An Adventure for Young Adults
While this site is under construction, we can be reached by e-mail at homer@merlinandthemagicboat.com We apologize for the inconvenience.
This is a soft-cover book with a laminated cover. The text is printed on 60 lb.White paper. The size of the Perfect-Bind book is 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" and therein contained are 156 pages of pure entertainment -- wonderful, mysterious and full of surprises.
Care to venture with a young Merlin and his younger brother, Joben, as one sails away in a magic boat made from the sacred golden oak trees of the druids and the other is impris-
oned in the castle of Uthyr and his young son, Arthur? To understand the true story of the knights? To see Joben at play in Africa and his discovery of the Holy Grail while Merlin and Arthur compete at chess in Brittany? Then to follow them as they are reunited and continue together on yet another adventure to Southern California and the home of Uranus and his wife, Gaea -- here to discover a new magic of transformation against a reality terrible to bear in its threat of never-ending manipulation and control?
CONTENTS
One: Merlin and Joben
Two: Goodbyes
Three: Merlin Meets Arthur
Four: Joben in Wonderland
Meeting Trader Horn
The Interior
Five: Merlin and Queen Lenore
Prince Arthur
Tabby and Taylor
Six: Maasai
Seven: Camelot
Tabby and Taylor
The Golden Age of Knighthood
On the Edge
Mystery of the Holy Grail as Described by the Knights
Home as Interpreted by the Knights of the Holy Grail
In the Woods
Eight: Maasai Goodbyes
Nine: Trader Horn's Surprise
Ten: Sea Captain's Journal
Eleven: Tinka Tonka
Twelve: Science and Identity
Thirteen: Windermere
Fourteen: Home: The Wood Ambush
Fifteen: Into the Furnace: The Thirteenth Battle
M E R L I N AND THE M A G I C B O A T
" This is King Fisher's Road --
Take the other one." (Warning
Scribbled on a hewn board, nailed
on a tree, appearing in 1876 near
King Pendencia's ranch where two
crooked wagon trails forked and
one angled toward the border
leader's headquarters only a few
miles away.)
From KING FISHER
HIS LIFE AND TIMES
By O. C. Fisher
" ... The path forked, one track going
uphill, deeper into the woods, the other
turning down, steeply through pines and
golden oaks towards the sea.
Miranda paused and pointed downhill,
'That is the way you go. The other is to
the Castello, and it is private. Nobody goes
that way, it is only to the house, you
understand?"'
THIS ROUGH MAGIC
by Mary Stewart
INTRODUCTION
Historical prelude
Just as a place
Where truth and perception
Distinguish the pace.
Merlin was a Druid. Few people know this or anything else of him except that, according to legend, he was a sorcerer and a wizard who was noted for his wisdom and prophesy and spent all of his mature life as a mentor and friend to King Arthur.
When King Arthur died, Merlin disappeared into the Wild Caledonian forests where he lived his life as a child and was never heard from again. According to historical legend, they were both around forty-seven years old, which was considered old at that time of 540-550 A.D. in England.
The druids are a unique people because they trace all the way back to prehistoric times and still live today, emerging from time to time as orders, sects and clans. Since their dated beginnings in the Far East, they have emerged to touch base with every culture on the face of the earth except, perhaps, the Equatorial Continent of Africa. From the time they left the Orient and entered Gaul with the Celtic, Kymric race, bringing with them religious practices which have been described as various reflections on Hinduism, Persian and Egyptian, they demonstrated a strong determination to remain independent of Rome. Their progress from the beginning of ancient civilization, traveling as far back as Neanderthal and Paleolithic periods is sketchy at best because of their subsequent practice of committing all their beliefs to memory. Secrecy, of course, gained them power over the elements, and without the strict censorship of their opposition, their magic grew in strength.
The best accounts given of the druids -- their politics and their philosophical and religious beliefs -- was by Julius Caesar, sometime between 51 B.C. and his death in 44 B.C., who respected but subjected them because of their powers and the strange. dreadful accounts given to their mysterious rites in ancient times. At that time in Gaul, as it was ruled by the Roman Empire, they were the chief branch of the original stock of Celts and were half savage and partly nomadic, requiring a great extent of country. They attempted to conquer Macedonia and Greece but were defeated by hunger and cold caused by a sudden tempest combined with the sword, chariot and flame-thrower of the Greeks. Their religion was suppressed by Tiberius and Claudius, and they gradually retreated into Briton, particularly the small islands near the British coast, where the priests established their mysterious rites so that they became known in saga and legend as magicians and wizards.
Two examples of druid ritual are tree worship and stonehenge. Trees were believed, as in themselves, divine and regarded as the abodes of Sylvan deities, supernatural beings inferior to the gods of Olympus. In the event that the view was not taken by a tribe of druids and the trees were not venerated as the dwelling place of divinity, trees were otherwise associated with the worship of gods and a certain amount of sanctity attached to them. Sacred groves were also an essential feature of druidical worship and when the trees were cut down, the grove was no longer considered sacred. Learned men of Greece and Rome looked upon this tree and grove mythology with incredulity if not contempt, but the great mass of people and particularly the peasantry were deeply devoted to it. To them, the sacred groves -- the dryads, fauns and satyrs -- were real.
Stonehenge (also known as Druidical Rings) were composed of stupendous stone structures which, today, leave people wondering at the sheer size and weight of the stones which seemed to defy the druids physical capacity to pile them atop one another. The outer circle was usually 105 feet in diameter, and when completed, consisted of 60 stones or monoliths, each weighing thousands of pounds. These temples or alters had names such as cromlech, menhir, dolmen, kistavaen, etc. They date back to prehistoric times and are of wide distribution. There are over 3,400 in France, mainly Brittany, and are to be seen in the British Isles -- especially Ireland, Scandinavia, Holland, Germany and Crimea, Persia, Arabia, Palestine, Madagascar, Australia and Japan. The temples had two doorways, one facing N.E., opposite another which was the entrance.
The political structure of the druids was such that one chief enjoyed the highest authority among them. When he died, he was succeeded by the member most prominent among the others, if there be any such single individual. If there were several worthy, the successors were elected by the druids. Sometimes they even went to war about the supremacy. Believing that man's souls do not perish but transmigrate from one individual to another, people were therefore most strongly urged to bravery and the fear of death thus destroyed.
Besides being priests and teachers of religion, they appear also to have been adept astrologers and magicians and were versed in the mysterious powers of animals and plants. Their secret rites were usually performed in the depths of the oak forests. Their order was divided into three classes; vates or prophets, bard and priests. With them were associated but without sharing their prerogatives, three classes of prophetesses or sorceresses.
Before the advent of the Romans, the autocratic powers of the priesthood aroused the warrior element of the tribes, and according to Caesar, this aggressive position deprived them of much of their political power. Instead of cultivating diplomatic expertise, the druids exerted all their powers to oppose the Roman conquerors, continually inciting the people to rebellion. Subsequently, they were driven out of Brittany into Wales and finally gathered at the island of Anglesey, were attacked by Suetonius Paulinus and almost exterminated by Agricola.
After being conquered by the Romans, the Gauls (i.e., druids) now nationally known as Britans, attempted to recover their liberty with the aid of the Germans, but in vain. However, around 486, the Franks (Germans) subdued the greater part of Gaul, ceasing the power of the Romans.
The druids have a lively history dating back to their stonhenge structures found to have been constructed during the aforementioned Neanderthal/Paleolithic periods. Their entrance from the Orient into the Roman/Caesar period of history gives them verity, and their subsequent struggle and victory over maintaining their genetic position in the world, as well as their secret beliefs, testifies to a hardy self-determination.
However, history is not always as thorough as it maintains, and after scrupulous investigation, it has been discovered that Merlin, the druid magician, was not only real but still exists today -- not as an old wizard, but as a child of ten years. More so, Merlin has a younger brother, Joseph Benjamin, much beloved and himself always a child of seven.
What makes the druids even more noteworthy is the following story of these two brothers, Merlin, the magician and his younger brother, Joseph Benjamin, also known as Joben.
(This book is dedicated to "Emerald," orphan apparent, and her two brothers,
Skip and Fan.)
Anyone interested, please feel free to contact us via this e-mail address:
homer@merlinandthemagicboat.com
ENJOY!