One of the earliest surviving works to reference Arthur is the History of the Britons by a monk named Nennius, who wrote around the year 830. Unfortunately, however, he cannot have been a contemporary of a historical King Arthur. So Merlin the magician does seem to have been based in part on a real-life sixth-century bard. An entry for the year 573 reads: “The Battle of Arfderydd in which… Myrddin went mad.” It records the very battle referenced in The Black Book of Carmarthen poems, specifically naming the bard. These works all imply that the romance Merlin was based in part on the Myrddin of the poems: he is living a reclusive forest existence, having lost his wits, exactly like Merlin in the Arthurian tales.Ī page from the Black Book of Carmarthen, thought to be the earliest surviving manuscript written solely in Welsh. ( Public Domain )Įvidence that this Myrddin historically existed can be found in the Welsh Annals, a tenth-century chronicle preserved in the British Library in London.
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