How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Even to myself I had hardly admitted what came sometimes with light and fire; dreams, I had told myself, memories from below memory, figments of the brain only, like the voice which had told me of Gorlan, or the sight of the poison in the apricot. (I.7.3)
These are early days, when little Merlin understood very little about his powers. He's really good at explaining away his second sight or his ability to see through things to understand their true nature. But these insights are not just old memories, or even memories of other people's memories. Merlin actually sees things that others don't. We can't blame him for the confusion.
Quote #2
Looking back now, I see that much of what happened has been changed in my memory, like a smashed mosaic which is mended in later years by a man who has almost forgotten the first picture. Certain things come back to me plain, in all their colors and details; others—perhaps more important—come hazy, as if the picture has been dusted over by what has happened since…" (III.1.2)
It's hard to keep in mind that this whole story is told from the point of view of old Merlin, who is at the end of his life and probably in a pretty dismal situation—but here we have proof of that. It's also a classic sign that our narrator might be unreliable. If Merlin views the past as a puzzle whose original picture he can't recall, it could mean that we're getting a story that never happened. (Although…of course it never happened. It's fiction. Mind blown.)
Quote #3
[…] sometimes now as I search my memory I wonder if here and there I have confused them one with another, Belasius with Galapas, Cadal with Cerdic, the Breton officer whose name I forget now with my grandfather's captain in Maridunum who once tried to make me into the kind of swordsman that he thought even a bastard prince should be. (III.1.3)
This is not the kind of confession you want from your first-person narrator. Merlin tells us, after 225 pages, that perhaps—just maybe—he isn't remembering things right. Even though we've become attached to his characterizations of the people in his life, we have to admit that maybe this isn't the way the story actually played out.
But such is the nature of memory, and Stewart makes us aware that legends are like this: they're put together over huge spaces of time by lots of different people. They're unreliable in a way that we have to accept.
Quote #4
Even now, after all these years, and knowing all that I have learned in a lifetime, I cannot find it in me to break the vow I made of silence and secrecy. […] Men say that what you are taught when young can never be fully expunged from your mind, and I know that I, myself, have never escaped the spell of the secret god who led me to Brittany and threw me at my father's feet. (IV.6.11)
Merlin is trying to tell us something about the secret ceremony of Mithras under the old church in York after his father's great military victories. But something in him wants to keep the old rites a secret. On the practical side, we understand that Stewart probably doesn't know enough about these ancient rites to give Merlin the memories he would need to describe them. Is that meta enough for you?
On the other hand, it's a cool device to show us that Merlin is still struggling with his narrative and with how to tell his tale. He does give us some details of the ceremony, anyway, so at least we know that he remembers the essentials.
Quote #5
A few things I remember. More torch-bearers of stone. The long benches to either side of the center aisle where men reclined in their bright robes, the masks turned to us, eyes watchful. (IV.6.12)
Old Merlin breaks back into the narrative to tell us about the ritual Mithraic ceremony under the church at York. At first, he tells us that he doesn't want to reveal all the secrets of the ceremony since it was forbidden. But now we learn that he's being coy, perhaps because he doesn't really remember all the deets. We know that Merlin's been having some memory lapses over the course of this narrative, and this just cements the idea that we're dealing with a somewhat unreliable narrator.
Quote #6
So I rode out of town and back over the miles to my valley with the memory of her face burned into everything I saw, and the gold of her hair lying in every shaft of the slanting sunlight. (IV.7.28)
Merlin's in lust here. He's seventeen and missing the most beautiful girl he's ever seen in his life. Keridwen has fled the nunnery and left no forwarding address, so Merlin will naturally pine for her as he rides on his way. Stewart maps Merlin's memory of the lovely girl onto the landscape, showing us how loss can be projected beyond a person's mind and into the real world.
Quote #7
There are many stories about the Dance, how the stones were brought from Africa, and put up by giants of old, or how they were giants themselves, caught and turned to stone by a curse as they danced in a ring. (IV.7.8)
Stewart's book is a complex layering of legend upon legend, as we see here in Merlin's memories about Stonehenge. It's the layers of history and the imprint of past humans that Merlin feels when he gets the creeps among the sacred stones.
Is he simply sensitive to the passage of time and previous generations, or does Merlin really have some special powers that make these layers of history more transparent to him? Chew on that.
Quote #8
These tenons and sockets had been fashioned by men, craftsmen such as I had watched almost daily for the last few years, in Less Britain, then in York, London, Winchester. And massive as they were, giants' building as they seemed to be, they had been raised by the hands of workmen, to the commands of engineers, and to the sound of music such as I heard from the blind singer of Kerrec. (IV.7.8)
Merlin sees the stones of Stonehenge for what they are: really big rocks that were jostled into place by the hard work of earlier generations. He refuses to believe that they were moved by magic. In this sense, Merlin isn't a wizard or magician. He's utterly practical and highly aware of the traditions and stories of the past.
Quote #9
"They say that in times past that stone came out of Britain, out of the mountains of the west, in sight of the Irish Sea, and that the great King of all Ireland, Fionn Mac Cumhaill was his name, carried it in his arms one night and walked through the sea with it to Ireland." (IV.10)
Uther takes an Irish poet prisoner, and this is the explanation they get from him about the origin of the king-stone at Killare. Merlin believes none of it, but it makes for a good story. And that's really a great part of Merlin's power: he can read between the lines of story and song and get to the reality that will help him get the job done.
Quote #10
The rhythms of the movement were of course laid down by the work, and the tunes were the old tunes that I remembered from my childhood; my nurse had sung them to me, but she never sang the words that the men sometimes set to them. (V.1.5)
Again, practicality and poetry meet to achieve big things. Merlin leads a massive crew of men to reset the fallen stones of Stonehenge. Though he relies on his mad engineering skills, there's also the poetry of old songs to set the pace and help the crew stay on task so they don't get crushed by the stones.