But to return to Merlin. Of him even to this day it may be said, in the words which Burns has applied to another notorious personage,

“Great was his power and great his fame;
Far kenned and noted is his name.”

His reputation is by no means confined to the land of his birth, but extends through most of the nations of Europe. A very curious volume of his Life, Prophecies, and Miracles, written, it is supposed, by Robert de Bosron, was printed at Paris in 1498, which states, that the devil himself was his father, and that he spoke the instant he was born, and assured his mother, a very virtuous young woman, that she should not die in childbed with him, as her ill-natured neighbours had predicted. The judge of the district, hearing of so marvellous an occurrence, summoned both mother and child to appear before him; and they went accordingly the same day. To put the wisdom of the young prophet most effectually to the test, the judge asked him if he knew his own father? To which the infant Merlin replied, in a clear, sonorous voice, “Yes, my father is the Devil; and I have his power, and know all things, past, present, and to come.” His worship clapped his hands in astonishment, and took the prudent resolution of not molesting so awful a child or its mother either.

Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841)