And autumn is his bridle

[sovay]

"So all through that winter he came to me. And he came at night. I was never alone in my chamber, but he came through doors and windows and walls, and lay with me. I never saw him again, but heard his voice and felt his body. Then, in the summer, when I was heavy with child, he left me . . . They will tell you how my father beat me and shut me up, and how when the child was born he would not give him a name fit for a Christian prince, but, because he was born in September, named him for the sky-god, the wanderer, who has no house but the woven air. But I called him Merlin always, because on the day of his birth a wild falcon flew in through the window and perched above the bed, and looked at me with my lover's eyes."
—Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave (1970)

Comments

[genarti]

I love that book so very, very much.

My attention wanders in the later books, when it gets into the Arthurian love-triangle stuff -- my patience for love triangles of betrayal and doomed passion tends to be limited, which is why my fascination with Arthurian tales waxes and wanes -- but, oh, I have loved The Crystal Cave for years upon years.

[sovay]

My attention wanders in the later books, when it gets into the Arthurian love-triangle stuff -- my patience for love triangles of betrayal and doomed passion tends to be limited, which is why my fascination with Arthurian tales waxes and wanes -- but, oh, I have loved The Crystal Cave for years upon years.

I love the sword of Macsen Wledig in The Hollow Hills and Niniane in The Last Enchantment; the rest stiffens the closer it gets to familiar Arthuriana. But yes to loving The Crystal Cave.