Book Review The Prophecies of Merlin: The First English Translation of the 15th-Century Text by John Matthews and Maarten Haverkamp Publisher: Inner Traditions 320 Pages Release Date: July 2025 Merlin has spent so long as a stock fantasy figure that it’s easy to forget he was once a working prophetic voice, one taken seriously enough to be copied and recopied across two centuries of manuscripts. This translation exists to correct that. In 1498, an unknown Franciscan scribe compiled a body of prophecies attributed to Merlin, drawing on sources going back to a thirteenth-century monk’s collection. Maarten Haverkamp, a longtime collector of rare medieval books, acquired a copy and spent five…