The Snarleygogs Of King Arthur’s Court: The Hollow Vale: Poetry of the Fabled Gable of Roman Britain

The Tharion Cycle: The Hollow Vale and Poetry of the Fabled Gable of Roman Britain, Book 8

By: Alexander Paul Burton

Narrated by: Alexander Paul Burton

Before Merlin was a wizard, she was Myrdda—a witch, loremaster, and keeper of the dying thorn tree that protects her Cornish village.

When the tree fails and the townsfolk turn on her, Myrdda is cast out and hunted by King Dungarth across post-Roman Britain. The Library of Avalon lies in ruins. The old Daughters have scattered. And the knowledge she needs to save the tree—and her people—seems lost forever.

But the land itself intervenes. A scholarly hog in spectacles offers cryptic counsel. A mournful partridge guards forgotten wisdom. And the Snarleygogs—ancient trickster spirits of the apple orchards—offer Myrdda a dangerous gift: transformation from woman to man, from Myrdda to Myrddin. From witch to wizard. From exile to the legend the world would call Merlin.

To save the tree, she must become he. To return home, he must let go of the woman he was. But in a land where magic flows like cider through roots and gods care only about souls, Merlin discovers that his greatest power isn't what he sacrificed—it's everything Myrdda brought with her into this new form.

The Snarleygogs of King Arthur's Court reclaims the Merlin origin story as a trans narrative set in the mists of Celtic Britain, where gender transformation is sacred magic, where belonging is earned through courage rather than birth, and where the greatest wizards are made, not born.

For listeners who crave Arthurian legend with a queer heart, T.H. White's gentle strangeness, and the mythic resonance of Ursula K. Le Guin.

©2025 Alexander Paul Burton (P)2026 Alexander Paul Burton