Finding the Real King Arthur part six

Tremadog Bay copyright Susan Morrison Jones

So many historians can find NO true reference at all to Merlin's. Mysterious powerful personages. Some try to say it was a name for the local Druid...prove it! I have seen historical accepted reference to one Myrddin a Bard and possibly a Druid. Other than that every English speaking historian seems to think there are no references prior to Gildas or Ninnien or some other writers mostly from the 12th century. I digress let’s get back to my hypothesis.......

I do know about the Lleyn.

Pronounced like the Scottish ch in loch, then a soft L the 'Chlen' is a long and beautiful peninsular half way down the current welsh map, across from southern Ireland divided by The North Sea and Harlech divided by Tremadog Bay.......it is has a turbulent history.

Lleyn is the anglicised name, the old welsh name is Llyn

As recently as this millennium an earthquake hit Tremadog bay and shunted a fair few buildings on both sides of the bay. Structural damage was caused and it is conceivable that such phenomena happened back in the 5th and 6th centuries as much as it did provably in the millennium.

One possible reason as to why Vortigerns newly built castle kept falling down is earthquakes...or else...well anyone familiar with the Lleyn are aware of the many hollow sounds from beneath the surface as the sea has encroached under the shoreline, creating caves deep with the land. Causing unstable foundations.

The island itself is composed geologically of mostly Volcanic rock with a massive fault line the Llyn Sheer Zone and granite and rhyolite mountainous regions to add to the mix.

This is believed to be the area Vortigern attempted to build a new castle.

Adding a little more

Part of the history of Wales records the sad and sometimes terrifying judgements of Irish Celts on anyone believed to be a witch. They would cast the witch and all her or his family into a boat. No oars, food or water and leave them to their long drawn out fate.

However, it is recorded more than once of 'witches' landing on the Lleyn shoreline and the rules of the times were that once a witch had stepped foot on the shore line and drunk fresh water they were allowed to stay.

The natural flow and eddy of tides and the underlying courses of the sea heading from Ireland towards Wales brought survivors of those boats.

The many streams cascading from the shorelines cliffs and dunes, down into the sea, were the opportunity to drink fresh water and so some of those witches stayed.

One of the reasons the fate of witches fascinated me, is the story of the Fisher King. The annual Salmon runs were much prized by the local Kings and could be gifted to people as compensation or as a reward. One such event produced not salmon but a child. Taliesin is supposedly found in a leather bag by a prince in the nets and it is the reference to a leather bag which drew my inspection.

After trawling uncountable stories and legends I discovered several references to a type of boat basket or a leather bag...waterproofed and used to deliver a child to the shores of another place.

Taliesin was not the only one to have been found in such a way. It is conceivable that a witch, wanting her child to survive would manage to send her child to sea in a pitch covered coracle, a small circular wicker boat, with another coracle upturned and bound as a lid to cover the child from harm. Delivering such a child up to the age of four or five years of age would be easy enough, with food and water. Survival would be almost assured given the shape of the coracle making it almost unsinkable no matter what the weather (perhaps with the exception of really awful storms).

There are one or two stories which have Merlin and Taliesin as son and father, one or two which make the same claim for both being found. It is a jumble of information, hard to decide which could possibly be true. So I decided they were probably from the same tribe, probably both sons of 'witches' and at differing times of the century they suffered the same fate.......stranger things have happened. There is even the possibility that both were siblings who arrived in a coracle together, having been cast out as the sons of a witch. Maybe a father and son were cast to sea and Dad flipped over the side near the shore, pushing his son to safety and hid, to appear later as Shining Brow the great Talesin to reclaim his son by adopting him? Arbitrary I know but I had to make a decision so this became so problematic I left Talesin to his own stories and concentrated on Merlin.

Nearly there just a little more info

Welsh names tend to be a description of the person as much as a name in itself. Daffyd ap Owain for instance is David son of Owen. Daffyd ap Owain yr heliwr would be David son of Owen the Hunter. Owen Hunter indeed!

If you have been a foundling of any description, then where you were found would be either your name or added to a name as possibly a description of your 'place' within the land or the tribe who took you in?

 For instance, if you were found in the sea, that's your father and where you were found would be added to describe your tribal link.

 As an example of confusions; Taliesin is translated throughout Wales as Shining Brow for some reason which is weird because its actually 'disgleirio ael ' but if you break the name up into separate words then; Tal is Tall y is The and Syn means 'which' possibly is a play on the word witch?

Maybe...then again the welsh for white is gwyn. Tal y Gwyn the tall white doesn't make sense really but Tal y Syn the Tall Witch could be a possibility. But was Taliesin a witch and when did the name change? because in older records Talesin is the English spelling I read here and there, not Taliessin or Taliesin. Another example of English translation misspelling or spelling phonetically a language that holds a host of different meanings within its lexicon as y is i and w is i that is i is eye and i is ih...see complex indeed.

Anyway I concentrated on Merlin.......... I thought a bit and 'imagined' (as you do) a lad, maybe 7 or so, clever, using his wits to survive, found at the shore in a coracle over on the Lleyn. Vortigern has been told he needs a son born of no father to sacrifice to enable his castle to be built. Maybe the Druid who told that believed no one was ever born without a father so no child would be harmed, maybe the Druid knew of Merlin and thought...ah well he isn't one of us...whatever reasons; there is this lad, only 7 but his father is the sea.

The word for sea is Mor and he was found on the Lleyn Mor-lleyn is a clever lad, who doesn't look like the people he is living with, dark haired and dark eyes and very clever. The Gangani are Tall and Blonde. He gets around the peninsular doing jobs for people. Running errands. he is a child so he is safe, no harm comes to a child in the welsh tribes, but he is different and noted as that and Vortigern needs a sacrifice. No one is going to say 'her, you can have my son to kill for your castle'.

This boy, well he has had to sharpen his wits to be safe, always being useful to earn his place at the tribe’s tables. He is learning from the Bards and the Druids, he knows this is probably the safest skills for him to learn, he isn't really seven, but he is definitely not the same size as the tribe and can get away with saying he is younger. He is probably two or three years older with the brain power that goes with that, it’s even possible he had an exceptional IQ, not all that improbable given the skills his legends accredit him with.......and Vortigern is about to meet a whizz kid,

Looking for a sacrifice, many would tell their king of the boy whose father is the sea and of course that is perfect.... but he is a sharp witty lad who will survive the proposed sacrifice because he knows how to make the castle work.

He has recognised the seas tides and the earthquakes as being the problem, he knows of the places that Will one day be recognised as the Llyn Sheer Zone and spins a tale of dragons fighting beneath the land and chooses a stronger place to build. One his bare feet has never felt move, even when the earth shook a while back.

A strong granite place where rocks would stand firm and tall, he points to the place and they rebuild an old fort Caer Fadryn; into something much more substantial, with stones and many walls. The walls must only reach to a certain point; the sentries must be able to see over the top. Most forts have walls just over a metre high, the Gangani are giants in comparison to other tribes, 2-metre-high walls are just right and Vortigern is a happy man.

well its possible isn't it :)

But it is also just my story. What I believe to be truth even though I have no proof to support my theory is simple. If you’re a survivor of the Irish casting out, if your clever and think things through. No matter your true age, you will be younger by choice, a child is safe in the tribe. You will listen and learn fast and hard. You will remember as much as you can about everything.

The times didn't have writing then, memory was sharp, it had to be. Druids could study for years before attaining their status, they had to remember genealogies, laws, all sorts of stuff. You would remember the stories and the tales told by the Bards, you would become adept at using such managing tactics to survive. You would make yourself 'needed' and you would learn the art of diplomacy as a matter of survival.

Being 'of the sea' Mor, being 'of the Lleyn' Mor-Llyn and the lazy tongues of the foreigners who could not pronounce the Archaic Welsh of those times... it isn't too big a leap to think Morlin or Merlin especially as the Roman soldiers of the times were mostly French or Italian (as recorded) and Mer was their word for sea...what if one of them pointed to the boy and gestured for his name, what if they translated Mor to Mer out of simple ease of understanding.

So I 'think' Merlin is Merlyn and I do believe it is more than possible his origins were as I describe, why else was he perceived from youth, to be magical, mystical. If he were already believed to be of '‘which’' stock then yes, he would be seen as magical by his very birth. Witches were not disregarded by the Celts; they were not as powerful as Druids but they were heeded. Disliked or even hated by Druids they were often at loggerheads with each other.

I believe Merlin was as real as Arthur and I truly believe the bastardisation of the Welsh language, the lazy tongues of the foreigners and the long winding roads of time and its changes have hidden far too much of the truth.

It’s a jigsaw and I haven't got all the pieces yet, heck! I don't even have all the edges and supposition is not a theory or a hypothesis, but it’s at least a small window into possibilities.

Now I can truly start peeling the layers of time back and looking for the histories, the provable and the possible must become closer for all of this to work properly.

oh yes...I should be honest with myself as much as any readers.

 That other spelling Myrddin ...what if that is the true spelling because if so 'y' is 'i' in English and the phonetic sound is mair so Myr is wrong.... in welsh it would be Maer which means Mayor and Ddyn means man...mayor man...a man of importance perhaps :) I am not playing silly games either. we have no true understanding of many of the archaic welsh words of those times, one 'guess' is as good as another. The fact that Welsh is translated into English using English sounds not welsh writings is one of the many issues this trail has.

A Mayor was known, Romans had been around for a few centuries, they had Mayors, maybe a wise man a person who understood the laws just as the Druids did, after all a lot of Druids where annihilated by the Romans at Anglesey, perhaps a Mayor or Maer was needed to fill a few gaps.

So little is truly known of Celtic Law, the King could have his say, Druids did too but Celtic Law was believed to be close to the Brehon (judges) Law of Ireland.  Kinship and wading through the costs and the many diverse ways a law could be interpreted...perhaps Maer Ddyn was also Maer Llyn the Mayor of Llyn...so it is possible...we just don't know. If it were true, then such a man would be a powerful influence in the area.

still playing devil’s advocate and still laying down some of the ground work...we will get to the trail proper...eventually