Merlin the Wizard was real - the Glaswegian scholar that is said to be the original inspiration for the King Arthur character

Anyone from Glasgow will tell you that Partick is a burgh of great character, producing many Scottish footballing greats, some of the UK’s biggest trade unionists, and even the original magic man himself, Merlin the wizard.

This is the proposition of Adam Ardrey, a legal Advocate and former SNP candidate, who authored the book ‘Finding Merlin’ in 2006, which places the wizard most well-known for his depeiction in Disney’s ‘The Sword in the Stone’. Ardrey claims that Merlin was based off of a Partick resident (or a resident of the lands that would become Partick) in 600AD. He even specifies the exact-future street address of the proto-Merlin, apparently he lived where Ardery Street is now - just off Dumbarton Road - long before the city was even a twinkle in St. Mungo’s eye.

To the modern Glaswegian, the red brick flats seem a long way from the marble citadels of Camelot where King Arhut held court, guided under the wisdom of Merlin, the court magician. Yet 1400 years ago, long before Glasgow planted it’s shipyards on the Clyde, Merlin lived on a fertile spot of land where the River Kelvin meets the Clyde.

Ardrey is far from a reputable historian in the community, in fact many critics were taken aback that an amateur historian would dare to question the foundation of the Merlin myth. Scotland isn’t the only nation to claim the wizard - with claims being held by the English, Welsh and French, without then going even further and identifying his postcode.

Speaking to The Scotsman a short time after the books release in 2007, author of Finding Merlin, Adam Ardrey said:“As soon as you mention Arthur and Merlin, people laugh.

“No respectable Cambridge historian is going to be seen as the guy who studies their lives. But I’m not a professional historian, so I don’t have a reputation to look out for. What I’ve tried to do is make sense of the history.”

Ardrey spent six years researching for his book on Merlin - and his conclusion was not that Merlin was a wizard, but a scholar and politician. According to his findings, Merlin was the son of a chief called Morken, who lived in Central Scotland in the late sixth and early sevent centuries. Merlin lived his wife Gwendolin in what is now Ardrey Street from 600AD to 618AD.

The author believes that Merlin was assassinated on his way to Dunipace in Stirlingshire later that year and lies buried at Drumelzier in the Borders. For those that grew up on the decidedly-English depictions of Merlin in Disney or John Boorman’s Excalibur - the claim that the auld wizard was a Scot borders on the sacrilegious. That being said, Ardrey isn’t pulling this info from his proverbial hat, the history and genesis of Merlin does point to a character from Scotland as inspiration for the magician.

According to the book, his name in reality was Myrddin and he lived in the forests of Caledonia. His name was changed by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and it was that recounting that became popular and widely believed. Myrddin was a bard for Lord Gwenddoleu, but was driven mad after witnessing the slaughter of his lord and his forces at the Battle of Arfderydd by Riderch Hael, King of Alt Clut (Strathclyde) in 573AD.

Myrddin was thought to have the power of prophecy and even predicted he would die by falling, being stabbed and drowned. He was, according to legend, attacked by shepherds who drove him off a cliff, he then landed on a wooden spike in the Tweed and died with his head under the water.

Geoffrey of Monmouth expanded on Merlin’s background in his next work, Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain) in which he lifted details about a legendary figure called Aurelius Ambrosius and wrapped them around Merlin. In a previous history of the kings of Britain, an author called Nennius told the story of an ancient British king called Vortigern. He was trying to erect a tower, but it always collapsed on completion and so his wise men told him it was necessary to sprinkle the blood of ‘a child born without a father’ - talk about some cowboy builders.

Ambrosius was rumoured to be such a child, but when brought before the king, he revealed that the problem was the foundations - below which lay a lake containing two fighting dragons, a predicament thankfully never encountered by Glasgow’s housing office. The idea of the ‘child born without a father’ was transferred from Ambrosius to Merlin, as was the story of the tower with Merlin - now the hero. In this volume he took on an even more supernatural quality, as he was born to a king’s daughter who was impregnated by an incubus. He was also - most crucially for the next 1,000 years of literature and, later, movies - revealed to be an associate of King Arthur.

According to Geoffrey, it was Merlin’s magic which allowed Uther Pendragon to enter the castle of his enemy and, in disguise, father Arthur with his enemy’s wife, Igraine. His final volume, Vita Merlini (The Life of Merlin), was written between 1149 and 1151. Despite the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s texts at the time, not everyone believed his inventive ‘history’.

In 1190, William of Newburgh, wrote: “It is clear that everything this man wrote about Arthur and his successors, or indeed about his predecessors from Vortigern onwards, was made up, partly by himself and partly by others, either from an inordinate love of lying, or for the sake of pleasing the Britons”.

Once conjured up by a vivid imagination mixed with fragments of history, Merlin, along with King Arthur and the knights of Camelot were to enjoy many more adventures, driven on by the quill of successive writers. It should be clear to most historians that Merlin the Wizard and Merlin the Man (whose existence in the first place is often called into question) would be two entirely different people - it was the hopes of Ardrey to try and find the true story behind Merlin.

The inspiration came to the former solicitor seven years ago when he visited the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh to research the origins of his name. Adam Ardrey told the Scotsman in 2007:“I found evidence connecting it to Arthur the legendary hero, which provided proof he was a Scottish warlord born in 559AD.

“When I watch programmes or read books about Arthur and Merlin, the maps stop at the Border. Yet four of Arthur’s most famous battles were fought at Loch Lomondside. In movies, he’s portrayed as an English king when he’s far from it. He made his reputation fighting against the English. When I found the evidence I couldn’t leave it alone.”

The chain of evidence that links Merlin to Partick is thus: Myrddin was at the Battle of Arderydd, the modern version of which is Ardery. The fact that there is still an Ardery Street - ‘the only one out of 10,000 streets in Glasgow’ - is, in the author’s mind at least, part of a series of historical links.

The author concluded the interview by saying:“I say Merlin lived there from 600 to 618,”

“I’m not saying you must believe this. All I have done is the best I can with the evidence I’ve found. If I’m right, I’m right and if I’m wrong, I’m wrong.”

The book, Finding Merlin - The Truth Behind The Legend, by Adam Ardrey, can be hard to find these days - with physical copies going for upwards of £50 secondhand. But you can still get a audiobook version on Amazon for around £3.