New insights into Merlin

Some of Merlin's poems – or Myrddin, as he is called in Welsh – have been discussed for the first time ever at a recent conference in Cardiff.

The Welsh Merlin Conference was held between 25 and 26 January 2025 in Cardiff University's Glamorgan building, with over 50 people attending the conference.

The purpose of the international conference was to present a new edition of Welsh poetry in the voice of Merlin which is preserved in manuscripts between the 13th and 18th centuries, with speakers from all over the world travelling to the capital to discuss their work.

Among those presenting their work were the project's researchers Dr Ben Guy from the University of Cambridge, Dr Jenny Day from the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, and Dr Llewelyn Hopwood from the School of Welsh. Dr Guy and Dr Hopwood talked about parts of the early poems in the corpus that were not completely known before the start of the project, while Dr Day presented some Merlin poems from the Tudor and Stuart era for the first time ever.

Dr Hopwood said: "This weekend was a taste of the kind of exciting research that will result from the new editions and the buzz it will stimulate in the field of Merlin studies by re-locating, or presenting for the first time, this multi-layered figure's Welsh poetry."

Conference attendees also had the opportunity to hear from 2 other academics from the School of Welsh who are part of the Merlin Project namely Dr David Callander and the project leader, Dr Dylan Foster Evans. Dr Foster Evans talked about the life story of a brilliant scholar who was lost at a young age, Margaret Enid Griffiths, while Dr Callander talked about how the new edition of 'Cyfoesi Myrddin a Gwenddydd ei Chwaer' has changed our understanding of the famous and extensive poem by considering the significance of the 2 characters' dialogue and its relationship with the theme of 'the end of our age'.

Speaking about the conference, Dr Callander said: "It was a special privilege to meet and listen to so many versatile scholars from so many different institutions. The quality of the papers has been exceptional and the conference has made significant progress in studying Merlin's Welsh traditions."

There were 2 keynote lectures during the conference, the first by Dr Victoria Flood from the University of Birmingham who put an artful order on the complex network of prophecies that appeared in English and Welsh in the 15th century and the second by Dr Juliette Wood from Cardiff University outlined the Merlin tradition in its entirety: from the young fatherless boy to the wild man from the woods, from the wizard to the plays, from the manuscripts to the fantasy films.

The conference marks the culmination of the Merlin Project, one of the School’s biggest and most important projects. The project which has been in place since 2022 is a joint project between Cardiff University, the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies and Swansea University.

Dr Callander said: "It will be a sad day when the project comes to an end, as I have enjoyed working so much with brilliant scholars on such interesting material, but we can be very proud of what we have achieved. The project has produced standard editions of so many Merlin poems, including challenging early poems and later poems which bear witness to the development of Merlin traditions."

Following the conference, a selection of the papers will be published as an authoritative academic book. In addition, a public event will be held on 15 February 2025 in Aberystwyth where a website containing the poems and information about them will be launched.