Reconstructing an Arthurian romance

Yesterday I wrote about the digital reconstruction of a piece of medieval sculpture from Shaftesbury using computer technology Today it is the turn of a manuscript to get the equivalent treatment.

Cambridge University website reported on work done by the University Library and the University’s Cultural Heritage Imaging Laboratory with a portion of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin, and dated to between 1275 and 1315, which had survived because it had been used to bind some Suffolk estate documents after 1500. The manuscript fragment was only re-discovered in 2019. It is one of a number to survive of the French language text, but each one has differences due to manuscrip copyists individual variations. It has been possible to assign the manuscript to a group within the wider cycle.

Because of the folds and tears, and because the text is in part sewn into the book the Library eschewed the risky process of separating the manuscript out, and turned to the latest digital technology to reach into the recesses and scan the remains. As a result this variant coffee could be retrieved whilst preserving an example of what often happened to discarded texts.

The handsomely illustrated article can be seen at Modern magic unlocks Merlin's medieval secrets

Seeking Merlin in the Scottish Borders

Both the Scottish newspaper The National and the Ancient Origins website have reports about an excavation at Drumelzier, which lies south-west of Peebles in the Scottish Borders. The archaeological work was to investigate a site which was a reoccupation of a much earlier hill fort, and which was later replaced by a medieval castle.

The report from The National can be seen at  Archaeologists uncover 'dark' new evidence of Merlin legend in Scotland and that from Ancient Origins at Archaeological Finds Support Local Folklore of Merlin’s Grave

The time of the reoccupation was that shadowy, but not by any means completely ‘Dark Age’ between the Romano-British and the Anglo-Saxon. That fact surely makes the site analogous to South Cadbury - Camelot - in Somerset. If South Cadbury is associated with the Arthurian legend of Camelot, then Drumelzier and its neighbourhood is associated with stories of Merlin. The Wikipedia entry about the village gives a good introduction and can be seen at Drumelzier

I first became aware of the association of Merlin with the Scottish Borders many years ago whilst reading Count Nikolai Tolstoy’s The Quest for Merlin. Hitherto I had, I think,  associated Merlin only with Wales and Cornwall, not Scotland.

The medieval legend of Merlin’s life is elegantly summarised and splendidly illustrated on the always interesting BL Medieval manuscripts blog at Merlin the magician: from devil’s son to King Arthur’s trusted advisor

The way in which legends have been transmitted over time inevitably results in the stories becoming garbled or confused, yet the fact that they have persisted and can now be related to archaeological evidence does suggest a substratum at least of truth. In one way the element of mystery continues to add to their appeal. How much more we can learn about a time that is obscure and which has left fragments of evidence, we do not yet know. However the search for knowledge of the origins of these stories, be they truth, or the truthes that are myth, engages us and draws us on. - and that, of course, is very much the message of so much of the Arthurian legends.