More child-lit puzzles...

[steepholm]

This time it's Lucy Boston's The Children of Green Knowe that's got me scratching my head. In the chapter 'Alexander's Story', three children visit a church - the date being the early 1660s. Linnet, the young girl, exclaims at its beauty: 'It's one of Merlin's palaces.' In response, her brother thinks to himself: 'But it's not Merlin's cheating castle... Its name should be Joyous Gard.'

So - where does Merlin get the reputation for creating 'cheating castles'? And where could three children from the 1660s have come across such a story? Celtic and Arthurian myth has quite a few deceptive castles, and I seem to remember one in Ariosto too, but none associated with Merlin. Probably I'm missing something quite obvious...

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Wasn't there a story in which Merlin assembled Stonehenge by magic, having stolen the stones from Ireland? Not exactly a castle, but it sounds like cheating.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It does! I guess that was a dry run for the Merlinium Dome?

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

Right from its writing, Malory's version of the Arthurian myth was popular (or at least well-known) in England - long before it was chocolate-boxed up by the Victorians.

The Merlin figure is older still, and is a Christianization of the old trickster gods. I don't know for sure, but the Greene Knowe line is probably referring to the Grail castle (to which Merlin retreats in some versions of the story, anointing Perceval as the keeper of Grail, before buggering off for good). The castle itself is deceptive, in addition to Merlin. As opposed to Lancelot's castle (Joyous Gard); which indicates that the children don't really understand the love triangle part of the story yet!

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

Cor dear me. That was practically illiterate. But you get the idea.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

The Grail castle might well be involved. But Boston is a careful enough writer that I suspect she had a specific source in mind, which it would be nice to pinpoint. Merlin crops up in various romances, plays and masques after Malory, but from the ones I've read (and from the sketchy descriptions I've seen of others), although he seems the sort of person who might well create a castle of illusions, he never quite gets around to it.

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

This has been annoying me all day! There's nothing about it in Geoffrey of Monmouth, either History or Merlin. The Stonehenge thing is in one of the Welsh versions, and there's definitely nothing appropriate in the Malory version.

I'm wondering if it is someone's retelling of the castle that repeatedly fell into the swamp story (where Merlin routs out the drags in the lake under the foundations). Entertainingly, people dismiss that story as "myth", but I'm firmly of the opinion that it is 99% true, and, while there might be no dragons, there may have been an element of steam, or spouts of water, or possibly marsh-gases involved in the draining project that he clearly orchestrated.

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

drags? dragons.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Interesting idea! Reminds me of the speculation (which I've heard floated by both Alan Garner and Michael Wood, though I don't know where it started) that the sword in the stone story represents a folk memory of the discovery of the technique for smelting iron ore. Whoever controlled the technology for making iron swords out of rocks would have a good chance of ruling over the rest!

I wonder if there's a general word for this kind of explanation? When gods are explained as memories of historical figures it's euhemerism, but does that apply to stories in general? Probably.

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

Yes, I rather liked that idea, too. And yes (again!) I think that the word has now generalized to "myth/legend-from-history". I love that we have a word for this idea derived from the name of a philosopher who lived at a time that most people would reasonably consider semi-legendary, rather than strictly historic!