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Christina
Merlyn is a character in T. H. White’s novels The Sword in the Stone and The Once and Future King. In White’s version of the life of King Arthur, Merlyn was born in the future and lives his life backward toward the beginning of time. In the 1930s (White’s own time), Merlyn says he was a schoolteacher, thus telegraphing White’s own sense of identification with the character. By the time he becomes the future King Arthur’s teacher, Merlyn is an old man full of wisdom and prophecy—mostly because of his backwards life, which means that his past is everybody else’s future.
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Merlyn Character Timeline in H is for Hawk
The timeline below shows where the character Merlyn appears in H is for Hawk. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 24: Drugs
...he was just an ordinary little orphan boy called the Wart. The Wart’s magical teacher, Merlyn, educates him by turning him into various animals. And while this education was much kinder...
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Chapter 26: The Flight of Time
...home but the Wart stays behind. In the morning, he discovers a mysterious cottage and Merlyn. Macdonald suspects that White wished to be Merlyn, a man who was born in the...
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