The Prophecy of Merlin

Welcome to an hour of fast-moving oral storytelling and achingly beautiful music; an epic adventure story by Mike O’Connor and Barbara Griggs. After the story there will be a break followed by a 45 minute talk on the history and folklore behind it.

The original Prophecy of Merlin was a Cornish-language document of the 11th century or earlier, now lost. It was the basis of the Prophetia Merlini of about 1153 written by John of Cornwall, a priest from St Germans in Cornwall. In cryptic language, John criticised Saxon and Norman incomers and advocated British rule. The main historical sources for the tale are Merlin in Cornwall, a Ph.D. thesis by Michael A. Faletra, and Julyan Holmes’ An Dhargan a Verdhin: The Prophecy of Merlin. Athelstan’s ‘cleansing’ of the Cornish from Devon was recorded by William of Malmesbury in his De Gestis Regum Anglorum of 1125.