Merlin's Cave
The prophet Merlin, a clever synthesis based on far more ancient characters, first appears c. 1135 in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regnum Britanniae or History of the Kings of Britain; Geoffrey also wrote a Vita Merlini (Life of Merlin) and added a sequence of "Merlin's Prophecies" to later versions of his Historia.
Geoffrey blended two older story-strands: a long-lived British folkloric tradition of a "Wildman of the Woods," sometimes called Lailoken and, later, Myrddin, and a story from Nennius' Historia Brittonum or History of the Britons of a fatherless boy called Ambrosius who prophesies the doom of King Vortigern. This composite character Geoffrey called "Merlin Ambrosius" is the source for the Merlin the Magician we know today.
In Geoffrey's conception, Merlin is the son of a nun of royal birth, engendered by a demon; this half-human origin becomes over time the source of Merlin's prophetic powers. In Robert de Boron's old French verse Merlin, he "plays a redemptive role as mediator between earthy chivalry and the heavenly plan of salvation: he oversees the conception of Arthur, creates the symbolism of the Round Table, and prepares Perceval for the Grail quest" (William W. Kibler, The Arthurian Encyclopedia, Garland Press 1986).
Merlin's position in the popular imagination as a great seer was secure from Geoffrey's time onward; political "prophecies of Merlin", tuned to the times, were still being published well into the seventeenth century, the best known perhaps being The Life of Merlin, Sirnamed Ambrosius. His Prophesies, and Predictions Interpreted; And Their Truth Made Good by Our English Annalls. Being a Chronographicall History of All the Kings, and Memorable Passages of This Kingdome, from Brute to the Reigne of our Royall Soveraigne King Charles, written by Thomas Heywood in165
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