Geoffrey of Monmouth's Life of Merlin — a Latin poem of 1,529 hexameters, written about 1150. Not the boy-prophet of the History but an older, stranger Merlin: a king and seer of the Welsh who runs mad with grief on the battlefield of Arfderydd, flees to the Caledonian Wood, and becomes the archetypal wild man — sung back to his wits, chained, set free by the threefold death, riding a stag to his wife's wedding, prophesying the kings to come, and hearing Taliesin tell of the Island of Apples where Morgen tends the wounded Arthur. The first Latin tale on this site, and the deepest taproot of the Merlin legend.
A faithful retelling for readers 8 and up — the whole Life of Merlin, page by page. The madness and the marvels kept side by side, the way the poem keeps them. Illustrations to follow.
Who does what — grouped by role, linked to the movements where they appear, and to one another.
The cast as a graph — every relationship in the poem, force-laid. Hover a node to light up its ties; click to open its card.
Drag/scroll/pinch to explore. Node size marks principals; colour marks role. Built straight from the relationship edges in the character cards.
The poem laid against Propp's 31 narrative functions — each beat linking to the movement that realises it. A wonder-tale spine bent into something stranger: the hero's "lack" is his own lost reason, and the quest is inward.
Drag/scroll/pinch to explore; click a node to jump to its detail below.
The poem laid against Greimas's actantial model — the functional structure of wanting beneath the plot. Not the social web of who-knows-whom, but the single engine of desire: who wants what, who sends it, who aids and who blocks.
The poem by call-number — the Thompson Motif-Index and ATU tale-types, the folklorists' Dewey decimal for mythic memes.
One graph, all the layers. The movements run as a spine; characters, motifs, story-functions, type-scenes and the Object of desire hang from the moments they touch — and whatever cross-cuts the poem is pulled toward the centre.
Movements run as the gold spine. Hover a node to light its threads; click any node for detail. Toggle the layers above to isolate one kind of connection.