“Upon the verdant plains of Salisbury-- (No king shall have so high a sepulchre)-- With pendulous stones that I will hang by art, Where neither lime nor mortar shall be used, A dark enigma to the memory, For none shall have the power to number them.”
Here we become acquainted with the superstition that the megalithic wonders of Stonehenge were Merlin’s workmanship, and that the mysterious structure was his mother’s tomb. Another idea was that it was the burial place of Uther Pendragon and Constantine. The drama, so far as it relates to Merlin and Vortigern, closely follows the popular tradition, though there are several variations of the story of the castle which could not be finished, and its site, as might be expected, is the subject of many contradictory declarations. The allegorical meaning of the story is quite clear. To the heights of Snowdon, it is said, Merlin led King Vortigern, whose castle could not be built for meddlesome goblins. The wizard led the monarch to a vast cave and showed him two dragons, white and red, in furious conflict. “Destroy these,” he said, “and the goblins whom they rule will cease to torment you.” Vortigern slew the dragons of Hate and Conspiracy, and his castle was completed.[14]
The story of Merlin’s death has again led to much speculation upon the recondite subject of the situation of the tomb in which his “quick” body was placed by the guile of Nimuë, or Vivien, one of the damsels of the lake. Malory distinctly avers that it was in Cornwall that the doting wizard met his fate. He went into that country, after showing Nimuë many wonders, and “so it happed that Merlin showed to her a rock, whereat was a great wonder, and wrought by enchantment, that went under a great stone.” By subtle working the maiden induced the wizard to go under the stone to tell her of the marvels there, and then she “so wrought him” that with all his own crafts he could not emerge again. Some time afterwards Sir Bagdemagus, riding to an adventure, heard Merlin’s doleful cries from under the stone, but he was unable to help him, as the stone was so heavy that a hundred men could not move it. Merlin told the knight that no one could rescue him but the woman who had put him there, and, according to some traditions, he lives to this day in the vault. Spenser, in the _Faërie Queene_, describes the tomb as--