Free will and fate in "Prose Merlin"

Merlin is a character who has always fascinated me. I was first exposed to him as a kid watching Sword in the Stone, so I had the typical Disney image of the guy. Reading the early welsh sources and geoffrey, but especially Prose Merlin, I've gotten to know a darker, more complex Merlin. I'm especially interested in how he symbolizes the importance of magic and mystical world views in the Middle Ages, especially regarding fate and miracles. This blog post is basically going to talk about Merlin's character, and how the story is centered around destiny, but there are elements of free will woven throughout the narrative.

In a lot of ways this class has overlapped a lot with my Celts to Vikings class, and one thing I've really noticed is that these societies in the Middle Ages were really fatalistic. It was especially strong in the British isles, and a lot of these stories harken back to earlier celtic tales with similar themes (ex: the beheading game in GGK is a retelling of an ancient Irish story of Cu  Chulainn doing the same thing with a giant at Bricrui's feast). So it makes sense that ideas about destiny, and the importance of prophesy (funny how things turn out) would be major themes in stories about Arthur and Merlin. Even though there's celtic elements, they're also told to a Christian audience, so it's fascinating to see how all these different threads are being woven together. There's a mingling of Pagan and Christian, and destiny vs free will, all woven into Merlin's character, that to me makes him  such a badass. Like you have all this supposed dichotomy, existing in one character. And he's actually not batshitcrazy.... I mean he's the councilor to kings after all. I think this also applies to the society at large and their different ideas about free will and fate, and a dual pagan/Christian heritage.

So in chapter one, the demons are all complaining about everybody getting baptized, saying "Don't you know...that he has them all washed in water in his name?...we have now lost them all through this washing, so that we have no power over them unless they choose to come back to us." This to me is really indicative of free will, and it's the heart of most Christian denomination(minus those that believe in predestination). People are born in sin, and through their conscious choice follow Jesus. That's score one for free will.

 So after this, we have the plot to make Merlin. They want to make a guy with "his teachings like those sorcerers and wizards who used to be with us, whose prophesies we knew were false." So they conceive him on a virtuous young girl and give him the power to know all things. I just love how the writer portrays the demons. They're just really narcissistic and vain, sitting around scheming how to let everybody know how intelligent they are. It kind of reminds me of the cast from always sunny. And then God steps in, and he actually seems to be a really nice guy, he even doesn't want the devils work to be all for nothing, so he lets him have his way, but gives him the power of prophesy too. At the same time, he also makes note that God gave the child the ability to CHOOSE which path he would take. Even if Merlin's got all these powers, he's like us in that we gotta choose, and even he can't escape fate. Weird...

 It seems to me the only entity in the universe that isn't subject to fate is God himself. All those prophesies, yeah that's him being omniscient like some shit. So on the one hand, we are all subject to fate, cause obviously this is a society that takes literally the power of prophesy, miracles, and magic.... But at the same time it's very clear that we have the ability to distinguish between good and evil.... So the two concepts must exist in some kind of harmony, like Ragnarok.... They conflict but they ultimately kind of spring from the same source.

And when it comes to Merlin, a highly articulate hairy wild child who grows up to be a councilor to Uther and Arthur, erects stone henge, and makes prophesies about three fold deaths is a pretty interesting result from fate and free wills love child.

Another thing I wanted to point out is that those "sorcerers and wizards" are probably Druids. In celtic Britain, and a lot of continental Europe, these guys practiced a mysterious polytheistic religion  tied to a mystical understanding of the land and universe, that we really don't know very much about
 because they trained for 20 years gathering all this secret knowledge (herd-lore,astronomy, idiots guide to building a mysterious megalithic monument) and possessed no written records. It was all oral tradition. And these guys made prophesies, and they were important public figures in ancient britain who constituted a special class. They were advisors to kings and chieftains, ate at their banquets, and were believed to possess supernatural powers.they were also masterful poets and bards. That pagan society was also really fatalistic. They believed the world was governed by fate, that there was power and doors to other worlds in rivers and wells and trees, and though they believed in an otherworld, it was a place of eternal youth and beauty..... There really wasn't any idea of hell.

 After the arrival of Christianity, the Druids died out but the bards lived on and carried on some of those old beliefs about mysticism. They became folklore, like fairies and green knights. The monks, like saint Columba, took on the religious role and performed miracles and advised kings and made prophecies. Merlin's this character that seems almost put of place. Like it's a story that's been Christianized, but Merlin as a hairy wild man living in some swamp in Wales tripping
 on some badass mushrooms or ayahuasca telling a bunch of tribal celts what to do  is what I'm
getting out of this. He has this background story, and combines elements of the court Druid, the
poetic bard, and even reminds me of figures I've learned about like saint Patrick or Columba. So there's a synthesis of all these seemingly contradictory parts, and we see them all working in unison.

Any other ideas on this? Like how you see Merlin, or the conflict between fate and free will? I saw Ruth's post and it got me thinking