Magic, Mysticism, and Merlin

While I was procrastinating perusing Netflix the other day, I discovered that I had not in fact finished watching all of Merlin. (For those of you not familiar with the show, you can get the general idea here.) I of course had to fix this immediately. So I picked up at season 5, episode 6, “The Dark Tower,” where I had left off. A wide variety of magic is portrayed in this show and this episode proved to be no different.

Within the first two minutes of the show, while Guinevere, her brother and some knights are riding back to Camelot, Morgana of course appears to cause trouble. She finds a small clearing in the path of the travelling knights and plants a trap. We see her reach out her hand and mutter a dark-sounding incantation. Almost immediately, about half a dozen snakes materialize with a hiss. The unsuspecting riding party comes trotting through the clearing and chaos ensues. The horses rear in panic at the sight of the snakes, throwing two of the knights to the ground where they get bitten. Meanwhile, Gwen’s brother Elyan yells to her to run, which she does. With the knights distracted, Gwen rides around a corner almost right into Morgana. She turns to ride away, but Morgana reaches out her hand again, this time without using any words, and launches Gwen straight off her horse.

                When Arthur finds out that Gwen has been captured by Morgana, he of course sets out to rescue her. On the first night of the journey, the two knights who had been bitten by the snakes wake up with a shout. Through the dark magic that was in the snakes that Morgana conjured, they both had the same dream of a dark tower. The group determines that this vision was intentional and that the Dark Tower must be where Gwen is being held.

                In the top of the Dark Tower, Gwen is being tormented by yet another type of magic. Morgana has recreated a curse she has used before that uses mandrake roots. A potion is brewed and the roots dipped in it. These are then hung in the sleeping quarters of the victim. This curse causes the victim to hear and see things. In the case of Gwen, she hears screams and threatening laughter, often accompanied by visions of people who could help her, but instead begin laughing or screaming at her. This is probably the most familiar use of magic, the idea of using a potion to have an effect on someone.

                As the rescue party continues on their way to the Dark Tower, they find themselves lost in an impenetrable forest. After spending a day walking in circles, Merlin stumbles across a fairy-like spirit who tells him he must use his mind’s eye to lead the group safely through the forest and warns him that one in the group will not return. The next day, Merlin uses his powers to see ahead at various points on the path and successfully leads the group out of the forest. Once they reach the Dark Tower and climb the stairs, the group becomes separated and Elyan runs on ahead. He finds the room where Gwen is, but discovers she is being guarded by an enchanted sword that fights to the death. He attacks the sword and incapacitates it, only to end up dying from a wound inflicted by the sword, thus fulfilling the prophecy Merlin was given.

The interesting thing about this is the perspective we have on a T.V. show like this versus documents from the Middle Ages. We are aware that Merlin is a fictional show, and very few people would take it as a documentary or factual show. However, if you were to have someone from the future or even some other planet with little solid information on our culture and lives sit down and watch it, they might come to false conclusions and assume that we in some way believed it to be true. In this same way, could it be possible that we are taking some of these stories out of context and giving them more meaning than their writers intended?