"Unearthing ancient Tweeddale: ‘Merlin’s Grave’ and..." Topic

… other lost stories

"Merlin's Grave at Drumelzier (pronounced druh-MEL-yur) is formally documented in Scotland's National Record of the Historic Environment, but despite its evocative name this site is little more than a nondescript corner of a field, etched on to the map by local tradition. In 1689, Alexander Pennecuik noted in the draft of his Geographical Historical Description of the Shire of Tweeddale that: ‘a little below the church yeard, the famous prophet Merlin is said to be buried. The particular place of his grave… was shewn me many years ago, by the Old and Reverend Minister of the place…'. The origins of this tradition, the RCAHMS Peeblesshire Inventory speculates, could lie in the discovery of a Bronze Age grave – but, if so, no record of this find survives. While Merlin's Grave has been marked on maps since the 18th century, no archaeological remains have ever been documented there.

How, then, did Drumelzier come to be associated with Merlin? Our story begins with an old medieval tale, the Vita Merlini Silvestris (‘The Life of Merlin of the Forest'), which tells of a wild man of the woods who was banished to the wilderness because of the terrible slaughter he had provoked at a great battle in northern Cumbria: ‘qui Lailoken vocabatur quem quidam dicunt fuisse Merlynum qui erat Britonibus quasi propheta singularis sed nescitur…' (‘his name was Lailoken. Certain people say that he was Merlin who was regarded amongst the Britons as unique in his powers of prophecy…')…"

More here

link

Armand