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

[sovay]

Discovered it in my teens, consumed it, and it engendered a lifelong passion for all things Arthurian.

My mother had ancient hardcover editions of all four books; I think I must have been thirteen or fourteen when I read them for the first time. They imprinted.

It is still my favourite book in this vast field.

It is one of my two favorites. (Certainly, hands down my favorite Merlin.) The other is eegatland's The Winter Prince (1993).