SACHS HAD A LIFELONG FASCINATION with the figure of Merlin the sorcerer. Although the archive collections contain Merlin fragments and texts she wrote right up to the end of her life, she published only one: “Wie der Zauberer Merlin erlöset ward” (How Merlin the Sorcerer was Saved, from Legenden und Erzählungen, 1921). This text allows us an opportunity to contextualize Sachs's authorial interventions within the spectrum of Merlin narratives and consider the significance of her choices. Because we possess so few drafts of texts by Sachs, and because she is frequently understood, as Fioretos recently noted, as a vessel rather than as a writer, this provides rare and important insight into the conscious action of the artist. Sachs's various Merlin pieces suggest that she was aware of different Merlin source texts and also major themes across the generations, especially narration and fiction versus factual history, Merlin's dualistic nature, and Merlin's relevance for addressing contemporary political, national, and social problems. Into the Merlin narrative tradition Sachs weaves strands that engage with German literature and gender roles, and that hint at a concern with the rhetoric of race, national identity, and the power of hegemonic forces to shape myths that define and validate their position at the expense of the voices and experiences of those who are deemed outsiders. Ultimately, “Wie der Zauberer Merlin erlöset ward” makes the point that every “definitive” story, whether it is the legend of an individual or the history of a nation, is the result of interpretative choices that obscure numerous other perspectives.

From the twelfth century onward, regardless of epoch or language, the figure of Merlin has been a complex presence of trustworthy wise man and feared supernatural power, nation builder and outsider, manipulator of events and seeker of justice. He is the son of a virgin mother and a phantom father. He possesses the ability to tell the future, the ability to see and hear across great distances (allowing him to be everywhere at once), and power with words, which is manifested in both his rhetoric and the spells he casts. He foretells the end of King Vortigern's rule by interpreting the battle between the red and white dragons beneath his tower.