Vita Merlini

work by Geoffrey of Monmouth

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July 14, 2026

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The Vita Merlini is a Latin poem written by Geoffrey of Monmouth between 1148 and 1151. It is based on Celtic legends about a wild man gifted with divination. This work portrays a different version of the enchanter Merlin than his role as a prophet and advisor in Geoffrey's earlier and more famous work, the Historia regum Britanniae. While the Historia brought King Arthur into European literature, the Vita Merlini focuses on Merlin's adventures and his gift of prophecy, drawing from older Welsh traditions.12

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Morgan le Fay
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Vita Merlini (c. 1150) named her as the ruler of Avalon, a marvelous island where King Arthur was to be healed of his wounds, and it described her as skilled in the arts of healing and of changing shape. In Chrétien de Troyes’s romance of…
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Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Vita Merlini (c. 1150) named her as the ruler of Avalon, a marvelous island where King Arthur was to be healed of his wounds, and it described her as skilled in the arts of healing and of changing shape. In Chrétien de Troyes’s romance of…
Read More

Geoffrey Of Monmouth
…in ornate Latin hexameters, the Vita Merlini, which portrays a Merlin whose adventures are based on genuine Celtic material about a madman with a gift for divination.
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…in ornate Latin hexameters, the Vita Merlini, which portrays a Merlin whose adventures are based on genuine Celtic material about a madman with a gift for divination.
Read More