Vortigern at once sent forth emissaries to scour the country in search of this _rara avis_, and at length by good fortune they came across Merlin, near the town of Caermarthen in Wales, who claimed that his mother was the daughter of a king but his father was an angelic being. The king’s emissaries evidently took his word for it, as they speedily carried him before Vortigern. A great meeting of the magicians was called, at which the king presided, and Merlin, instead of being condemned as the victim, confounded the wise men, and told the king the ground they had chosen for his tower had a lake beneath it, at the bottom of which, on being drained, they would find two dragons of inextinguishable hostility. Under the form of dragons he appears to have figured the Britons and Saxons in his speech, “all of which,” the historian tells us, “proved to be true”. But the greatest exploit with which Merlin is credited, according to tradition, is the erection of Stonehenge as a lasting monument to the 300 British nobles massacred by the Saxons. It is supposed that these mighty stones had been originally set up in Africa, and from thence were transported to Ireland. Merlin commanded that they should be carried over the sea, and erected on Salisbury Plain; but no workman could be found to move them. He therefore brought his magical power to bear on the huge stones, and by this means they were caused to take the form in which they now stand. Of the other wonderful stories which romance has woven round the career of this strange individual, we can only say they are interesting, if not exactly true. As 600 years elapsed between the time of Merlin and the earliest known records of his achievements, it is impossible to pronounce on their veracity.