Series 1 > History of Greater Britain, as well England as Scotland

CHAP. IV.]
OF GREATER BRITAIN
77
alone. For, granting the opposite, God when He worked with
a secondary cause would be more mighty than when He worked
by Himself alone—which to say is impious.
Merlin then denounced the wise men of Wales (and in this
matter I count them as fools, that they did not declare at once
their ignorance—for to every mortal man far more things must
be unknown than known), and shows to the king the true
cause of the instability of his building; for he commands the
workmen of the king to dig deeper into the earth below the
fortress. This doing, they find underground a large lake. He
then demanded of the wise men what would be found at the
bottom of the lake, and when they said that indeed they knew
not, he causes the water to be drawn off and carried away by
channels; for Merlin affirmed that there were at the bottom
two caverns, and in these two dragons—which afterward were Dragons found
found there sleeping, as Merlin had said,—and the one was
white, and the other red, and once disturbed they fell to fierce
combat one with another; and the white dragon drove the red
dragon to the far end of the lake, and then the red dragon
turned upon the white one, and forced him in like manner to
fly. Now, while they were thus in mutual combat, the king
inquired of Merlin what these dragons portended, and Merlin
made answer that the white dragon meant the Saxons, and the
red dragon the Britons, who with great bloodshed should be
driven from their country; and, as to things that concerned
the king, he said that before fifteen days had passed the
brothers of Constantius would arrive, with intent to kill the
king; wherefore let him leave the building of his fortress.
Many things of this sort the demon was able to reveal to Merlin’s gift of
Merlin—such as that of the fighting dragons and the lake; when^rhad
but as to things future and contingent,—for example, that!t'
the Saxons should conquer the Britons, or that the brothers of
Constantius would slay king Vortiger,—the demon had not the
power to foretell with certainty. He can indeed read the signs
of the times and forecast the future more clearly than is
possible to man; but the purely contingent he cannot with
certainty foretell.