Merlin

This novel reimagines the childhood of Merlin, the legendary wizard of Arthurian legend, drawing on medieval folklore about wild men of the woods, dream-reading, and the origins of King Arthur.

A prologue frames the story as a dialogue between two unnamed figures: a mysterious, possibly supernatural being called the "Green Man" and a "child." They play a card game. The Green Man tells the child that life turns on a great wheel of dark to light to dark again, and that when childhood ends, dreams remain. The child resists, declaring a wish to stay awake rather than become someone else's dream.

The narrative opens with a twelve-year-old boy fleeing a walled town at night, driven out by Duke Vortigern's order and the townspeople's hostile dreams. Vortigern's spy, Fowler, and Fowler's vicious dog bar any return. The green wagon belonging to Ambrosius, who claimed to be the boy's father, and Viviane, a woman who traveled with them, departed hours earlier out of fear of the boy's powers. The boy recalls that at age eight he lived a full year as a wodewose, a wild person of the woods, without clothing, language, or memory, until a falconer named Master Robin tamed him. He sleeps in an oak and dreams a recurring image: a bear cub wearing a gold coronet. He knows his dreams tend to come true indirectly.

Deeper in the woods, the boy sits by a river and becomes mesmerized by a flash in the water. He finds himself swimming alongside a trout, which warns: "Do not rise to the lure, lad" (10). He blinks back to awareness, dry on the rock, and continues on. Later, he loses the trail and emerges onto a meadow filled with summer blossoms despite the autumn season. A pack of wild dogs closes in on him. A large, one-eyed wodewose bursts from the grass, grabs him, and leaps into an oak just in time. While treed, the boy stares at the dogs and becomes mesmerized, sharing the pack's single mind until the leader commands him to take his place. He nearly follows the departing pack before blinking back to awareness. The wodewose warns that packs have no reason and that "place" is what is wrong with the world, then vanishes.

The boy follows the wild man's deliberately left trail to a hidden settlement where a community of wild folk lives in tented dwellings, apart from a world of war, plague, and persecution. A small, fearless child of the wild folk, called Cub, follows the boy with persistent curiosity; the wodewose predicts Cub will grow up to be a king of the woods. At dinner, the boy gives his name as Hawk-Hobby, deliberately withholding his true name, Merlin. He stuffs a mattress with grasses and flowering marjoram.

The next morning, the women discover the bedding contains marjoram, which they call organy, a precious medicinal herb. The confrontation leads the wodewose to ask if the boy is a dream-reader. Hawk-Hobby feels compelled by a geas, a magical compulsion, to answer truthfully about his abilities, and confirms he often understands what his dreams mean. The wodewose announces the boy is their first dream-reader since the last one died. The women seize Hawk-Hobby and command him to dream. No dream comes. For hours they guard him under the sun, threatening him with sticks. Eventually, staring at ants on the ground, he becomes mesmerized and joins their march, chanting: "Go the track, don't look back" (43). The women cry out that the Dreamer has arrived.

The wild folk install Hawk-Hobby in a wicker cage suspended from a tree, its door tied with an exterior knot he cannot reach. Over several days they drug his food to induce dreams. He dreams of the bear again, this time holding a sword and stone as the bear flings its crown onto the sword and both dissolve into blended visions of kings and kingdoms. The women listen to each dream, interpreting them for their own purposes, but never ask the boy what he thinks. He knows they are wrong; the dreams are slantwise readings of his own future. Only Cub visits the cage, throwing his stick doll Poppet inside, saying it will guard him.

Hawk-Hobby realizes the wild folk have been drugging his food and refuses to eat, enduring two days of agonizing withdrawal. When the withdrawal passes, he returns Poppet to Cub. The moment both their hands touch the doll, a spark passes between them and Hawk-Hobby dreams his only dream about the wild folk: A fountain of blood bursts through the meadow, engulfing them all. Only Poppet escapes, sailing over the blood in the wicker cage, powered by its own breath. He wakes screaming, and the camp immediately begins packing to flee. No one asks what he thinks the dream means, and because the compulsion that forces truthful answers when asked also prevents him from volunteering, he cannot share his interpretation. He believes the dream concerns himself: He is the doll, a toy in the wrong hands but magical in the right ones, capable of working power through breath alone.

As the camp prepares to leave, Cub brings a dead robin to the cage and asks Hawk-Hobby to make it sing and fly. The request feels like a geas. Remembering the dream of breath powering the wicker boat, Hawk-Hobby parts the bird's beak and blows three small breaths into it. Energy shoots through him, and the bird warms, flutters, and bursts into song before flying away. Exhausted by his first real magic, he collapses. The wodewose demands to know what the boy truly is. Cub calls him "Dreamer," "Breath of Dream," and "Maker" (63). Hawk-Hobby offers the name Robin, honoring the falconer who first raised him. The wodewose connects the name to Robin o' the Woods, a tricksy forest spirit.

Cub, now identifying Robin with the legendary Green Man of the forest, declares that such a spirit must not be caged. Using Poppet and three breaths of magic, Hawk-Hobby works the cage's knot loose and escapes into the woods. Cub follows, claiming the boy as family. They hear an approaching army and hide in an oak. Soldiers wearing white dragon banners pass below; Hawk-Hobby recognizes them as the army he once dreamed of and warned Vortigern about. Fowler appears with his dog Ranger, which catches their scent. Hawk-Hobby concentrates and renders them invisible through magic. The army's commander, Lord Uther, tells Fowler to move on, mentioning that Vortigern burned at the battle of Carmarthen. The army passes.

The next morning, the boy and child follow the army's trail back to find the wodewose camp destroyed, the meadow strewn with bodies in eerie silence. At the meadow's edge, the wodewose and Fowler lie locked in a death embrace, each having killed the other. Cub begs Hawk-Hobby to bring the wild man back. The boy blows the breath of life into the wodewose's mouth again and again, but his magic does not answer.

The boy, the child, and Fowler's surviving dog Ranger walk away from the meadow together. When Cub asks if Hawk-Hobby is now his father, the boy realizes that after searching for a father, he now has a son. He agrees and reveals his true name: Merlin, "like the hawk" (85). Cub wants a name as big as a bear. Merlin names him Artus, meaning bear-man. As he speaks the name, he recalls his recurring dream of the crowned bear and senses this was always meant. Artus spins joyfully. Merlin commands Ranger to do its duty to "this King Bear" (86), and the dog runs ahead to scout the path.

An epilogue mirrors the prologue, now a dialogue between the grown Artus, known as King Arthur, and his queen, Gwen, after Merlin's death. Arthur grieves, calling the old mage his father, teacher, and friend. He reflects that Merlin seemed fierce as a wild dog, busy as an ant, slippery as a trout, echoing every creature from the boy's journey. He wonders why, if power means no one can hurt him, he hurts so deeply now.