continues to prophesy and to speak words of wisdom. So everybody wants to try and get fine Merlin's tomb, and that's another whole story. But a lot of it is just this incredible, rich resource of knowledge and information that comes across as being Merlin's words. Whether they were or not, of course, is open to your own inclination.
- [20:46]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I love this idea that they were Merlin's words. That's fantastic. I'm particularly struck by the Antichrist things within here, because I guess I'm expecting to see Morgan le Fay or King Arthur show up in myths like this, but references specifically to Antichrist are a lot less usual. And I'm also really struck by the way that they get used here, because. So there's a very technical distinction within eschatological research where we say there's a difference between Antichrist narrative and Antichrist language. So ordinarily you're allowed to sort of say, oh, Antichrist might be coming and the world is going to get very sinful and we should all be good, that's fine. But if you say Antichrist is coming and he's the Pope, or Antichrist is coming and he's the King, that'll get you nicked, because A, you're telling truth to power, to very powerful people, and.
- [21:42]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
B, it makes the Church look silly.
- [21:44]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Because then when Antichrist doesn't come or the end of the world doesn't happen, then it calls into question whether or.
- [21:50]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Not there is an end of the world.
- [21:51]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And here we're getting to see Merlin deployed to point those fingers and use that Antichrist language, because you can't get mad at Merlin. I mean, like, what are you going to do? Hunt him down in the cell that Morgan le Fay created for him?
- [22:04]
John Matthews
No, exactly. Exactly. No. That's exactly the kind of use that the prophecies were put to. As I said, it wasn't about genuinely saying, this is going to happen next week and you'd better look out. It was much bigger than that. And the fact that they, as you say, they were able to get away with saying stuff that would have had them up in front of a tribunal and probably burnt at the stake in five minutes, but. But because of that, people and people believed it and they understood it. And of course, you have to remember that at the time, not many of the ordinary people could read so this was passed on mostly through the nobility, not even most. Quite a lot of them couldn't read either. But it was still passed on in generally at a higher level, shall we say. So it was clearly aimed at church fathers, at kings and emperors. So, yeah, that's. It's an important part of it. Certainly.
- [22:58]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
When you were working on this, did.
- [23:01]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
You find it difficult to sort of disentangle these various threads of narrative? You know, it's written for a very particular political milieu. There's a lot of moving parts here. There's a lot of varying characters. Characters. I mean, how did you make sense of all of this?
- [23:15]
John Matthews
It wasn't easy, I have to say. Martin, bless him, did a great job with the translation. Given that he was Dutch and English wasn't his first language. He did a pretty good job with. With 15th century French. But once you got past that, then of course, whoever compiled it probably had a pile of manuscripts right in front of him, a lot of Arthurian ones, because he obviously was very interested in the Arthurian stuff. And I feel he pushed it in there because he loved it. So there is complex. There are references that made no sense for a long time. We had to do a lot of background research. As I said, having spent most of my life studying and working with medieval stuff, I knew a lot of it really still took me out a bit outside my comfort zone a few times to have to work on it, but in a way. And there were chapters that seemed to be misplaced. So you'd get to a bit and you'd see this bit and you'd think that that doesn't follow. And then you'd get on another 15 chapters and there was the missing bit. So we had to do some reorganization as well to get it all together. But in the end I felt that it's. It is a complex one. And this is why we did such a large commentary. We deliberately put the whole text in first on its own with just footnotes for the really difficult bits, and then the whole of the commentary followed because I wanted people to be able to read it as it was read at the time. And then after that they could look and see what the detail was in the background and I hope made it clear enough.
- [24:46]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Oh, I loved that. You know, for me. And obviously again, you're preaching to the choir here, you know, the target audience as can be, you know. But I think it is really nice to have that because even if you have these very well clued in, well connected people who would in theory be readers in the past. Even then there are going to be some things that they don't quite get or they don't quite understand. So it allows you to interface with the text much in the way that.
- [25:16]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Medieval people would have done.
- [25:17]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And I thought that that was really a joy of it, if that makes sense.
- [25:23]
John Matthews
Oh, absolutely. That was as much as possible what we wanted to do. We wanted to give them an experience, as Martin himself had, of holding in his hands a book from the 15th century that had this incredible text, you know. And we couldn't do that exactly. But we did the very best we could by giving them that text as fully as possible. And we did leave out some of the more bizarre prophecies because they just didn't make any sense. It didn't matter what you did, how often you looked at them, how often you retranslated them. There were some that defeated us. And I began to understand why that scholar in the 40s and 50s had said, oh, this is all rubbish. Don't bother with it. Because obviously she hadn't been able to make any sense of it either. But there's a great humanity in it somehow, and a real sense of both the time and the place. And the mysterious forest of Brazilian where Merlin's tomb is supposed to lie was invoked. And then there's that marvelous story, my favorite in the whole book, about the monk who wants to go and visit and hear the voice of Merlin for himself. And he's told, get on, go and stand on this stone and say these words. And when he does, the stone rises into the air and flies around the world. And it's just so good. And you know immediately where he's going, because he keeps mentioning little things that he's seen, like carvings on the side of it of the cathedral in Venice, which are still there. So we know that he really has seen them. And that's why we think that the man who compiled them was from that area. But it's just that kind of. It's that human level, and some of it's quite funny as well. I always find that there are a lot of magical stones in the various stories. And there's a lovely one where Merlin and Morgan le Fay go off into the forest and find a nice house that suits them. Sounds just like today, you know, I'm rodent. Oh, that's a nice house. Let's move in. And when they move in, it says, she didn't get very much sleep because he had these stones that shone all night. And I thought, that's such a human sort of comment, isn't it? The stones are magical. So one level of you going, wow, magic stones. But on the other hand, you're going, yeah, that would keep me awake. It's lovely.
- [27:40]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
The practicalities of living with a bunch of glow in the dark stones, you.
- [27:43]
John Matthews
Know, people, or with the Merlin, for that matter, you never knew what it was going to do. Arthur himself comes in at one point. There's a story about a fairy woman coming from the other world to tell him about his own future. And of course, she's been sent by Merlin. And in the process, she tells us that Merlin spent some time in India with Prester John, which is another aspect that we'll come back to. And all the way through, there are these little points where you think, ah, okay, so you knew those stories so well. It is primarily Merlin, Morgan le Fay. Arthur gets a look in. You get one or two other mentions of the Ladies of the Lake, some of the knights, Gawain gets mentioned, one or two other characters, Percival. There's a whole section about Percival's quest for the Grail, which is interesting because it's a slight variant on all the other versions of Percival's quest for the Grail. So once again, however he did, it's. This guy had connection to other manuscripts that have probably since vanished. So that all makes it very interesting.
- [28:48]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, I thought that that was what was really exciting about this collection as well, you know, apart from the prophetic stuff, which I'm a sucker for the politics, but you get all these lovely details that are really unique very specifically to this collection. And indeed, I suppose people really riffing off of the traditions. So you've mentioned. You've mentioned Prester John here, legendary Christian king who is somewhere in the east, maybe Ethiopia, maybe India, who knows? Are there any other characters that you were really happy to come across here that usually don't show up in Arthuriana?
- [29:24]
John Matthews
Not particularly. I don't think Prester John was, for me, very interesting because he connects to the Grail legend. And the Grail legend is my speciality, if you like, of all of it. And I'd been looking for ages to find a reference to a connection with Prester John that had been suggested by a much more modern writer, Charles Williams, one of the the inkling group from Oxford that include Tolkien and C.S. lewis. He'd written a novel called War in Heaven, about the quest for the Grail in the present tense, and happened to say that it happened to have in it a young man dressed in a grave who said he was Prester John. And that he was the guardian of the Grail for our time. Then I discovered that there was a magical group called the Order of the golden dawn that also said this. And that put me on the trail. But I hadn't been able to find anything until this manuscript came along mentioning Prester John and the connections with Merlin. And that led me to find another manuscript that had been somewhat ignored, one written in German called Die Jungeurel, which in fact says that at one point, the guardians of the Grail took the sacred vessel. They were taking it to Edessa, where it would supposedly be safe. And along the way, they bumped into a large cavalcade of warriors and their leader, Prester John. And he said, what's this Grail, then? What's this object that is so important to you? Oh. And when they explained it, he said, I'll look after it. So he took it and disappeared. End of story. But it's a variation that I love, and it's things like that, little clues that come out of the. That take you off into other parts of the art of legend, or indeed into the political times. The other one I like very much is where Merlin is summoned by this group of churchmen to answer all their questions and to be obviously, in their opinion, to be shown to be fake, a phony and a nasty pagan. And after they've been talking to him for a few hours, they're going, actually, he's. And especially when he asked for the blessing of the Pope. What more could you ask? So it's a very interesting mixture of all these different aspects.
- [31:47]
Matt Lewis
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- [32:42]
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- [34:06]
John Matthews
I need a coffee.
- [34:08]
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- [34:42]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
With all of these variations on the sort of classic tales. Do you end up finding any contradictions in this about the various accounts of Merlin's life?
- [34:55]
John Matthews
Not so much contradiction. I think it boosts a lot what we know about him. The stories that have been circulating and continue to circulate for a long time show us this. You know the, the magician, he's the one who can change his shape. He can make things happen. He built the round table overnight. He built Camelot out of nothing. And when he was trying to entertain one of his young ladies, he would get a whole troupe of magical people to walk through the room playing beautiful instruments. So all of that was, that was the Merlin of fantasy, if you like. And it's the Merlin that we all love. If you look at any of the modern retellings of the Merlin story, of which there are many, that's the side that people always look for. But underneath that is a genuine prophet and a real a wise man. A wise man who advised the king, who brought about the idea of the round table, or all are equal and sit in a circle. All of those things are there. And I think they're stronger in this text than in any of the ones I'd seen previously. Always, it's always Merlin's going, oh, yeah, I can do that. And Wang. He doesn't quite get out his magic wand, but he does make things happen here as much more of a real person. And he goes through so many different people that he's relaying these information to. You know, he has his sort of amanuensis who take down everything he sells and everything he tells them. And there are different ones all the way through. Most of them are fictitious as well, and a couple that might not be, but we're not sure.
- [36:29]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Speaking of, who are the scribes that.
- [36:33]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Have written these down?
- [36:34]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Do we have any named individuals or real people? I suppose the only one that we've.
- [36:40]
John Matthews
Been able to trace at all is Richard Cornwall, who seems to have lived in the 13th century. There are references to him in ancient documents here, and he seems to have made perhaps, if not the first, then one of the first compilations of the prophecies. And in our text, he becomes one of the scribes who is taking down Merlin's instructions. The rest of them there are, I think they're about six in all throughout the book, and they are pretty much all fictitious, as far as we know. They're just like. They're there just basically to represent whoever it was putting these things together. You know, the source, if you like. They're the source. And I suspect that this may be a reference back to the number of different versions, the different volumes that came out over the years. I suspect each one was probably signed by one of these people, and therefore you use that name anyway. So, you know, they were kind. Maybe they do. Maybe they really did exist.
- [37:43]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Ah, well, you know, we. We need some mysteries, don't we, or we'd both be out of a job. I suppose.
- [37:48]
John Matthews
Yeah.
- [37:49]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Can we talk a little bit about characterization in this? Because you. You've just mentioned that Merlin is at his heart, a counselor in a lot of these stories. As someone that you would actually want around court.
- [38:02]
John Matthews
Yeah.
- [38:02]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Talking to a king and not just a deus ex machina. So what do you think this means in terms of how the Merlin prophecies are used? Is this representative of something?
- [38:14]
John Matthews
I think that people were always aware of him as being a figure of mystery, of magic, obviously, but also of wisdom. I think that's from. Right from the beginning, the very first story we have after this, after the story of him going mad in the wilderness, he is brought back to sanity by a saint who, Saint Kentigern, who's patron saint of Glasgow. And he's brought back by being taken to a shrine and given some water. And then he gets his memory back and remembers who he is, but he's still retains his prophetic abilities. And I think that was passed on. I think people thought there had been a Merlin. There must have been someone called Merlin and he seems to have been such a figure of wisdom. Of course he must have had writings, he must have done things of that kind. And there, of course, there's Geoffrey of Monmouth and there are all these other anonymous ones. Of course he did, yes. And I've got this ancient book here that was given to me by somebody and we're not sure who, if that person ever existed, probably didn't. But here's some prophecies of Merlin. Look, let me write them all down for you. And suddenly he's got a bestseller pen.
- [39:32]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I ask you a little bit about one of, I would say a fan favorite character, because the lady of the Lake does show up here. Can you tell us a bit about her and her involvement in the book? Where does the lady of the Lake come from?
- [39:49]
John Matthews
The lady of the Lake comes out of the fairy tradition that is very, a very big part of the Arthurian legend, even although it's quite well disguised. You don't. One doesn't realize, I think, until you've read through the odd hundred stories produced at, during this period, all of which I have, you start seeing these references to fairy women. They're not just. They're not just human. In fact, they're not human at all. And one of the ones that's most significant is called Argante, which means the silver one, and she is the lady of the Lake. That's the only time she's named. Most of the time she's just lady of the Lake. But her original name was Argante and she herself became something of a reference point, I suppose you'd say, for the magical side of the Arthurian legend. Because there's a lot of evidence within the stories and it's one of the things that I've spent a lot of years studying is that there's a kind of warfare, almost a rivalry perhaps between the fairy kingdom and the Arthurian kingdom. So people often say about the Arthurian world, it's all about men. It's always the boys going off an adventure and having a great time rescuing ladies. But what a Lot of people don't remember is that almost always these stories begin with a mysterious lady turning up at the court and saying, I need some help, please, my mistress has been kidnapped, or something like that. And a lot of these ones were either called Ladies of the Lake or were servants of the lady of the Lake and they were often fairy. And those are the ones that kind of guided a lot of the knights to their adventures, to their lives in a way. So to have Merlin and the lady of the Lake in a kind of rivalry, sometimes it's all right, sometimes they are both on the same page, if you like, and they're broken together, but more often than not they're rivals. So again, it sets up this struggle that's going on between the two worlds, I think for however we think about this now. Remember that at that time the whole idea of a fairy world was absolutely real. They didn't see that as something weird and made up. They saw it as an absolute possibility. And this is why there are so many stories and so much folklore about this being so. Merlin is at the center of all this and the lady of the Lake is the feminine representative. I'd almost go as far as to say she's like the female Merlin because again, she has wisdom, she knows what's going on. She's always trying to test Arthur or trying to make him understand that Lancelot and Guinevere are a bit more friendlier than they should be or whatever. There's always something like that going on and there's a whole bunch of them and quite a few of them appear in this text and they're always against Merlin. And this is where Morgan Fae comes in, because although she is part human, at least possibly has fairy blood too, she is very much allied to the, to the lady of the Lake and her kin. There are supposed to be nine ladies, nine women who are possibly remembrance of Celtic goddesses who again have great power and great ability and do know things. And they show up a lot during the context of the, of the prophecies stories and there are lots of references to that.
- [43:20]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I think this is a really interesting point because I think for modern audiences we assume that there would be some form of tension between the other world, the idea of fairies and this very Christian context that allows us to talk about Prester John, for example. But it does not appear that the people writing these things have any such qualms at all.
- [43:44]
John Matthews
No, no, the whole thing about Prester John is that just very quickly, if people don't know this, that letters pertaining to Be from Prester John were sent to the crowned heads of Europe at the time in the 14th century, saying, I'm the king of this enormous kingdom in the East. I'm here, I'll help you. I'll help you defeat the invading hordes, whatever it is that you need. And I've got a huge army. And the thing is, everybody believed this. The kings all sent letters back by messengers who vanished and were never seen again. There are several possible characters who might have been. Have inspired him, shall we say. But as far as we know, there was no such person. But it's from that that you get this sense that there's a youth to this. There's a sense that we are living in a time when anything could happen. The Antichrist could come. Merlin himself, in an interesting aspect that's more focused in this than any other text about him, is the son of a devil, it's said, and we're even told this in graphic detail. And it's something that tended to be more or less ignored later on. You get it in some of the stories. But there's this whole idea that in fact, Merlin was intended to be the Antichrist, and that the idea was that this, his mother, who was a Princess of Wales, was visited by a demonic presence, or if you prefer, a fairy being, which it is in some of the stories. And the outcome is Merlin. And Merlin is born quite normally, but covered in hair, thick, shaggy hair. And fortunately for him, there happens to be a priest on hand. The priest baptizes him, all the hair falls off and he's fine. So Merlin is then, right from the beginning, you have, oh, Merlin. Oh, could be the Antichrist, could be dangerous, could be pagan, could be monstrous. Suddenly he's okay because he's been baptized. So that lovely division that's still going on. We make a lot of assumptions when we assume that Christianity simply swept the board. I'm sure as someone who studied this, that didn't happen entirely. There were plenty of underground groups that were still continuing and was still believing what they'd always believed, if you like. And that gives something of the underlying energy, I think, to this idea of the opposition between those two sides, those two approaches, because on the face of it, when you look at it, Merlin is a pagan. That's the thing that you always get. But then in this text particularly, and in one or two of the others, but mostly in this one, you suddenly find him talking to monks and priests and archbishops and having an archbishop, actually one of his own scribes, becomes an archbishop. The Archbishop of Wales. So it's like suddenly the gap between the two sides is reduced considerably. Now you might say this is a later text. It's at a time when you could talk about these things a little more comfortably than you had in the 12th century, for instance. But even so, you still had to be careful. Hence again, the anonymity of so many of these texts.
- [47:12]
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- [47:51]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
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Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
But I'm your hype man. When you purchase an eligible device, you get $25 off every month for 12 months with credits totaling one year of free service. Tax is extra for the device and service plan online only. I think this is a really interesting one because do you think that perhaps the inclusion of figures like Prester John also is there not just to move the story forward, but perhaps to run some cover? You know, it's okay that we're doing things talking about demons or fairies because look, we've got, we've got the good Christian king in here. It's all happening within this nice familiar context. You can't be mad. Prester John is here kind of a thing, you know.
- [48:46]
John Matthews
Exactly. Yeah, I would agree. I think that's a distinct possibility. We obviously don't know for sure. We think that this was, that this guy was a monk, probably in an abbey on one of the islands in the lagoon at Venice, which I visited and which has a very large, extensive library of medieval manuscripts. And it would be nice to think that maybe he was there and he was just thinking, I'm not going to do any more Bible today, I'm going to do something else. Oh, what about that incredible manuscript and some of those stories? There's a great anecdote that I've always loved about. I set a group of monks, they're in the dining hall at their abbey and the abbot is reading to them from the good Book. And Then he looks down, he looks to see them at the table and they're nodding a bit and not really paying attention. So he stops and he said, in the time of King Arthur. And immediately everyone walked the next part of the story. So even the monks were enjoying that side of it. And there's just enough of the spiritual and moral and all the rest of it in this, I think, to tell you that the man who compiled it was probably was a Christian monk, but he also obviously had a great love for these naughty Arthurian stories.
- [50:01]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
It's one of the things I really liked about Presser John showing up as well, is it kind of repositions where we could be thinking about searching for the Holy Grail. And that reminds me rather a lot of, for example, when we think about Mappa Mundi, especially towards the end of the medieval period, you know, when, for example, you know, the Blemi are supposed to be living in Africa. And then when you learn a little bit more about Africa, you're like, oh, okay, it doesn't seem like they're a roundabout Ethiopia. Let's they, they go further and further out. You know, the dog headed people start out around in Sweden and then they end up over in Mongolia when you learn more and more and you have to keep repositioning them. And to me it seems almost like we're playing the same game with the Grail as we run out of European positions for its locality.
- [50:50]
John Matthews
Yes, there are so many, there are so many different locations in so many. I've written a book about temples of the Grail and I'm doing a follow up to that called Guardians, which is looking at all of these different things, obviously including Prester John, but lots of others. And there were obviously places. There are places still to this day. Everyone has heard of Glastonbury probably and there's supposed to be Grail there, but they're all over the place. I've seen personally about five different objects that I've been assured were the Grail. My answer to that is it's a Grail, but it's not the Grail, if there ever was such a thing. And it changes all the time. And people also tend to forget that it started out as a cauldron of inspiration in Celtic times and then moved from that into Christian symbolism and developed along the lines, but it's looking for it in different places. The Prester John thing's interesting because it brings us in some cases, as in this story, into India. And we do know that of course, St. Thomas was supposed to have gone to India and founded a Christian community there. And as far as I know, that's real, that's historically attested. And in the manuscript, we hear about Merlin spending time in India with Presto John and obviously learning from him. So one of the sources of the Prester John story could have been that termist theology of the time. Again, you would probably know that one better than me, but there are elements of it, certainly. And I think that whole thing that the Grail is a quest, isn't it? That's what it's about. It is a quest, and it takes you into all these different places and times and. And people are still hunting today. I think you always need to have something to focus on, because if it's a. If it's simply a story, if you read a story about the Grail, fantastic, very nice, magical, powerful Christian mystery, full of everything that you might want to get from it. But suppose you want something else. Suppose you want something that might take you into fairies. Suppose you want something that might lead you into a different kind of spiritual experience. Then I think that's where these things come in. And you mentioned Morgan le Fay's jewel, which I think this is another story that does not appear anywhere else. And what's so interesting is that the context of this is that Guinevere has a dream, and it's a very interesting dream about a dark child that is somehow implanted in Arthur. And of course, she goes, oh, yes, no problem there. That's Mordred. That's your illegitimate son, who will one day kill you immediately. There's this magical element that the lady of. And it takes about three different women to interpret it because the lady of the Lake or Morgan le Fay goes, can't be bothered. Lady of the Lake says, maybe later. And then they found someone and another seeress who. Who says, yes, this is obviously what it means and tells you. But again, the focus on an object is so interesting.
- [53:55]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, I was really struck also by the preponderance of objects, interesting objects in this, you know, you've got the Grail, obviously, that's one. But you've already mentioned the magic stones, you know, and you've got these stones that they glow or they can bring you around the world. You've got the lady of the Lakes virtuous gem. There are all these really interesting magical objects that show up. And so if the Grail is about the quest of the Grail, what's the significance of these other magical objects?
- [54:30]
John Matthews
This is why in the Lord of the Rings, everybody has magic Swords. There's the ring itself. These are mythical objects. Tolkien knew everything there was to know about myth and legend. And although his books are modern fiction, they're still based very firmly on very great and ancient traditions. So, in a sense, all of this, there's always this. The object brings into a sense of reality. It's something that if you're really lucky, you might be able to touch, you might be able to find. Who knows? In the most famous Grail story of all, the story of Galahad, when Galahad finally gets to get the Grail, which is very much, in this instance, the cup of the Last Supper, he looks within it, and what he sees in there is so profound that he begins. His spirit leaves him, begins to die. So there's always this sense that there is something here in this world, solid, touchable, findable. And that, of course, is immensely important. It's an adjunct to spiritual belief that I think is never quite understood or how important it can be. When you're in a church, if you're at Mass in a Catholic church, you are seeing the elements of the. The Passion. They're in front of you, and they are. They're not. This is where I have to be careful when I say they're not real. I mean, they are obviously manufactured today. That's what I'm trying to say. But what they represent brings them to the. The people who believe that their faith is. Is augmented by this. And I think it's very. That's one of the things that makes the Grail so powerful and why so many people to this day still are still seeking it and expecting to find it. And I, As I said, I've seen a few of these objects. I've stood in front of them and I've looked at them, and I thought, yes, this is a Grail, because probably several thousand people have stood where I'm standing and gone. That's the Grail. If they believe it, it becomes real in that sense.
- [56:40]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's such an important and complex interplay. It's. There's this desire on our part of the 21st century. Of course, we can all laugh about how those seven heads of John the Baptist out there, for example, and.
- [56:54]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
And indeed, it is very funny, but.
- [56:56]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
It sort of doesn't matter, because what. What is important is the belief that people have in these things, you know. Yeah, there are. There are four extant spears that pierced Christ's side. And every one of them, I would say, is a legitimate relic, certainly, you know, because what's important is the way that they're used. But I suppose I'm quite interested in how there's this tension there where I think medieval people also, you know, they've got a. They've got a pretty good handle on when you have an allegory, when you're telling a story, and they can choose. They can kind of pick up or put down the belief aspect of it as a part of this. Do you get a sense that any of the readers of these prophecies really thought that they were being fulfilled? You know, I remember the 90s, for example, when everyone would talk about, like Nostradamus's prophecies, for example. Is there a kind of similar desire to really say, this is a definitive document that is making these, or is it a bit of fun?
- [58:02]
John Matthews
Well, I think it's definitely. People believed it in many ways. The sheer success and the multiplicity of volumes of Nostradamus work, not all of which, of course, was written by him, but once again carried on it. So it's a very good parallel because people are still exploring them to this day. I was involved in a TV series on it not that long ago and trying to persuade everyone that he wasn't always talking about the end of the world. But in the same way, I think that if you. It's not always a matter of belief, it's a matter of feeling what you are feeling. You're part of something that is real, that has a substance in a way. You know, we live in a physical world. We are physical beings. And there's only so far, I think, that you can go into the spiritual realm without beginning to feel as though you're losing something, you're leaving something behind. And I think that when those elements come into the world in the same way as they do in the Arthurian stories and in other great epic things of that kind, you get that feeling of connection. It really is an entree, if you like, into a real world. And people were thinking if Merlin said that, if not said that, you know, it must be happening. Look how things were in our own millennial period. When we came up to the year 2000, we had all this thing about they were going to be some thing that would sweep through the entire Internet and probably just make it disintegrate or disappear and it wouldn't work anymore. And a lot of people really believed this and were very seriously frightened by it. And this wasn't a spiritual or a mystical thing. It was just, it's going to happen, and people didn't really know. And then I remember still talking to people and a couple of days after we got into 2000, and I said, they're still here. But it's like that sense of belief that you have a turning point in time and this. Remember that these go through five or six millennia in which the same again always. The world's coming to an end tomorrow. Oh, it didn't. And it'll come to an end the next hundred years, but whenever. And so this is why the stories of the Antichrist kept on going and kept being retold again and again.
- [60:22]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I suppose here the story of Merlin's baptism is instructive, right? Because here's a possible Antichrist who's headed off at the pass. So it's nice to have little stories like that because it shows you. Well, okay, yes, we said that antichrist was coming 100 years ago, and it didn't happen, but maybe there was a strategic baptism that saved the day and now we can do it again.
- [60:43]
John Matthews
Exactly, exactly. Yes. It was often as an excuse, I think, as well, if you really felt you were being overlooked by some noble lord who wasn't treating you well, then hearing a story about how he might have been actually a demon in disguise or something like that made you feel as though. There's not much I can do about that, except you might pop down the church and ask your local priest to say some more magical words, I suppose, as a.
- [61:11]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
As a little treat while we wrap up here, what for you were some of the most surprising features of the stories that you found in these prophecies. Was there anything particularly that grabbed you?
- [61:24]
John Matthews
As I mentioned, my favorite story was about the monk who flew around the world on the magic stone. And I forgot to say that the reason the stone flies is because the spirit of Merlin's demonic father is entrapped within it. So, still happening, you see, the magic, for me, what really excited me was the fact that this presents Merlin as much more of a human being, where, as I said earlier, we're so used to the kind of. This kind of distant, verified being, this one has feelings, he hurts, he's killed physically. So he. He is in all, to one sense and purposes, human. Maybe half human in this case, and I still prefer half fairy to half demon, but that's personal opinion, but it shows that there's something much more human about him. And for most of the stories that I'd read, that was less so. In this case, I really felt he was being presented in a way that made me able to relate to him in some way. I felt almost. I could sit down with him maybe. Not sure. I probably wouldn't know what to say.
- [62:28]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I suppose I would like just the opportunity to listen where I presented with Merlin myself, but. Well, I've had the next best thing today. But John, thank you so so much for coming by. This has been an unmitigated pleasure.
- [62:40]
John Matthews
Me too. Thank you. I enjoyed it.
- [62:44]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Thanks to John Matthews for joining me. And once again, my condolences to Martin Haverkamp's loved ones.
- [62:49]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
He's leaving behind an incredible legacy that.
- [62:52]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
I am honored to highlight today.
- [62:55]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And of course thanks to you for.
- [62:57]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
Listening to God Medieval from History Hit.
- [62:59]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And there's plenty more where that came from.
- [63:01]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
In the next episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis will be delving deeper into the legend of King Arthur. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film the Medieval Apocalypse and ad free podcasts by signing up@historyhit.com subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and.
- [63:27]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Suggestions or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [63:30]
Dr. Eleanor Jennica
And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.
- [63:58]
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