A story that imagines the childhood of Merlin, the magician of King Arthur’s court. In these pages he was a feral child, abandoned by his parents in the forest (for reasons I wasn’t quite able to pick out). He survives on nuts, fruit and the occasional fish, fleeing from packs of wild dogs and climbing trees to sleep in at night. Until one day he encounters a man with a falcon in a clearing. Fascinated by the interaction of man and bird, young Merlin watches for hours (as the falconer is trying to coax his bird out of a tree) and then follows the stranger back to his house. He’s very wary, but the man catches him and then tries to help him readjust to life among people- to get used to living in a house, wearing clothes, eating cooked food, to overcome his fear of dogs, etc. It’s a gentle and lovely story, with beautiful imagery (I was especially captivated by the content of the boy’s dreams) that says so much in just a few lines. I only wish this wasn’t so short. Not nearly long enough to satisfy, I could have enjoyed far more detail. Read it in one sitting.
Borrowed from the public library.
