"Merlin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... idealized Methuselah as he approached his ninth centennial, the God-given wisdom engraved on the face of Moses as he came down from Sinai, the mystic power of mighty Merlin as he softly intoned a spell of albamancy, all these seemed to have been blended carefully together and infused into the man who sat behind the typer, composing sentences ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... punished this thine impertinent curiosity, had we not other business for thee, friend," said the malicious little devilkin. "Place thy fingers on thy thigh, and swear by Hecate, Merlin, and the Fairies' Hall, that within three days thou wilt fulfil ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... follow her, but she turned and spoke to him in French. "Do you not understand that caution is necessary? We must not be seen together. I will meet you at noon to-morrow in South Kensington Gardens. Adieu." She smiled upon him, and her glance had all the sweetness of that which Vivien bent on Merlin. "To the station!" she ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... and turning to the left, she bent her steps towards a footbridge spanning a gap in the cliff side and, pausing at the bridge, let her eyes rest musingly on the great, mysterious opening picturesquely known as Merlin's Cave. The tide was coming in fast, and she could hear the waves boom hollowly as they slid over its stony floor, only to meet and fight the opposing rush of other waves from the further end—since what had once been the magician's cave was now a subterranean ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... of the South Saxons; Kingills, sixth king of the West Saxons; Sebert, third king of the East Saxons; Ethelfred, seventh king of the Northumbers; Penda, ninth king of the Mercians; and Sigebert, fifth king of the East Angles; who all flourished about the year 600". Merlin, the Wizard, who appears to have prophesied something about every nook in the kingdom, foretold that a yet larger number of kings will assemble around this rock for a similar purpose on the destruction of the world. A rock near Lanyon Cromleh claims a similar honour, and the same story is attached ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... in Alsace, Rewbel and Hausmann, and a Frenchman, Merlin, all three members of the national convention, came to Mayence for the purpose of conducting the defence of that city. They burned symbolically all the crowns, mitres, and escutcheons of the German ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... day-and-a-half's sail to Halifax; thence, by a steamer, to those neighboring isles; for the Curlew and the Merlin, British mail-boats, leave Halifax fortnightly for the Bermudas. A thousand miles of life-invigorating atmosphere—a week upon salt water, and you are amid the magnificent scenery of the Tempest! And how often had the vague desire impressed me—how often, ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... Sayre was to medicine what Columbus was to geography. Neither Strabo nor Herodotus had anything to say regarding what existed beyond the pillars of Hercules, and neither Hippocrates nor Galen had anything in regard to this preputial Merlin, which in their day, even, had its existence. Neither did Tissot nor Bienville, the two pioneers in the field of our knowledge regarding onanism and nymphomania, dream of the existence of this one cause of ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... Falco aesalon,[5] Bris., 1766. French, "Faucon Emerillon."—The pretty little Merlin is a much more common autumnal visitant to the Islands than the Hobby, but, like the Peregrine, the majority of instances are young birds of the year which visit the Islands on their autumnal migration. When I was in Guernsey in November, 1875, two Merlins, both young birds, were brought ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... of the olden time—mailed knights, helmed and mounted, dashing at each other with couched lances, or tumbling from their horses, pierced by the spear. Other scenes there were: noble dames, sitting on Flemish palfreys, and watching the flight of the merlin hawk. There were pages in waiting, and dogs of curious and extinct breeds held in the leash. Perhaps these never existed except in the dreams of some old-fashioned artist; but my eye followed their strange shapes with a ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Uther, and when he died the other kings and princes disputed over the kingdom, each wanting it for himself. But King Uther had a son named Arthur, the rightful heir to the throne, of whom no one knew, for he had been taken away secretly while he was still a baby by a wise old man called Merlin, who had him brought up in the family of a certain Sir Ector, for fear of the malice of wicked knights. Even the boy himself thought Sir Ector was his father, and he loved Sir Ector's son, Sir Kay, with the love of ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... poor abilities; but, above all things, for having bestowed the name of Arthur on his eldest son, who, this injudicious and over-hasty prophet forsees, will restore the glory of his great ancestor of the same name. Had Henry christened his second 'son Merlin, I do not doubt but poor Rous would have had still more divine visions about Henry the Eighth, though born to shake half the ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... Tragicall History of Dr. Faustus—a very remarkable thing. Grand subject—end grand.... Copied Prophecy of Merlin from Mr. Clerk's MS. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... exist in any preserve. But it is in the list of birds that the change is most striking. Eagles are gone: if one is seen it is a stray from Scotland or Wales; and so are the buzzards, except from the moors. Falcons are equally rare: the little merlin comes down from the north now and then, but the peregrine falcon as a resident or regular visitor is extinct. The hen-harrier is still shot at intervals; but the large hawks have ceased out of the daily ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... politics. 365 Hell is the pattern of all commonwealths: Lucifer was the first republican. Will you hear Merlin's prophecy, how three [posts?] 'In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full, Shall sail round the world, and come back again: 370 Shall sail round the world in a brainless skull, And come back again when the moon ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... ante-Reformation ages the Roman Church claimed, as I have said, a monopoly in orthodox magic. She could send a soul to hell, or by rites and exorcism she could save the sinner from his compact with Satan, as one sees in such legends as those of Merlin, of Tannhaeuser, of Robert the Devil, and of that Theophilus who was converted by flowers sent him from Paradise by the Virgin-Martyr St. Dorothea. Of another Theophilus, an eastern monk of perhaps the sixth century, we are told that, like Faust, ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... able to add two and two together, and justice may be out of hand distinguished from injustice by an impanelment of the nearest twelve fools. Here we have many Helmases a-cackling wisely under a goose-feather. But yonder are Cato and Nestor and Merlin and Socrates, Abelard sits with Aristotle there, and the seven sages confer with the major prophets, and yonder is all that was worthiest in the ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... Henry of Huntingdon (1150) calls it Stanhenges, and terms it the second wonder of England, but professes entire ignorance of its purpose and marvels at the method of its construction. Geoffrey of Monmouth (1150) ascribes its origin to the magic of Merlin who, at the instance of Aurelius Ambrosius, directed the invasion of Ireland under Uther Pendragon to obtain possession of the standing stones called the "Giants' Dance at Killaraus." Victory being with the invaders, the stones were taken and transported across the seas with the greatest ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... but they have one and all delighted in pastorals. No class of heroes either in history or fiction has uttered so much verse and prose as the keepers of sheep. Neither Ajax son of Telamon, nor the wise king of Ithaca, nor Merlin, Lancelot, or Charlemagne, nor even the inexhaustible Grandison, can bear the least comparison with Tityrus. It is easy to give many reasons for this; but the phenomenon still remains somewhat strange. The ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... Hall, Carnarvonshire. One of the Wynns, the 3rd Baron Newborough, was, at his wish, buried here. The archaeology and history of the isle are voluminous. Lady Guest's Mabinogion translation (i. p. 115, ed. of 1838) gives an account of the (legendary) Bardsey House of Glass, into which Merlin (Myrddin) took a magic ring, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... my mother's kin, but her true name is Marion, and the French dub her Heliote) hath set all her heart and her hope on one that is a young lass like herself, and she is full of old soothsayings about a virgin that is to come out of an oak- wood and deliver France—no less! For me, I misdoubt that Merlin, the Welsh prophet on whom they set store, and the rest of the soothsayers, are all in one tale with old Thomas Rhymer, of Ercildoune, whose prophecies our own folk crack about by the ingle on winter nights at home. But be it as it may, this wench of Lorraine has, these three-quarters of ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... trying, my reader, to steer a middle course between John the Baptist and Herodias. Now you resolve to get free of her guilty charms, and break the spell that fascinates you. Merlin will emancipate himself from Vivien, before she learn his secret, and dance with it down the wood, leaving him dishonoured and ashamed. But, within an hour, the Syren is again singing her dulcet notes, ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... "in the legends of Gwynedd and Dyfedd he had no place whatever,"[431] and also that Arthur the god or mythic hero was also purely local. In Geoffrey Arthur is the fruit of Igerna's amour with Uther, to whom Merlin has given her husband's shape. Arthur conquers many hosts as well as giants, and his court is the resort of all valorous persons. But he is at last wounded by his wife's seducer, and carried to the Isle of Avallon to be ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... It is a "spirit" which broods over many a song, but is incarnate, so to speak, in the elegy which immortalises the tomb of his lost friend. For Tennyson, the spirit of poetry is the spirit of religion—a blowing to music of the deepest thoughts of the philosopher. In "Merlin and the Gleam" we may read this as ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... was the multitude excited against him by those folks who are to be found everywhere, and who can do anything with the feelings of the simple and ignorant." Theodore de Beze adds that the grand penitentiary of Paris, Merlin, who was present at the execution, said, as he withdrew from the still smoking stake, "I never saw any one die more Christianly." The impressions and expressions of the crowd, as they dispersed, were very diverse; but the majority cried, "He was a heretic." Others said, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... old maid triumphed in receiving her, and saw that, thanks to Birotteau, she was on the point of succeeding in her great desire to form a circle as numerous and as agreeable as those of Madame de Listomere, Mademoiselle Merlin de la Blottiere, and other devout ladies who were in the habit of receiving the pious and ecclesiastical society ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the characters are intended to symbolize higher and lower qualities. According to some interpretations King Arthur stands for the power of conscience and Queen Guinevere for the heart. Galahad represents purity, Bors rough honesty, Percivale humility, and Merlin the power of the intellect, which is too easily beguiled by treachery. So the whole story is moralized by the entrance, through Guinevere and Lancelot, of sin; by the gradual fading, through the lightness of one or the treachery of another, of the brightness ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... in Merlin are Satan, Klingsor, Titurel, King Artus and his Round Table, Niniana, and Merlin. In them, Immermann tried to embody the dominant moral and intellectual tendencies, as he saw them in history and his own times. Satan, the demiurgos, is to him no theological devil, but a princely ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... boatie row And better may she speed, And weel may the boatie row That earns the bairnies' bread! The boatie rows, the boatie rows, The boatie rows fu' weel, And lightsome be their life that bear The merlin and the creel! ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Silver Hand was the god of flocks and ships. His caves are in Dyved still, and his was the temple on Ludgate Hill in London. Merlin was a god of knowledge; he could foretell events. Ceridwen was the goddess of wisdom; she distilled wisdom-giving drops in a cauldron. Gwydion created a beautiful girl from flowers, "from red rose, and yellow broom, and white anemony." I am not quite sure what Coil ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... about Merlin's magic art; here in Venice you may see that of Titian, Giorgione, and all the others. In the Palazzo Barbarigo we went to the room which is said to have been Titian's studio for some time. The window faces the south, and the sun is shining on the floor by two ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... writing as "Merlin" in our handbook in the Referee at the time, thus disposed of some of the points just ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... squirely flagellation shall have been completed, the white dove shall find herself delivered from the pestiferous hawks that persecute her,[476-6] and in the arms of her beloved mate; for such is the decree of the sage Merlin, arch-enchanter of enchanters." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... persecuted French Presbyterians met in a different place every year. Delegated pastors there gathered from every quarter. From Northern France came men used to live in constant hazard of their lives; from Paris, confessors such as Merlin, the chaplain who, leaving Coligny's bedside, had been hidden for three days in a hayloft, feeding on the eggs that a hen daily laid beside him; army-chaplains were there who had passionately led battle-psalms ere their colleagues charged the foe, and had striven ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... extraordinary obedience of the girls to the magnetic influence of that remarkable woman their chaperon, and how long she could continue to exert the charm which meshed them in the cabin, as Vivien meshed Merlin in the hollow oak, it was impossible to guess. At any instant we might hear a girlish voice calling the name of Lady MacNairne. Even if Tibe—but I dared not think ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... finger, lies the valley of Avalon, whither Arthur went to heal his overmastering sorrow, and where the air is always sweet with the smell of apple blossoms. In this deep wood lives Merlin, still weaving, as of old, the magic spells. There is the castle of the Grail, and as our eyes fall on it, suddenly there comes a hush, and we seem to hear the sublime antiphony, choir answering ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... all his wounds and gave him good salves; so the king was there three days, and then were his wounds well amended that he might ride and go, and so departed. And as they rode, Arthur said, I have no sword. No force, said Merlin, hereby is a sword that shall be yours and I may. So they rode till they came to a lake, the which was a fair water and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand. ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... "those jokes have been used by every conjurer since Merlin, and while perhaps without them your trick would work, yet I have never heard of it being done and I have found", said Thyrston, "that in sorcery the best results are obtained by doing the ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... laired.—And, where no sound intrudes Upon the ear, except the glimmering wail Of some far bird; or, in some flowery swale, A brook that murmurs to the solitudes, Might think he hears the laugh of Vivien Blent with the moan of Merlin, muttering bound By his own magic to one stony spot; And in the cloud, that looms above the glen,— In which the sun burns like the Table Round,— Might dream he sees the towers ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... in eager mood To feed his hate with bitter food, Before the king's face Merlin stood And heard his tale of ill and good, Of Balen, and the sword achieved, And whence it smote as heaven's red ire That direful dame of doom as dire; And how the king's wrath turned to fire The grief ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... unknown world. But one of King Arthur's knights brought to life at the court of the present German Emperor aside from steam, electricity, gun powder, telegraph and telephones would find the system as despotic as in the days when the enchanter, Merlin, wove his spells and the sword Excalibur appeared from the depths of the magic lake. But while the system is as royal and as despotic as in King Arthur's day, while the king and his military nobles look down on the merchants and the toilers and the plain people, no knights ride forth intent ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... in 1298, aged about one hundred and ten years. It was said of him that he was at the point of death when in his fiftieth year, but that the fortunate discovery of the elixir enabled him to add sixty years to his existence. He wrote a commentary on the prophecies of Merlin. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... by the King of Tartary to the King of Araby, and it seemed to possess all the virtues of several kinds of magic mirrors. Thus it showed whether love was returned, whether an individual confronted with it were friend or foe, and what trouble was in store for those who consulted it. Merlin's mirror, also called Venus's looking-glass, had some of these properties, but was made in Wales, and was given by Merlin to King Ryence. It revealed what was being done by friend or foe at a distance, and it also enabled the fair Britomart to read the features, and also the name, of ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... fare ill when laws were broken on every side, and the corn which was to give the poor bread was trodden underfoot, and there was none to bring the evildoer to justice. Then, when things were at their worst, came forth Merlin the magician, and fast he rode to the place where the Archbishop of Canterbury had his dwelling. And they took counsel together, and agreed that all the lords and gentlemen of Britain should ride to ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... are fresh and I am wounded sore, and therefore, an ye will needs have ado with me, assign me a day and then I shall meet with you without fail. Ye say well, said Sir Tristram, now I assign you to meet me in the meadow by the river of Camelot, where Merlin set the peron. ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... that book the adventures of certain worthy knights and likewise how the magician Merlin was betrayed to his undoing by ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... forth into the artistic firmament, Punch joined, if not the mockers, at least the severer critics. "BURN JONES?" said he; "by all means do." Of the exquisite "Mirror of Venus" and "The Beguiling of Merlin" he ignored the poetry, and saw little but the quaintness, his criticism being the more weighty for its being clever. Of ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... farther vindication of this famous art, I have thought fit to present the world with the following prophecy. The original is said to be of the famous Merlin, who lived about a thousand years ago; and the following translation is two hundred years old, for it seems to be written near the end of Henry the Seventh's reign. I found it in an old edition of Merlin's Prophecies, imprinted at London by John Hawkins in ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... days, there lived a famous magician named Merlin, so powerful that he could change his form at will, or even make himself invisible; nor was there any place so remote but that he could reach it at once, merely by wishing himself there. One day, suddenly he stood at Uther's bedside, and said: "Sir ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... in a spasm of will, From sleep or debate, a mannikin squire With head of a merlin hawk and quill Acrow on an ear. At him rained fire From a blast of eyeballs hotter than speech, To say what a deadly poison stuffed The France here laid in her bloody ditch, Through the Legend ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... been said about the early traditions of either Briton or Gael. No word, either, about their early records. Nothing about the Triads, Aneurin, Taliessin, Llywarch Hen, and Merlin on the side of the Welsh; nothing about the Milesian and other legends of the Irish. Why this silence? Have the preceding investigations been so superabundantly clear as to lead us to dispense with all rays of light except those of the ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... abundance. The visitors to Tenby find great diversion in these and the other caves on the coast: in fact, the whole coast as far as Milford Haven is one succession of natural curiosities and antiquities. One cavern bears the name of Merlin's Cave, and is hallowed by a legend of the enchanter, who was born at Carmarthen in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... who had come down from the room where Coligny was lying. "He suffered atrociously in the hands of the surgeon, for he had come without his instruments, and amputated Coligny's fingers with a dagger so blunt that it was only on the third attempt that he succeeded. Merlin, his minister, was by his side, with several of his most intimate friends. We were in tears at the sight of our noble chief thus traitorously struck down. He turned to ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... chronicles of Charlemagne, Of Merlin and the Mort d'Arthure, Mingled together in his brain With talcs of Flores and Blanchefleur, Sir Launcelot, Sir Morgadour, Sir Guy, Sir Bevis, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... halfpence and farthings were coined for the first time. This must have been a great boon to the poorer classes, and it evidently was felt to be a matter of great importance, insomuch that it was said to be the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy by the great seer Merlin, who had once foretold in mysterious language, that "there shall be half of the round." In the next century it appears that the want of small change had again made itself felt: for in the 2nd Richard II. we find the Commons setting forth in a petition to ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... the queen! It was her Majesty's own gift," replied the earl, still gazing into the depths of the gem. "She took it from her finger, and told me, with a smile, that it was an heirloom from her Tudor ancestors, and had once been the property of Merlin, the British wizard, who gave it to the lady of his love. His art had made this diamond the abiding-place of a spirit, which, though of fiendish nature, was bound to work only good, so long as the ring was an unviolated pledge of love and faith, both with the giver and receiver. But should ...
— Other Tales and Sketches - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... marvels and fabulous adventures.[174] For the history of Thebes they are obliged to content themselves with Statius, and for that of Rome with Virgil, that same Virgil who became by degrees, in mediaeval legends, an enchanter, the Merlin of the cycle of Rome. He had, they believed, some weird connection with the powers of darkness; for he had visited them and described in his "AEneid" their place of abode: no one was surprised at seeing Dante take him ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... hag-bred Merlin's time have I Continued night-sports to and fro, That, for my pranks, men call me by The name of Robin Goodfellow. There's neither hag nor spirit doth wag, The fiends and goblins do me know; And beldames old my tales have told; Sing Vale, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... efforts to get the order cancelled failed, and as he did not obey it he was struck off the list of employed general officers on the 15th of September 1795, the order of the 'Comite de Salut Public' being signed by Cambaceres, Berber, Merlin, and Boissy. His application to go to Turkey still, however, remained; and it is a curious thing that, on the very day he was struck off the list, the commission which had replaced the Minister of War recommended to the 'Comite ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... audience,—he yet conceived that such cheap ryming as his own "Bride of Abydos," for instance, which he had written from beginning to end in four days, or even the traveling reflections of Harold and Juan on men and women, were scarcely steady enough Sunday afternoon's reading for a patriarch-Merlin like Scott. So he dedicates to him a work of a truly religious tendency, on which for his own part he has done his best,—the drama of "Cain." Of which dedication the virtual significance to Sir Walter might be translated thus. Dearest ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... sources of Gothic romance are a British History of Arthur and his wizzard, Merlin, by Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, translated into Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth; the history of Charlemagne and his twelve peers, forged by Turpin, a monk of the eighth century; the History of Troy, in ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... endless patience wasn't yet exhausted. No more of wandering by night, to be sure, upon moor or fell, gun in hand, chasing the merlin or the polecat to its hidden lair; no more of long watching after the snowy owl or the long-tailed titmouse among the frozen winter woods; but there remained one almost untried field on which Edward could expend his remaining energy, and in which he was to ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... diabolic connections appear in the metrical romances of the twelfth or thirteenth century, as well as in those early Anglo-Norman chroniclers or fabulists, who have been at the pains to inform us of the pre-historic events of their country. The author of the romance-poem of the well-known Merlin—so famous in British prophecy—in introducing his hero, enters upon a long dissertation on the origin of the infernal arts. He informs us on the authority of 'David the prophet, and of Moses,' that the greater part of the angels who rebelled ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... to all knightly exercises, looking with great eagerness to the time when he might appear in the Prince's court. He had invested it with all the glory of the Round Table and of the Paladins; and though he knew he must not look for Merlin or the Siege Perilous, the men themselves were in his fancy Rolands and Tristrems, and he scarcely dared to hope he could ever be fit to make one of them, with all his diligent attention to old ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for him, and everyone else in the land, King Melodias was just then released from enchantment by Merlin the wizard, and came hurrying joyfully to his home, to embrace his beloved wife. Great was his grief when he found that she was dead, great was the moan he made in his sorrow. With great pomp and splendour he buried her, and for seven years lived a ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... "ouzel-cock so black of hue;" And the "throstle," with his "note so true" (You remember what Shakespeare says—HE knew); And the soaring lark, that kept dropping through Like a bucket spilling in wells of blue; And the merlin—seen on heraldic panes— With legs as vague as the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... red dragon and the white, Hard together gan they smite, With mouth, paw, and tail, Between hem was full hard batail. The History of Merlin. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there are horses yonder?" said I. "And fools here—and everywhere? Surely, there needs no argent-bearded Merlin come yawning out of Brocheliaunde to inform us ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... fugitive king saw it in flames, and soon after expired with grief. His queen, Helen, fruitlessly attempting to save his life, abandoned for a while her infant son Lancelot. Returning, she discovered him in the arms of the nymph Vivian, the mistress of Merlin, who on her approach sprung with the child into a deep lake and disappeared. This lake is held by some to be the lake Linius, a wide insular water near the sea-coast, in the regions of Linius or "The Lake;" now called Martin Mere or Mar-tain-moir, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... patients who say they need no physician. Find out your ignorance, first; admit it frankly, second; be ready to recognize with true honor the next man you meet, third; and then, presto!—although it were needed that the floor of the parlor should open, and a little black-bearded Merlin be shot up like Jack in a box, as you saw in Humpty-Dumpty,—the right person, who knows the right thing, will appear, and your ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... a wise magician named Merlin. He was so old that his beard was as white as snow, but his eyes were as clear as a little child's. He was very sorry to see all the fighting that was going on, because he feared that it would do ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... down on one spot, with no change of motion, but in her hands. She resembled a minute and irrepressible Shaker, or a live and beautiful marionnette. Then she placed Janet in the middle of the floor, And performed the dance round her, after the manner of Vivien and Merlin. Then came her supper, which, like its predecessors, was a solid and absorbing meal; then one more fairy story, to magnetize her off, and she danced and sang herself up stairs. And if she first came to me in the morning with a halo round her head, she seemed still ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... exist? My body is so shrunken that I am hardly anything but a voice; and my bed reminds me of the singing grave of the magician Merlin, which lies in the forest of Brozeliand, in Brittany, under tall oaks whose tops soar like green flames toward heaven. Alas! I envy thee those trees and the fresh breeze that moves their branches, brother Merlin, for no green leaf rustles about my mattress-grave ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... chronicler, leapt from a neighbouring hedge, and was immediately caught and presented to the King as an omen of victory. Prophecies, pagan and Christian—quatrains fathered on Saint Moling and triads attributed to Merlin—were freely showered in his path. But the true omen of his success he might read for himself, in a constitution which had lost its force, in laws which had ceased to be sacred, and in a chieftain race, brave indeed as mortal men could be, but envious, arrogant, revengeful, and insubordinate. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... trouble Guillaume de Baux any more. In addition there was a fire of juniper wood and frankincense upon the hearth, and the room smelt too cloyingly of be-drugging sweetness. Then on the walls were tapestries which depicted Merlin's Dream, so that everywhere recoiling women smiled with bold eyes; and here their ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... them of the fairy-haunted land Away the other side of Brittany, Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea; Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande, Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps, Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps. For here he came with the fay Vivian, One April, when the warm days first began. He was on foot, and that false fay, his friend, On her white palfrey; here he met his end, In these lone sylvan glades, that ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Revolutionary period in that mysterious way recognized only in its result; all that unparalleled epoch of tragic intensity and sublime triumph lives again in this work. The fidelity to a lofty ideal which essentially characterizes Mr. Simmons is as unswerving as that of Merlin, who ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... intrenchment at Red Bank, on the opposite side of the river; but after carrying the outer-works they were repulsed, and their commander, Count Dunnop, with four hundred of his men, were slain. At the same time two sloops-of-war, the Augusta and Merlin, which were sent to aid in the assault, ran aground while they endeavoured to avoid the chevaux-de-frise and were burnt. Preparations, however, being made for attacking the fort on the marshy island, which was the chief defense of the river, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Gog and Magog. The stones which compose Stonehenge, each containing some medicinal virtue, are fabled to have been transported by giants from the deserts of Africa to Ireland, and to have been carried thence by Merlin's enchantment to form a monument over the British slain by Hengist. The state of criticism existing at this time may be imagined from the fact that even afterwards, in the reign of Edward I., the descent of the Britons from the Trojans through ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... of Ista quidem ego, as given by Baronius and Binius, in the epistle of Symmachus, Ep. vii. al. vi. (see also Labbe and Cossart, t. iv. p. 1298.), the true reading is Ista quidem nego. How can this be verified? The epistle is not extant either in Crabbe or Merlin. Is the argument {198} of J. B. borne out by any good authority, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... was appointed by Queen Caroline librarian to a small collection of books in a building called Merlin's Cave, in the Royal Gardens of Richmond. "How shall we fill a library with wit, When Merlin's cave is half unfurnish'd yet?" POPE, Imitations of Horace, ii, Ep. ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... little time to study either language or character; so, after a plain dinner at the Merlin's Head, the chief inn of the place, I set out for the purpose of seeing the newspaper proprietor. Fortified by a letter of introduction and some testimonials, I entered his shop,—he was a bookseller and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... of King Arthur, Merlin, the most learned enchanter of his time, was on a journey; and, being very weary, stopped one day at the cottage of an honest ploughman to ask for refreshment. The ploughman's wife, with great civility, immediately brought him some milk in a wooden bowl, and some brown bread ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... highly popular, had fallen into disrepute so far as "society" was concerned. Bagnigge Wells, Merlin's Cave, the London Spa, Marylebone Gardens, Cromwell's Gardens, Jenny's Whim, were all tea-gardens, with recesses, and avenues, and alcoves for love-making and tea-drinking, where an orchestra discoursed ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... died," said the Countess, "I was as one mad, and set myself toward the convent, to end there, praying for him. But a very holy hermit that lives beneath Merlin Oak, in the very midst and heart of the Dunes, to whom I brought a relic from Jerusalem as a pious offering, set me right and told me I was not made for a religious. 'It may be, my daughter, that in too much thought on your religion you ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... eldest brother went to the Warlock Merlin and told him all the case, and asked him if he knew where Burd Ellen was. "The fair Burd Ellen," said the Warlock Merlin, "must have been carried off by the fairies, because she went round the church 'wider shins'—the ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... the superiority of the broad-sword and target over the gun and the bayonet; he sneered at the weakness of an army, after so many years of peace, commanded by boys; he boasted of the valour of the Scots in Sweden and France; he even unriddled the prophecies of Bede and of Merlin. By these methods he prepared the minds of those over whom he ruled for the Rebellion; but in the event, as it has been truly said, "the thread of his policy was spun so fine that at last it ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... the Fairies, and for a long time we have been mournful, for we have lost our Queen, our beautiful Queen. She loved a mortal, and on this account she was banished from Fairyland, nor may she ever revisit the haunt and the kingdom that were hers. But Merlin, the oldest and the wisest of the wizards, told us we should find another Queen, and that we should know her by the poppies in her hair, the whiteness of her brow, and the stillness of her eyes, and with or without such tokens we should know, as soon as we set ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... Mendoza, "that discreet and prudent persons in France attribute my actions to any such motives. As for the ignorant people of the kingdom, they do not appal me, although they evidently imagine that I have imbibed, during my residence in England, something of the spirit of the enchanter Merlin, that, by signs and cabalistic words alone, I am thought capable of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... he departed, and as they rode King Arthur said, "I have no sword." "No matter," said Merlin; "hereby is a sword that shall be yours and I may." So they rode till they came to a lake, which was a fair water and a broad; and in the midst of the lake King Arthur was aware of an arm clothed in white samite, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... gives the particulars of the final treaty, signed at the house of the Archdeacon of Bangor, more amply than they can be found elsewhere. The expectation declared in this treaty that the contracting parties would turn out to be those spoken of by Merlin, who were to divide amongst them the Greater Britain, as it is called, corroborates the story told by Hall. The whole passage is here submitted to the reader's perusal: the words are evidently those of the treaty." The reader is then furnished with a copy of the Latin original: but, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... schools asked for them and in every school yard in the city of Saginaw are some Washington walnuts growing today. Following this distribution to the schools we had still several bushels of the nuts, and one bushel was presented to what is known as Merlin Grotto, a branch or division of the Masonic Order. As General Washington was a member of that organization it seemed fitting that that society should have some of the nuts. So in the beautiful grounds outside of our city ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... trembling upon the edge of the wave. One is left by the receding tide, and a nearer view shows it to be a jelly-like globe, clearer than the crystal of Merlin. Dropped softly into a vessel of water, at first it lies quiescent and almost invisible upon the bottom. A moment after, it rises in quick undulations, flashing prismatic tints with every motion. Again it rests, and we see that it is banded by eight meridians, composed of square, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... come not to throngs; When usurers tell their gold i' the field; And bawds and whores do churches build;— Then shall the realm of Albion Come to great confusion: Then comes the time, who lives to see't, That going shall be us'd with feet. This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... robbing ospreys, kites, marsh-harriers and other birds weaker than itself. So bold is it that it frequently swoops down and carries off a dead or wounded duck shot by the sportsman. Another raptorial bird of which the nest is likely to be found in January is the Turumti or red-headed merlin (Aesalon chicquera). The nesting season of this ferocious pigmy extends from January to May, reaching its height during March in the United Provinces and during April ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... married, and he was left in possession of the house. He let it to an old couple, Pierre Merlin and his wife. Mait Pierre, as Frank called him, was a man of about sixty years of age. He worked for Frank who found that it was impossible for him to keep things ship-shape ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... greatest men of his day. Lord Tennyson sat three times. In 1859 the poet was shown in the prime of life, his hair and beard ruffled, his look determined. In 1864 we had another canvas—"the moonlight portrait"; the face is that of Merlin, meditative, thoughtful. As you look at it the features stand out with great clearness, the distance of the laurels behind his head can be estimated almost precisely, while seen through them is the gleam of the moon upon the distant water. The 1890 portrait, in scholastic robes, ...
— Watts (1817-1904) • William Loftus Hare
... be positive," said I, "but I think from its tone and tenor that it was composed by Merddyn, whom my countrymen call Merlin." ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... general attack of the british fleet the fort set fire to the Augusta, of 64 guns, and she shortly after blew up; and the Merlin sloop was so roughly handled, that she was hastily evacuated. The british admiral then procured a pilot, who carried two men of war, cut down for that purpose, on the Pennsylvania side of the island; a manoeuvre the Americans deemed impracticable. The works of the fort ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... the doctors decided in Joan's favor. Two of them, the Bishop of Castres, Gerard Machet, the king's confessor, and Master John Erault, recognized the divine nature of her mission. She was, they said, the virgin foretold in the ancient prophecies, notably in those of Merlin; and the most exacting amongst them approved of the king's having neither accepted nor rejected, with levity, the promises made by Joan; "after a grave inquiry there had been discovered in her," they ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... now informed that the vacancy would only be filled on the day of doom. He was also told that a similar table would be constructed by Merlin. Here the grandson of Brons would honorably occupy the vacant place, which is designated in the legend as the "Siege Perilous," because it proved fatal to all for ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... adamant. To our very infants we have given the strength of giants. Babies surfeit, while strong men starve; and the foetus in the womb stretches out unformed hands to annex a principality. Is this liberty? Is this Nature? No! It is a Merlin's prison! Yet, monstrous, it subsists! Has our friend, then, no power to dissolve the charm? Or, can it be that he has ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... Venus" are among the works planned and completed, or carried far towards completion, during these years. At last, in May 1877, the day of recognition came, with the opening of the first exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery, when the "Days of Creation," the "Beguiling of Merlin," and the "Mirror of Venus" were all shown. Burne-Jones followed up the signal success of these pictures with "Laus Veneris," the "Chant d'Amour," "Pan and Psyche," and other works, exhibited in 1878. Most of these ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the faint, durable footprints and handmarks of the Roman; and an antiquity older perhaps than any, and still living and active—a complete Celtic nomenclature and a scarce-mingled Celtic population. These rugged and grey hills were once included in the boundaries of the Caledonian Forest. Merlin sat here below his apple-tree and lamented Gwendolen; here spoke with Kentigern; here fell into his enchanted trance. And the legend of his slumber seems to body forth the story of that Celtic race, deprived for so many centuries of their ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the foot of Beauty, to determine its length to a nicety. The subject suggests curious questions. Suppose—to look at its romantic side, as easier of discussion—that you, young lady, were passionately adored by the young man at your shoe-shop, and he were to kiss your foot as Vivien did Merlin's, could you—would you—complain at the desk and lose him his situation? And how about the Pope? Is his Holiness never measured—sal a reverentia!—for his shoes? Or does the Oecumenical Council guess, and strike an average? ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... soothed their rest, Returning from the field of vanquished foes; Say, have ye lost each wild majestic close That erst the choir of Bards or Druids flung, What time their hymn of victory arose, And Cattraeth's glens with voice of triumph rung, And mystic Merlin harped, and grey-haired ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... is no reason, however, for regarding it as anything more than a melodramatic incident characteristic of medieval romances. It reminds one of the following statement by Wilbur L. Cross, which, with the omission of the reference to "giants" and "Merlin," characterizes the Hrlfssaga quite accurately and shows how it harmonizes with the spirit of medieval literature of its kind, "It is true that they [i.e., the Arthurian romances] sought to interest, and did interest, by a free employment of the ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... means his worst. Like most of his poems, it is written in an heroic stanza of six lines, and, as is not so common with him, is in dialogue form. The dialogue for the most part is well sustained and sprightly. The story of the birth of Merlin, it is true, seems to have been inserted mainly to fill out the required number of pages; but this digression has an interest of its own, in that the name here given to Merlin's mother, "Lady Adhan," does not appear in the ordinary versions ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... to have been begun in the third or fourth century, Y Trioeddy nys Prydain ("The Triads of the Isle of Britain"). It contains the traditions from the ancient times until the seventh century. Among the famous triads of this book are: The three bards who bore the cloth of gold, Merlin Ambrosius, Merlin, son of Morvryn, and Taleisin, chief of the bards. There were three principles of song: Composition of poetry, execution upon the harp, and erudition. In the sixth century we see the bards playing the harp and singing their ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... must I ride farther afield and undertake some ancient, famous quest wherein other knights have failed and fallen. Either I shall follow the Questing Beast with Sir Palamides, or I shall find Merlin at the great stone whereunder the Lady of the Lake enchanted him and deliver him from that enchantment, or I shall assay the cleansing of the Forest Perilous, or I shall win the favour of La Belle Dame Sans Merci, or mayhap ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... the state of Erin and changed the Scottish land, Though small the power of Mona, though unwaked Llewellyn's band, Though Ambrose Merlin's prophecies are held as idle tales, Though Iona's ruined cloisters are swept by northern gales, One in name and in fame Are ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... soul, and not merely a golden body, let her forget her seventeen-year-old melodramatics, and turn to her poets who understand the heart underneath the glory. Edwin Markham, the dean of American singers, Clark Ashton Smith, the young star treader, George Sterling, that son of Ancient Merlin, have in their songs the seeds of better scenarios than California has sent us. There are two poems by George Sterling that I have had in mind for many a day as conceptions that should inspire mystic films akin to them. These poems are The Night Sentries ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... ancient chroniclers tell of a mysterious apartment within "which has never been opened in the memory of man." Tradition says that this famous castle was first inhabited by fairies, and afterwards by the giants, until Merlin, by his magic power, dislodged most of the giants and bound the others in spells. In proof of this it is said there are fine apartments underneath the ground, to explore which several venturesome persons have gone down, only one of whom ever ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... five hundred horse. Besides these he had his feudatories of the palatinate; six bannerets and one hundred and sixty knights, not one of whom, says an old poem, but surpassed Arthur himself, though endowed with the charmed gifts of Merlin. [Footnote: Onques Artous pour touz ces charmes, Si beau prisent ne ot de Merlyn. SIEGE OF KARLAVEROCK; an old Poem in Norman French.] We presume the De Wessyngtons were among those preux chevaliers, as the banner of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... hideous of whom he has invariably selected to do his bidding. Mother Shipton, for instance, our famous old English witch, of whom so many funny stories are still told, is evidently very much wronged in her picture, if she was not of the most terrible aspect imaginable; and, if it be true, Merlin, the famous Welch fortune-teller, was a most frightful figure. If we credit another story, he was begotten by "old nick" himself. To return, however, to the devil's agents being so infernally ugly, it need merely be remarked, that from time immemorial, he has invariably preferred such rational ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... he not said so? Hath he not spoken of wagons without horses, ships without sails? And is not all this what every dissour and jongleur tells us of in his stories of Merlin? Gentle maiden," he added earnestly, drawing nearer to her, and whispering in a voice of much simple pathos, "thou art young, and I owe thee much. Take care of thyself. Such wonders and derring-do are ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... France still held by the French King—namely, that although France would be lost by a woman, a maiden should save it. Any hope to the people in those distressful days was eagerly seized on; and although the first prophecy dated from the mythical times of Merlin, it stirred the people, especially when, later on, Joan of Arc appeared among them, and ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... hawking; and it were more to my taste to follow on in a more leisurely fashion," she added, seeing that he was about to refuse. "St. George is a good bird, and is anxious to try a flight; and thou art a stranger, too; thou must take it," and she placed the merlin on his wrist. ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... darkens the face of the moon. Let us be content to accept the result, when it is forced upon us, without inquiring too minutely into the process. Not with impunity can even the Adepts gain and keep the secrets of their evil Abracadabra. The beard of Merlin is gray before its time; premature wrinkles furrow the brow of Canidia; though the terror of his stony eyes may keep the fiends at bay, the death-sleep of Michael Scott is not untroubled; the pillars of Melrose shake ever and anon as though an earthquake passed by, and the ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... found most difficulty in rooting out. Thence Celtic Messianism, that belief in a future avenger who shall restore Cambria, and deliver her out of the hands of her oppressors, like the mysterious Leminok promised by Merlin, the Lez- Breiz of the Armoricans, the Arthur of the Welsh. [Footnote: M. Augustin Thierry has finely remarked that the renown attaching to Welsh prophecies in the Middle Ages was due to their steadfastness in affirming ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... them you could see great castles lifting slow and splendid on arches of moonshine, with maidens waving their hands at the windows, which all turned into roaring rivers; and then would come the darkness of his own young heart wiping out the whole slateful. But boy's Magic doesn't trouble me—or Merlin's either for that matter. I followed the Boy by the flashes and the whirling wildfire of his discontent, and oh, but I grieved for him! Oh, but I grieved for him! He pounded back and forth like a bullock in a strange pasture—sometimes alone—sometimes waist-deep ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... on this lady's raven-black hair, and so rich and broad and vigorous is the painting of a Japanese scarf she is wearing. Then as we turn to the east wall of the gallery we see the three great pictures of Burne-Jones, the Beguiling of Merlin, the Days of Creation, and the Mirror of Venus. The version of the legend of Merlin's Beguiling that Mr. Burne-Jones has followed differs from Mr. Tennyson's and from the account in the Morte d'Arthur. It is taken ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... Merlin's law of the suspect had so far failed to touch him. And when, last July, the murder of Marat brought an entire holocaust of victims to the guillotine—from Adam Lux, who would have put up a statue in honour of Charlotte Corday, with the inscription: "Greater than Brutus", to Charlier, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... will forgive my writing you, but I cannot make use of another man's brains without some acknowledgment. For years I have been a reader of the Referee, and of late years nothing has interested me more than the articles above the name of Merlin on the front page. This week you have put the real issue so clearly and so freely, that I am going to avail myself of it tonight in my speech at Blandford, and I hope I have your permission so to do. If only a few more men would grasp difficult subjects ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... head, and look them in the face. It is true, they are all against you; but, then, what of that, when I am on your side. It is a great thing, let me tell you, to have me on your side. I am Miss Merlin, my father's heiress; and he is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. And I am not sure but that I might make my papa have these two bad boys hanged if I insisted upon it! And I stand by you because ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the old books called Welsh Triads, in which all things are classed by threes, there is a description of three men called "The Three Generous Heroes of the Isle of Britain." One of these—named Nud or Nodens, and later called Merlin—was first brought from the sea, it is stated, with a herd of cattle consisting of 21,000 milch cows, which are supposed to mean those waves of the sea that the poets often describe as White Horses. He grew up to be a king and warrior, ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... of Albion's Isle, Whether by Merlin's aid from Scythia's shore To Amber's fatal plain Pendragon bore, Huge frame of giants' hands, the mighty pile To entomb his Britons slain by Hengist's guile, Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore, Taught 'mid the massy maze ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... of King Arthur, Merlin, the famous enchanter, was out on a journey, and stopped one day at the cottage of an honest ploughman to ask for refreshment. The ploughman's wife brought him some milk in a wooden bowl, and some brown bread on ...
— The History Of Tom Thumb and Other Stories. • Anonymous
... to-night enregistered my name among the goodly company of Love's Lunatics,—as yokefellow with Dan Merlin in his thornbush, and with wise Salomon when he capered upon the high places of Chemosh, and with Duke Ares sheepishly agrin in the net of Mulciber. Rogues all, madame! fools all! yet always the flesh trammels us, and allures ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... struggle that Louvet pronounced against him that very eloquent harangue, which Madame Roland called the "Robespierreiad." Assisted by his brother and by Danton, Robespierre, in the sitting of November 5th, overpowered the Girondins, and went to the Jacobins to enjoy the fruits of his victory, where Merlin de Thionville declared him an eagle, and a barbarous reptile. From that moment he never ceased to promote the death of Louis XVI., with an asperity and a perseverance almost incredible. In short, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... however, does not tell us that this Shrubsall, in throwing down the Mincamber, i.e. the Menamber, acted very like the old missionaries in felling the sacred oaks in Germany. Merlin, it was believed, had proclaimed that this stone should stand until England had no king; and as Cornwall was a stronghold of the Stuarts, the destruction of this loyal stone may have seemed ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... given himself, this worthy M. Voltaire! "My dear M. Casanova, I am really vexed with you. What concern have I with the works of Merlin? It is your fault that I have wasted four hours ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... all true, all foolishness, nor all sense; so much have the storytellers told, and so much have the makers of fables fabled to embellish their stories that they have made all seem fable." [4] He omits the prophecies of Merlin from his narrative, because he does not understand them. "I am not willing to translate his book, because I do not know how to interpret it. I would say nothing that was not exactly as I said." [5] To this scrupulous regard for the truth, absolutely foreign to the ingenious Geoffrey, ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... The spell Of Merlin old that ministered to fate, The tales of visiting ghosts, or fairy elves, Or witchcraft, are no fables. But his task Is ended with the night;—the thin white moon Evades the eye, the sun breaks through the trees, And the charmed wizard comes forth a mere man From out his circle. ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various |
