Merlin and the Giants’ Dance

Long ago, a king named Aurelius ruled over Britain. He wanted to build something wonderful, something so grand that people would remember the brave folk of Britain forever. He asked his builders, but nobody could think of anything grand enough.

Then the king sent for Merlin, the wisest wizard in the land. Merlin came, with his long cloak and his bright, thoughtful eyes. “If you want something that will last forever,” said Merlin, “bring the Giants’ Dance.” “What is the Giants’ Dance?” asked the king.

“Far away across the sea, on a mountain in Ireland, there is a great ring of stones,” said Merlin. “Long, long ago, giants carried those stones from the far ends of the earth.” “The stones are magic, and they are so huge that no ordinary people could ever lift them.” “If we set them up here, they will stand as long as the world lasts.”

The king laughed. “How can we carry such huge stones all the way across the sea?” But Merlin only smiled, and so the king agreed to try.

The king’s men sailed across the sea with Merlin and climbed up the mountain. There stood the Giants’ Dance, a ring of enormous gray stones, taller than any house. The men brought ropes and ladders and long wooden poles. They tied and pushed and pulled and heaved, until they were red in the face. But the stones did not move, not even the tiniest bit.

Merlin laughed a merry laugh. “Step back, my friends, and watch,” he said. He moved his hands and spoke some quiet, secret words. Then, one by one, the giant stones rose up into the air as lightly as feathers. They floated down to the shore and settled gently onto the ships.

The ships sailed home across the sea, all the way to Britain. Then the stones were carried to a wide, green plain near the town of Salisbury. Merlin set them up in a great ring, standing exactly as they had stood on the mountain.

The ring of stones is still there on the plain today, and people call it Stonehenge. Every year, many visitors come to look up at the giant stones and wonder how they ever got there. And some people still say it was Merlin who brought them.