This contains MAJOR, HUGE SPOILERS for the ending of the novel, Taliesin, as well as the ending of the second episode of The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin. You have been warned.
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I first read Taliesin by Stephen R. Lawhead in 1988. I was already familiar with Lawhead from his Dragon King trilogy and the Empyrion duology. Both of those were good, but he took it to a new level with Taliesin. The rest of the books in the Pendragon Cycle only sealed him as one of my favorite authors of all time.
But the ending… that devastating ending of the first book. Taliesin dies. Killed by an arrow. In the show, it happens immediately after the birth of his son, Merlin. In the book, it happens weeks later, during their return trip with the baby. Book: it’s a Picti arrow, but it’s made clear that Morgian is behind it. Show: Morgian herself fires the arrow. It’s devastating in both. Taliesin doesn’t even get any final words. My wife has never forgiven Lawhead for the scene.
As a teenager and a young man reading the book, I never quite got it. I understood it was a necessary (maybe) development for the storyline, to shift the focus to Merlin, etc. But something about it nagged at me. I pushed it aside and enjoyed the rest of the books.
Here’s the thing, though: Why? Why does Taliesin die? He’s a prophet, and he predicted many things about his own future. He said he was going to be the King of the Kingdom of Summer! He was going to spread the word of the Good God everywhere, etc. There are so many things supposed to happen. But he died. He didn’t do any of those things. Was he mistaken? Did he fail? Are the gods of Morgian greater than the Great Light of Jesu?
No. And I finally get why. Lawhead explicitly states it in the book, but somehow, I never got it. Maybe it was obvious to everyone else, but it took me growing up and becoming a father myself to understand.
When I saw the scene on my TV screen, those long-before-read words exploded into my head as if I were seeing them right then:
“…singing his own life into the child.”
Lawhead made it clear, even if I didn’t get it. It’s made even more obvious a few pages later when a group of druids tell Taliesin about the sign in the night sky: a new star appeared and was about to fade away when the ring of light around it fades instead and the star blazes bright. The druids interpret this as the birth of an immortal champion, but Taliesin recognizes that a life is given in place of the new one.
Taliesin knew. He knew his own life was forfeit if he saved his child. He gave up his future. He gave up all the prophecies. He gave up the Kingdom of Summer. He gave up life with Charis. He gave up absolutely everything, so that his son would live.
It’s utterly devastating and utterly beautiful.
