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Merlin the Magnificent’s black cape billowed as he strode in the center of Arthur’s bazaar to determine the cause of the kerfuffle. He found two growling peasants armed with curved daggers eyeing one another, surrounded by a jeering rabble cheering them on. Merlin had seen this in a vison. There was a phrase for it. The bedraggled men circled each other, like, what would be called in many moons, “Knife Fighting Mexicans."

Many great mysteries were revealed to Merlin in the mystical crystal shafts deep within his lair. For the future, the past and the present are but one facet of the Dragon, which is all things.

Merlin considered weaving a mist from the Dragon’s breath and ending this childish behavior, typical of this brutish race of men still in the infant stages of its development. He thought about uttering the charm of making from the bowels of the Dragon and return these simpletons to their prematurely aged wives and scabby runts.

But aside from being a totally ace Wizard, Merlin was also, (in another vision revealed to him in his lair) a creature that would come to be known in the distant future as a “Money Grubbing Jew.” So instead of ending the fight he hovered to the nearest bookie (a “Greasy Dago” in the future) and placed a heavy bet on the shorter, meaner peasant. He had an amber glowing deep within his rheumy eyes. It was revealed to Merlin that this burning would come to be known as “The Eye of the Tiger.”

Merlin intensely rooted his peasant on, because, man, he needed the farthings, big time. Everybody seemed to be dabbling in necromancy these days. It was a buyers market. It was the unforgiving law of Supply and Demand. And that was part of the fucking Dragon too.

Date Written: September 17, 2004
Author: scoop
Average Vote: 4.44444

Comments:
09/21/2004 qualcomm (4): woodpile last line. 4.49.
09/21/2004 Mr. Pony (5): Summer, you fool, you child, you mewling imbecile, this is obviously a 4.5
09/21/2004 Will Disney (4):
09/21/2004 Will Disney: who's in for this tournament on sunday? brand new tournament technology.
09/21/2004 qualcomm: mr. pony: what-ever.
09/21/2004 anonymous: I'm in Will!
09/21/2004 scoop (5): Yeah, me too!
09/21/2004 TheBuyer (4):
09/21/2004 Dylan Danko: FU Disney.
09/21/2004 Streifenbeuteldachs (5): I enjoyed the capitalist tie-in to early medieval Britain. BTW I always knew Merlin was a Hebe.
09/21/2004 Joe Frankenstone (4): Paragraph 4 started to lose me and made me worry that the payoff would be dumb jew and italian jokes -- I was down to 2 stars at one point. But this came roaring back with "Eye of the Tiger" and Merlin's world-weary but pissed-off acceptance of the Dragon's true role. Well done.
09/21/2004 John Slocum (4):
09/21/2004 Jon Matza: Actually (said in a smug voice), Judaism (and the Jew as moneylender stereotype) predated the Arthurian era by several millenia. And while it may be fair to consider Merlin a Jew from a socio-cultural standpoint, it seems unlikely he was one on a religious level, given that the Torah strictly forbids idols, witchcraft and suchlike heathen activities. Furthermore, dragons aren't real.
09/22/2004 Will Disney: thanks, jon!
09/22/2004 Benny Maniacs (5): I give these stars to Matza, and then four point five more to the short. Eye of the Tiger, indeed.
01/20/2007 Master Bates (5):