Merlin  having a twin sister is not a modern conceit; Ganieda, who is every bit her brother's equal, plays a leading role in Vita Merlini, The Life of Merlin, written in Latin around 1150 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey, who coined the name Merlin, based his protagonist on the probably historical figure Myrddin, a British prophet and bard of the sixth century. Early Welsh poetry attributed to Myrddin still exists.

 

Geoffrey's earlier and more well known work, Historia Regum Britanniae, The History of the Kings of Britain, is the source not only of the Arthur of romance, but also of Cymbeline and Lear. As is often pointed out by scholars, his book is hardly history in the modern sense of the word, but it has certainly been a wellspring of inspiration for writers ever since it was first penned. Quickly becoming a medieval "bestseller," it forms the basis for the many Arthurian retellings from the Middle Ages down to the present day.

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While drawing on both books to provide structure for my novels, I have also deviated from them. Where Geoffrey curiously fails to develop the relationship between Merlin and Arthur, I have turned to Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and my own imagination, using the latter to fill out characterizations and invent new ones. Though I have tried to keep descriptions of everyday objects and the landscapes through which characters move accurate to post-Roman times, elements of fantasy remain - it is, after all, a tale of Merlin.