My Christ-Haunted Journey with Merlin
There are stories we read, and there are stories we live.
And sometimes — if you walk long enough in the woods — they become the same.
For many years, as I wandered the path of Druidry, seeking truth in leaf and stillness, a presence would meet me in the quiet places.
He never needed to be named — but I knew him.
I knew him as Merlin.
Not the conjurer of fairy tales, but the wild prophet of the forest — the one who fled battle and bore sorrow, who listened to the wind and walked alone with God.
In meditation and dream, in moments of stillness, he would come.
Not to teach. Not to perform.
Just… to walk with me.
He was a companion. A way-marker. A gentle reminder that there was wisdom in the wild, and truth that lived beyond words.
And then, one morning in the woods, everything changed.
🎭 The Last Time I Saw Merlin
It was a few years before COVID. I was at a gig, of all things — dressed in full costume, playing a magician in the woods type character at Hawkestone Park Follies. Having been a close up magician for 20+ years this is not as odd as it may sound.
And yes, I know.
But there was something hauntingly full-circle about it.
There I was, robed and standing among trees, awaiting that days audience, being just what Merlin had quietly been to me all those years.
And in that strange threshold moment — cloaked not just in costume but in story — he came.
Not seen with eyes, but felt with the soul.
A presence. A knowing. Still and holy. He stood down the hill from the small woodland hut I was in. I was surprised to see him, but then he had always turned up when least expected. I greeted him.
And then, without fanfare, I heard it:
“Our journey is at an end. You are to accept Jesus as your guide now.”
He had come to say goodbye.
I wept. Not because I didn’t understand — but because I did.
It was the kind of goodbye you give when an old friend, who has walked as far as he can with you, steps back and points to the road ahead.
🕊️ Christ-Haunted, Christ-Found
Looking back, I know now what I couldn’t quite name then.
Merlin had never been the end of the road.
He was the threshold-keeper. The midwife. The soul-guide who had led me through story and silence until I was ready to meet the deeper Presence beneath it all.
He was, in his own mythic way, a John the Baptist in moss and mist, preparing the way for Christ in my heart.
I have long thought of myself as being Christ-haunted.
Because even when I walked other paths — Jesus was always there.
Hidden in the trees. Whispering on the wind. Waiting patiently until I could say yes.
🌱 A Name Remembered
This is why the name Myrddin still speaks to me.
Not as nostalgia, not as claim, but as memory and witness.
The Druid became a disciple.
The forest led to the cross.
The haunting gave way to home.
And perhaps, if I ever take a vowed name in the community I now walk with, it might just be Myrddin — not because I dwell in the past, but because I honour the one who handed me over.
💬 What Remains
What remains is not an allegiance to legend.
It is a deep gratitude for the one who walked with me,
until Christ took my hand.
Merlin did not convert me.
Christ called me.
But Merlin — Myrddin — was the one who knew when to step aside.
And that, in its own way, was the most sacred act of all.
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