Adventures in Nefyn

Wales is a wild and wooly place. Untrammeled forests and sheep grazing placidly on the misty moors. A land where legend and history are intertwined, and where, bound by grey stones and purple heaths, anything seems possible.

It seemed possible, at least, to three young children in the summer of 1979. I was 9. My brother Barry, was 7. Our friend Nicholas was 8. Nicholas was adventurous, and had a nose for trouble. His mother had never wanted children until I was born, and after Nicholas was born, she never wanted another. Barry, Nicholas and I did everything together. But the one thing we wanted more than anything was to have a real adventure.

And that summer, camping with our families in the peaceful village of Nefyn, our opportunity arose.

Nicholas and I were both avaricious readers, and the gold and crimson stories of King Arthur were favourites that year. We were camping near a forest and a mountain, on which was an old ruin. My dad told us it was Tintagel, home of the Pendragon, and fuelled by this remarkable coincidence, we hatched our plans to set forth on our own as-yet-unidentified quest.

We got up early in the mellow and foggy light of dawn. We had packed sandwiches the night before, and we packed them in our rucksacks, and with the dog in tow crept away from the tents and into the edges of the forest. Twigs cracked underfoot sharply echoing in the silence, but no parents followed us in that carefree time when the world was a little more friendly. We made our way up the side of the mountain towards Tintagel, where we planned to have lunch and…

I don’t know what we thought might happen, only that we were drunk with all the heady possibilities that open before you when you are a child on an adventure. We were not alone, oh no, we had knightly ghosts accompanying us at every turn – Lancelot, Bedivere, the Lady of the Lake, and somewhere in the mists, Merlin the magician and even King Arthur himself. And in this fashion we climbed all the way to the ruin, where we sat, exhausted by our long day, and ate our “lunch.” We had left, I would guess, around 6:30. It was now 7 o’clock. AM.

Now what?

Nicholas suggested we climb into the ruin and explore, which we did. I suggested a sword fight. Which we did. But it was Barry who first saw the tree. We edged toward it. Barry saw it, so he got to go first, with Nicholas and I bringing up the rear. It was a huge knarled oak tree, ancient as the ruins surrounding it, and the centre of the trunk was split and hollow …we gazed in awe, our excitement rapidly mounting… it had to be… it was… it was Merlin’s oak!

If you are not an Arthur aficionado, you may not know the story of how the mighty magician Merlin was lured to his fate by the beautiful witch, Morgan le Fey, who wooed him with songs and trapped him inside an oak for all eternity. And we had found the magic oak. Which meant only one thing: that we had it within our power to rescue Merlin, and bring back the glory and wonder of the world that was Camelot.

No matter that the oak’s hollow was more an open hole, that if you waved a hand on one side, you could see it on the other side, and so it was patently obvious that Merlin was not hidden inside it. There was magic in the air, and Nicholas insisted he could crawl inside and come back with Merlin. He put his foot inside the oak, and flattened his body against it, but he was too tall to squeeze all the way in. “I can’t get it,” he grunted. “I’m too big.”

He pulled himself out, and with one accord he and I turned to gaze speculatively at Barry. Barry the fearless, Barry the brave, Barry the diminutive. He instinctively backed up. Barry the not-so-brave then.

“Come on,” we pleaded. “Don’t you want to save Merlin.”

He didn’t. But I am not an older sister for nothing, and after promising him the rest of the chocolate in our lunch, Barry stepped up to the oak, placed one foot inside, then one arm, then the other foot, then the other arm. His elbow was sticking out but that didn’t matter. He was in the oak, and we were jubilant.

“Do you see Merlin?” asked Nicholas.

“Hm Hmuchhh” came the muffled response.

“What?” I said, popping my head around the other side of the tree to get a clearer view of his lips. “I thaid,” he said, his face an odd shape, “I’m Thtuck.”

He was. Good and proper. We tugged, pulled and pushed, but he was stuck inside the oak.

“What should we do,” I whispered.

“Let’s leave him and say he ran away,” said Nicholas. “Or – his face lighting up – we could set fire to the tree and when it starts to burn we can pull it apart and free him.”

Just then, we heard a rustle in the leaves behind us. We spun around, but there was nothing there. The dog barked once making us jump and then ran off into the copse. Nicholas grabbed my arm. “There’s something here,” he said. And there was, you could feel it. The air was different – static, smoky – and then it was gone again. The dog came back, and we turned back to Barry, who was just emerging from the oak brushing some dead leaves and bark off his arm.

“Let’s go back,” Barry said. “I’m starving.” And as we left the glade, he smiled at us, glanced back over his shoulder and called out, “Thanks, Merlin.”

30 years later I still don’t know what really happened – if Barry was pulling our legs, he’s never admitted it. But something of the myth and magic of the place still holds my soul captive, and I’m quite willing to believe that we had our very own brush with Merlin.

- by Denise Nielsen, © 2007 -