- In the days of King Arthur, there lived a sorcerer who entertained the royal court of Camelot with miraculous fes of magic.

Come with us now to the secret room of Merlin, the magicians.

- Welcome.

Welcome to my secret room here at Camelot.

The other day I was playing with my special deck of cards.

You know I'm 80 years of age and that's called an octogenarian.

Someone told me and I don't see too well, so I need big cards with which to play.

This is a big one, isn't it?

You know what that is?

It's a three.

1, 2, 3.

See there are three hearts there.

And I found that if I took the top heart like that, squeezed it, I could throw it away.

That's hard to believe, isn't it?

And then if I did the same thing with the other heart right up here, squeeze it.

Oh, that stuck.

You see it was thrown away.

Also, I wonder what it looks like on this side.

Here we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 cards.

Let's take this one, shall we?

Alright, it's gone.

It's gone.

All right.

This one, we have a few more left.

I'd much rather have the four of hearts.

Four is my lucky number.

Let's take this card and the last pip we'll take right here from the card in.

Now we have four.

Four from four leaves.

Four doesn't it?

And over here, two from three leaves.

One, I thought you might like that trick.

It kind of makes you wonder if seeing is believing.

It was hard for me to believe the first time I saw it done.

Something else that's hard to believe is the mighty sword Excalibur.

And what it does each week, every time we say the magic words, you know them, don't you?

Let's hear them loud.

Here we go together.

Now, fiddly, die fiddly.

D, magic sword.

Rise for me.

M-O-N-E-Y spells something we all need more of, right?

Money.

So money is our theme today.

You know when the Romans left England, after they conquered the British Empire, they ruled for some years and after they left England, there was no special authority, a rule.

And all of the kings and knights and dukes and Barons and Earls fought among themselves trying to determine just who would be the ruler of all England.

There were many bloody wars, king against king, father against son sometimes.

And there was no money.

Instead of having money to trade during this dark period of England, they traded with, oh, a horse for two cows perhaps, or a nice new jacket for a dagger and so on.

They used what was called a trade or a barter system.

Money was slow in coming into being, and different countries had different types of barter system.

Now, if I were to ask you who this gentleman is that I'm going to draw, I, you might decide who it is and you might, you just might be able to tell me what he used for money.

I wonder if you can guess, have you any idea who this might be?

I'm going to show you that he has a special scalp lock right here and all the rest of the hair is shaved off his head.

Nothing there at all.

If I put a fierce eyebrow and some war paint on his face, you'd know, wouldn't you that this is an American Indian.

He's looking at something that he uses for money.

Do you have any idea what this might be?

Well, he puts a thread through that one and a thread through there, out this side, down around, over through here and in here and out.

And that is Indian money.

It's called Wampum.

W-A-M-P-U-M, wampum.

That's his money.

He trades with that.

The American Indian did that.

Now I'm going to draw another funny little fellow.

Perhaps you can identify him what land he's from and maybe you'll know what he uses for money.

Oh, he's fat and rollie Polly and he dresses in fur and he's looking out of his big round eyes over here to your right.

And he has a smile on his face.

This is a fur parka he's wearing because he's looking at his form of money.

What are those?

Well, these are fish hooks into the Eskimo.

Fish hooks are very important, an important type of barter because he lives on a, on a diet of fish and walrus and some other types of land animals.

But he, he lives largely on a diet of fish.

And so fish hooks are very important to him.

So what is important to you at a given time is usually the type of money that would be used.

I'm speaking now the olden times, not today because we have dollars and cents in coins.

What if I were to draw, oh, let me think of another one here.

This might confuse you a little, but this gentleman wears a black hat and it has a round ball on top like that.

And he looks something like this.

I wonder if you know what land this man is from.

Sometimes he has a long mustache.

He's smiling and he's bowed over.

He bows quite a bit and he folds his hands too.

Do you know what he uses for money?

Well, he's looking down at his favorite form of money in the olden days.

It's a brick.

Now why would a brick be worth money?

Well, this is a very special brick.

This is a brick made of tea.

And he traded bricks of tea for items that he wanted to buy.

Another type of money that, well, it's interesting to me.

And this fellow, this fellow uses it quite a bit.

He wears a headdress that looks like this.

That's a Roman soldier.

Yes.

And you know what?

He was paid in?

Well, little lumps of white things and it was salt, believe it or not, salt.

And finally, of course there came into being a money that was much easier to carry than these strange items.

I'm talking about this kind of money.

We'll put a hat on this fellow.

And he's pretty sure of himself.

He is rather proud looking.

He has a smug smile.

And this is, this is a dollar bill.

Yes.

Dollar bills are much easier to carry than salt and tea bricks.

Aren't they much easier?

And of course, don't forget these either.

These make dollar bills.

I'm speaking now of coins.

This is Charlie, the coin.

He's a penny.

And if you save all of your pennies and take them to the bank, you'll have dollar bills.

You know, money has always been a favorite with magicians because they can do well, they can do just so many tricks with it.

And I hope we have time to do a money trick today.

First of all, I want to talk to our good friend, the fellow who's only about that high.

He lives in the vase.

You know what his name is, sir?

Echo?

Yes.

Hello down there.

Hello Up there.

Say Sir Echo.

Did you like the story about money?

- Oh yes, I certainly did.

But you know, Merlin people can be awfully greedy about money.

Can't.

Yes, I don't like greedy people very much.

- Yes, money makes people greedy.

But you should save money though.

- Well, how can I save money?

Merlin, if you never give me my allowance.

- Oh, I'm sorry.

Here's your penny for this week.

- Oh god.

Sus what a spend thrift.

Huh?

Are you sure you can spare that penny?

Yes.

Well, it's not enough.

I need more money to buy a sword.

- A sword.

You mean a sword?

A sword.

That's - What, no, that's what I said.

Merlin a sword.

- Well, I'll tell you what, what?

I don't understand what I don't mean to laugh, but what do you need?

A sword.

I mean a sword.

Sword that's pronounced sword Merlin.

Alright, I'm sorry.

I know, I know.

- I, I need a, a sword to protect myself against flies and ants and mosquitoes and, and all kinds of goofy looking bugs that crawl around down here.

Why?

Last night?

A big spider with 18 hared legs almost gobbled me up.

- Well, I, I, I'm sorry.

I'll try to, you want some more money, is that - Right?

Well, don't, don't be sorry Berlin, you just gimme some money.

- Alright?

I have some magic wolfel dust here that I'm going to use and sprinkled around and maybe we can make some money just, you know, materialize.

I'm gonna sprinkle some waffle dust around here, just sprinkle it like that.

And on the back of my hand.

Then I'll take this penny and I'll rub it on my hand and watch.

It's getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger there.

You wanted more money?

Merlin, - You are teasing me.

I can't see anything.

Get that coin off of the top of my face.

- I don't think he, that was a dirty trick to play on, on Sir Echo.

But you know, he always gets the better of me.

Maybe it's because he's smarter or younger or quicker or something.

I just don't know what it is.

But he always seems to get the best of me in the long run.

So next time we meet I'll have to watch out because I'll be in trouble if he fools me.

Right?

You know, we talk about puzzles many times and I've had many requests for a specific puzzle.

Would you ask me which one to, or would you tell me rather please come out of there.

This is, this is George the genie.

Hiya say Yes.

I'd like to tell you something.

Yeah.

And then you do that.

See, didn't you?

Oh yes.

Well the sugar, we have a sugar puzzle.

You go down in there and write it on a piece of paper and then I'll know how to do it.

George is going to do a sugar puzzle, but first I want you to put your, your thinking cap on.

You may come up, George, this is a thinking cap and it'll help you solve the puzzle better.

Isn't that right George?

Yes.

Put your thinking cap right on.

Put it on tight.

And this is the puzzle.

Can you make, can you make a lump of sugar?

You've seen sugar in lumps like that.

Can you make it float in a cup?

Of course you don't drink coffee, but can you make it float in your dad's cup of coffee?

Thank you George.

I'll get the note right here.

Yes?

Can you make a lump of sugar float in the coffee?

I beg your pardon?

Yes.

George has told me the secret.

Would you like to know?

I'm gonna tell him, George, don't get angry.

I'm going to explain it.

It's written down here very nicely.

And thanks for telling me to make a lump of sugar float.

See, it would look like this if it were floating, wouldn't it?

Actually, some would be below your daddy's cup of coffee.

Well, to make it float, you put another lump of sugar this way in the cup up that holds the other one on the surface.

And then when your daddy goes to look to find out how it's done, just take his spoon in there and stir it up and this lump will dissolve and this will sink to the bottom.

He'll try and try and try and he'll never be able to figure it out himself if it likes some more puzzles.

Just right to Merlin in care of this station and George and I will send them to you - Sir.

Echo portrayed by Rick Houser.

Merlin was produced in the studios of Ohio University Television in Athens, Ohio.