From: ragnarok@cs1.bradley.edu (Matthew Lathrum)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.celtic
Subject: A solution to _Excalibur_ charm of making?
Date: 28 Feb 92 09:46:23 GMT

Well, I've been looking for the solution to this mystery for 2 years now.
Since so many are interested, I'll post my findings since I started looking
for an answer.

First of all, to refresh your memories, in the 1982 movie Excalibur by Rospo
Pallenberg and John Boorman, Merlin utters thrice the Charm of Making.  It's
pronunciation goes something like this:

Ahnall nathrach, oothvas bethud, dochiel dienvay

Many have said it's Gaelic.  Some say it's gibberish.  Some say it's a mixture
of different languages.  Some even say it's an ancient occult language
called Enochian.  It is my quest to figure this out :-)

While MUSHing one day, I typed to someone who knew Gaelic.  I asked him what
this charm meant, and phonetically spelled it out, not unlike what is shown
above.  He, surprisingly, came up with the following:

	Ahnall nathrach, oothvas bethud, dochiel dienvay  (pronunciation)

	Anal Nathrach, udhras beothadh, dochioll dian fe  (Gaelic)

And he translated it to:
	
	Come hither, serpent, heed my urgings.  Hasten, you wild wyrm!

Breaking it down to words, it was

	Anal     - Hither / to this side
	Nathrach - Serpent
	Udhras   - ? (didn't know)
	Beothadh - Urging
	Dochioll - To hasten
	Dian fe  - Worm wild


I was astonished, and so was he :-)

Well, I wanted to get a correct pronunciation, so I bought a script from
Script City.  I just got it in the mail yesterday, and I was very
dissapointed.  All it did was paraphrase what it said, but then it Merlin said
something interesting in the script that wasn't said in the movie:

  Merlin solemnly raises his arms toward that distant castle, and chants in an
  ancient language, the sounds of which he marries to the roaring and whining
  of the wind.  The wind becomes stronger, and Merlin's incantations become
  more intense, and the wind in turn becomes wilder still, until Merlin is
  charged with a fierce, nonhuman power, as the wind buffets his slight frame.

  And then, for all to understand:

			  MERLIN
	     I hold the balance of all things
	     in my summoning.  Arise mists. 
	     Come fog.


So there are my findings.  I wrote John Boorman himself in August of 1991, but
received no answer.  I even put an SASE with paper in it.  *sigh*.

The address on the script is not valid anymore, so it seems there is no way to
find out the real story, short of calling John Boorman or Rospo Pallenberg
themselves.  If someone could find the phone numbers, though, I *WILL* call.


If anyone has anything to add to this, please reply.  I haven't given up my
search.  Any other comments or suggestions are welcome.


--
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ragnarok@chem1.bradley.edu             "GEE, WHAT A CHOICE!"