the reason why I can't get into the Merlin TV series...

[fpb]

...has just become clear to me. In this episode, to prove worthy of the throne, Arthur is said to have to go on a "vision quest". Well, what nonsense. Vision quests, in so far as the term means anything, are specifically Native American things; and if there is any Celtic parallel, it is not in the selection of kings, but in the training of bards. Which is a wholly different thing - Merlin, or Myrddin, was originally a bard himself, and the one thing this damn series gets roughly right is that the bard had something of a protective function with respect to the king. What is more, there is a good deal of perfectly workable and nicely dramatic Celtic ideas about the discovery and consecration of a King, which involve the offering of a divine drink (the story of the Grail was probably originally one such), the fulfilment of strange but detailed prophecies, and the quest for a divine bride. Tolkien, who of course knew all about it, showed that Aragorn could neither be fully king of Gondor till he married the immortal Arwen, nor marry her till he had earned the kingship. That is inventive use of ancient, native themes; to ascribe a "vision quest" to a king's son in Britain is arbitrary and ignorant. And that is what annoys me about this series: not that it rewrites the legend, but that it does so for no visible reason, at random, and (to use again CS Lewis' wonderful expression) with "an imbecility of arbitrary invention". There is no more reason to call the protagonists Merlin and Arthur than to call them David and Nathan, Aeneas and Achates, or Napoleon and Talleyrand; it comes to the same thing.