Todd Jensen writes...

Somebody asked you earlier about Merlin's connection with the "Merlin Wylt" of pre-Geoffrey of Monmouth Welsh legends, and you mentioned that you didn't remember the details too well. I thought that I'd give a little information here (Merlin being a subject that I've always been strong on).

Merlin Wylt (also known as Myrddin or Lailoken) was apparently "the original Merlin", though he lived a few decades after Arthur's time period; he served as a bard and advisor to one King Gwenddolau, who lived in what is now Scotland in the late 6th century. When Gwenddolau was killed at the Battle of Arderydd in 573, Merlin Wylt went mad with grief and fled into the woods nearby, where he began uttering prophecies about Britain's future.

His name became so well-known, and attached to prophecies, that when Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote "The History of the Kings of Britain", he decided to bestow the name "Merlin" upon Ambrosius, the boy prophet who met with Vortigern, and thus created the familiar figure of Merlin, who was afterwards known as "Merlin Ambrosius". (I recall that Mary Stewart mentioned once that the "Merlin Ambrosius" version of Merlin's name was what inspired her with the notion that Ambrosius, Uther Pendragon's older brother and Arthur's uncle, was Merlin's real father, in "The Crystal Cave").

Of course, because of the dates, the two Merlins were probably not the same person (and indeed, I doubt that "Merlin Wylt" could have been the same as *the* Merlin in the Gargoyles Universe given that, from what you've said, Arthur's Merlin has been in the Crystal Cave since before Arthur's departure for Avalon, which was about thirty years before the Battle of Arderydd; it would have to have been a different guy with the same name).