THE COMING OF THE KING: the first book of Merlin

By Nikolai Tolstoy  

Black your horse, black your cloak,

Black your head and black yourself,

Black skull, are you the Frenzied One? 

(P102)

As a Tolkien fan I had bought a good number of his books and I read them all. I was thus left with a great yearning for more fantasy books. I checked for any Tolkien books that I could find at the Public Library, and right on the same shelf, I found the book named with the title of this article. At more than 600 pages, this was a hefty hard-back publication. The cover was interesting, and so was the title, after all, Mithrandir, or Gandalf (meaning Wand-elf) as the hobbits called him was probably derived and inspired from Merlin or Myrddin (in Celtic). Nothing fired my imagination more than the prospect of reading this large book about Myrddin mab Morfryn the Black Frenzied One. Well yes it was not an easy book to read. I looked up the book reviews on amazon. and I could see that most readers could not read further than page 65. There are two reasons for this. This is not an easy book; it demands a lot of imagination to understand the details and it is not for the faint-hearted either. It is to be read slowly and patiently. For some of us a good dictionary would have to be consulted very often to get to the bottom of the narrative. The second problem is that the author filled a large number of pages with philosophical concepts and conclusions that thread the fine edge between reality and fantasy. This proved very tiring and sometimes I felt like throwing the book out of the window. I was feeling that while the author was enjoying his ego by bombarding us with his most intense metaphysical reflections, these killed a lot of the appeal to the readers. Tolkien did sometimes fall in the same trap in the “Silmarillion”, but definitely not to this extent.       

Although not declared by the author, this book must have been inspired by Tolkien’s classics. There are at least five references to Prydein (Celtic for Britain, I assume) as ‘Middle Earth’ and for me this constitutes proof. Regrettably, as in Tolkien’s books, almost everything and everyone has two or three names. Other similarities are a map on the first page, and an (incomplete) list of names, places, seasons and gods found in the text.

The story revolves about the British epic struggle between the Red and White Dragons. The Byrthon (or British, nowadays called Welsh) Christian locals are in constant strife with the Iwis (or Engl or Seasons) Anglo Saxon (nowadays called English) invading barbarians. Myrddin, a one-eyed seer narrates the deciding war between these factions and is himself a deciding factor in the final bloody battle. Late in the book, it becomes more evident that both sides are barbarians and the cruelty and obscenities described in this book, warrants a warning that the book should only be read by adults (and young barbarians:-). The last two chapters are particularly exciting and well paced, however the story is concluded in an unorthodox way because it departs from the apparent historical outcome in favour of an optimistic ending.

The author is Count Nikolai Tolstoy a well-known aristocrat who was recently interviewed by Pravda. This interview was also published by National Vanguard. He is also the nephew of Leo Tolstoy, the writer of the classic ‘War and Peace’.

I found the book irresistible and so I would give it a generous 4 stars out of 5. The book is out of print but I think that it failed to make history because it was swamped by Tolkien’s books. Nevertheless, as the LOTR films made such a huge success, I am sure that if a good film is ever produced about this book it would resurface as one of the greatest books ever written in the twentieth century. This book was supposed to be the first volume from a trilogy. The other two volumes were never published. Perhaps the Count had written them but they were never published . This book is for the very few and readers should make some research about British, barbarian and the Roman Empire’s history while reading the book, as the story is not only about the Welsh and the English. The Internet might suffice as a suitable source nowadays.

The following quote from this book very much reflects the feeling one gets after reading it:-

Just one last comment: if you decide to fetch and borrow the Public Library’s copy, please do return it - others might want to read it too!