An Geadh-Glas

Sunday, February 24, 2019 – Meadowlark Trail

Last week and this, I walked up and down the Meadowlark Trail, a route with more distance than elevation. Pleasant weather this week, though last week was chilly, with snowflakes here and there. Lots of geese, who sit around for a while and then decide en masse to relocate to a new pond or patch of grass, for some unknown reason. As Merlin said:

Mysteries of such kind be in no wise to be revealed save only in sore need. For, and I were to utter them lightly or to make laughter, the spirit that teacheth me would be dumb and would forsake me in the hour of need.

—Merlin, Histories of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth, 1136

While I was trying to find the exact text of the Merlin quote above, Google popped up the following from the Book of Daniel:

Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, 'The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.'

—Daniel 2:27-28, King James translation, 1611

Daniel, who was under the threat of being chopped to pieces if he failed, accurately recounts the king’s dream and its interpretation; Merlin simply says that prophecies are best saved for important matters, not parlor tricks.

I wonder what they might have said about the random flights of geese in midwinter.