14. According to legend, Stonehenge was built by Merlin
Where Henry of Huntingdon was content to celebrate the mystery of the building of Stonehenge, his contemporary Geoffrey of Monmouth (c.1095-c.1155) wouldn’t let the matter rest there. In his Historia regum Britanniae, where this noted fibber started the medieval obsession with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Geoffrey had a rather unique theory: magic. Geoffrey said that the British King Aurelius Ambrose wanted a monument to the British chiefs slaughtered by the vicious Saxon warlord Hengest in Wiltshire. Naturally, he decided to consult a wizard, none other than Merlin himself, about what to do.
Merlin of course had a good idea. He knew of a stone circle in Ireland called The Giant’s Ring that had magical healing properties, which Merlin promised would stand for all eternity if transferred to England. Merlin led a group of men to Ireland, who slaughtered locals who didn’t want the stones pilfered, but they baulked at the size of the magical monoliths. ‘It is not by sinew but by knowledge that these stones shall be moved’, said Merlin, who used his great wisdom to move the stones onto the waiting ships. They’ve stood at Stonehenge ever since.
