Witches, Scholars, and Prophecies

So the Prose Merlin is this long medieval text about the life of Merlin and his adventures with King Arthur. This text is probably one of the first to expand upon Merlin’s creation and demise in detail, and so I think it is especially important to concentrate on these parts. According to the text, Merlin is born as this almost divine being with formidable powers of perception even as a child. He can see everything that has ever happened in the past, as well as everything that will ever come to be in the future. As a writer, the first thing that I thought when I read about Merlin’s psychic abilities was, how the heck does a character like that look forward to anything (in the slang sense not the prophetic), and would anything bad ever happen to him or would he just avoid it?

To understand what catches him in the end, I think you have to know a bit about Merlin’s character. Merlin is this incredibly intelligent man – if he is a man. The best modern comparison I can think of for Merlin is Dr. Who. The Doctor is not human, can do some superhuman things (although he isn’t magical necessarily), knows roughly what has happened and what will happen, and can be depended on to swoop in and save the day when he’s needed. This is Merlin. He is half-devil and touched by God-therefore not quite human, he has the whole psychic thing, and his bros are always calling him to come save the day –which he always does.  Both characters have a knack for finding their way to the right place at the right time, sometimes it seems by accident. And this is how it seems that Merlin finds Nimiane.

Merlin is wandering through the woods in between trying to save his buddy Blase’s butt (as well as all of the people in Blase’s kingdom) when he happens upon a grove where a maiden sits by a well. Enter the demise of man: woman.  When Merlin is with Nimiane he seems like a different Merlin. The passages where they interact are the only passages I’ve read where Merlin seems like he is human. He really shows off for her, conjuring a parade of partiers and boasting of all the other amazing magical things that he could do if he wanted to. He comes off as being a somewhat flawed individual rather than the almighty Merlin the wizard. He hands secrets over to her, like how to deflect any magic he might want to use against her. She becomes a “master in the Seven Arts” (roughly translated from the middle English). Eventually she asks him to show her how she might trap him so that he would have to stay with her forever and never leave. AND HE SHOWS HER! He’s like, “Oh, Nim! I love you so much that I’ll teach you even though I don’t really want to be trapped forever. This kinda sucks. Oh, well. Here’s the spell sweetie bean.” (Not actually what he says in the text, but it’s a good summary.) It kills me that he already knows at this point that he is going to lose everything to her and goes along with her anyway. Is lust just his vice or what?

Why Nimiane? Is this text just being sexist or is it important that Nimiane is the one to disarm Merlin beyond her being a woman? I think it is important that the person who brings Merlin down be someone unlikely and possibly even someone who is or seems weaker than him. We want to think that if he had to battle a wizard a normal person might be able to take them down without the need of special powers (“Aladdin”, Eragon, Circe in The Odyssey, Rapunzel). As a medieval woman it would be accepted that Nimiane was weaker than any man just based on her sex. Nimiane might also be important in that she is a scholar. Merlin says that he can only teach her magic if she is well learned (Magic and Knowledge love each other I think). 

I really love the idea of the only pupil Merlin ever has being a woman too. Score one for witches there. Nimiane gets to be a scarier more powerful version of Merlin in that she can not only do the awesome magic stuff he does, but she can manipulate him into giving her anything. I think this speaks to part of why witches are so feared. Witches are terrifying to men in that they are women with more power than any mortal man will ever have no matter what. Perhaps that is why they were later hunted and turned into monsters when wizards never were.