#inogen

Howdy, anon!

Merlin does have children in, at least, three Arthurian narratives. The first instance that a child of Merlin is mentioned is in the French Arthuriana the “Second Continuation of Perceval,” written by Wauchier de Denain in the 13th century. His daughter identifies herself as “the Damsel of the High Peak of Mount Dolorous” and she is described to be “of otherworldly beauty” (De Troyes et al., 2018, pp. 330-331). Moreover, Merlin’s daughter narrates her background to Perceval in the following manner:

As it can be observed in the text above, Merlin’s daughter’s existence is due Merlin enchanting her mother to never ever leave him. (It is only fitting that in other narratives Merlin himself got imprisoned for eternity by the Lady of the Lake).

Now, the second child of Merlin that is mentioned is in the English Arthuriana, “Arthur; or, the Northern Enchantment”, written by Richard Hole in 1789. In the poem, Merlin gets married in his old age and has a daughter.

Unfortunately, Merlin’s wife dies of childbirth (as shown in the verse above). Merlin names his daughter Inogen. Then, he christens his daughter. During said christening, the priest prophecies that whoever marries Merlin’s daughter will reign supreme in Britain. But before that happens Merlin’s daughter will go through lots of woes and troubles. In the end, Inogen gets married to Arthur and all is well (Hole, 1789).

Lastly, the third child of Merlin that is mentioned is in the English Arthuriana, “The Bridal of Triermain: Or the Vale of St. John”, written by Sir Walter Scott in 1813. In this poetic narrative, Arthur has a one-night stand with a half genie woman and has a daughter with her. Fifteen years later, Arthur throws a tournament for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Among the participants is Merlin’s son, Sir Vanoc. However, Sir Vanoc dies in the tournament against Sir Morholt (as shown below).

Vanoc’s death is what causes Merlin to curse Arthur’s daughter to sleep until she’s woken up by true love’s kiss. (For further information about the plot of this poem, you can read more about it here).

To conclude, Merlin does have children in Arthurian narrative, but as it can be observed it happens in rare occurrences. Nonetheless, having such knowledge is interesting to have (specially if one wants to explore what is it like to be in the shadow of being Merlin’s child or if one wants to explore the fact that Merlin has children).

References

De Troyes, C., De Denain, W., Manessier, & De Montreuil, G. (2018). The complete story of the Grail: Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval and Its Continuations (N. Bryant, Trans.). D. S. Brewer.

Hole, R. (1789). Arthur; or, the Northern Enchantment. G.G. J. and J. Robinson. https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/hole-arthur-a-northern-enchantment.html

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