SCOTLANDS MERLIN

Merlin's origins are traced back to the story of Lailoken, a mysterious 'wild man' who is said to have lived in the Caledonian Forest in the Kingdom of Strathclyde in the sixth century AD. A possible forerunner of Myrddin Wyllt (‘wild Merlin’) of medieval Welsh legend, and of Merlinus Silvestris, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s madman in the forest (much less well-known than the adviser to King Arthur), Lailoken was solitary, tormented by the experience of war, and gifted or cursed with the power of prophecy - but was he myth or reality?