Merlin appears in literature and folktale in the English stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
The earliest version of the story of Merlin moving Stonehenge from Ireland to England occurs in the work of the medieval chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth.
In early societies, the functions of bard and magician, poet and priest, were almost interchangeable. Thus Merlin the magician appears in folklore as Merlin the singer of songs. He is the bard who accompanies the king in all his enterprises, uttering prophecies and singing his praise.
In ancient times it was customary for famous bards to attend the building of great palaces, or the erection of temples. Much as a modern reporter will be given an exclusive on a royal story, the bard was expected to make songs for the event. And, like the reporter, he understood that his function was to spread the king's fame by providing good press.
If one of the bard's functions was to spread propaganda, another was to invoke the gods' blessing on the building, in his role as priest. A third and most practical function may have been to provide worksongs for builders in an age when huge, stone edifices were raised by hand.
Stories of vast stones moved by the power of the voice may originate in a misunderstanding of these functions. Over centuries, the idea of monuments raised by teams of men pulling in time to the song of the poet-priest becomes simultaneously simplified and exaggerated. The result is the image of inanimate objects carried through the air by the power of a magician's song.
