Merlin Redux - or, Lost in Troy Town

[steepholm]

A few entries ago I was trying to trace the source of the idea that Merlin created a 'cheating castle', as claimed by Alexander Oldknow (some time between 1660 and his death in 1665) in Lucy Boston's book The Children of Green Knowe. What I've only just noticed - and please picture the handpalm here - is that, earlier in the book, when the modern-day characters discover the 17th-century children's toybox, it turns out to contain a number of books. These include the Aeneid, Aesop, Malory's Morte, and a couple of other books I don't recognize: The History of Troy and Merlin the Sorcerer. Presumably the last is the book where they read about Merlin and his castle.

It's progress, of a sort - but I have no idea what book this is! The British Library, at any rate, has nothing under that name. (The Troy book is equally elusive, for that matter.)

Comments

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

Do we have much detail of what Lucy Boston was likely to have read? It might perhaps be worth contacting Diana Boston, to see One avenue worth exploring might be contacting Diana Boston at Hemingford Gray, to see if her mother-in-law had any kind of reference library?

(I really must make 2007 the year I get to Hemingford Gray – it's an hour and a half up the motorway and for all their faults, I still love the books.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Do go, it is a most wonderful experience. A post about my most recent visit, and pictures we took on that visit.