- In the days of King Arthur, they lived in Camelot, A source who entertained the royal court with miraculous feet south, magic high.

Above the castle walls, the ancient necro meets with members of the magic round table.

Come with us now to the secret room of, - I never know where these, where these billiard balls are going to appear from.

In fact, sometimes I get tired of producing them.

We just get, get too many altogether.

Well, I'll just put this one in my pocket and well, this one I'll put over here in the hat.

That'll sort of balance things off.

Oh, here's another one and another one and another one.

I'll just put them both in the hat.

I wonder what I could do with those billiards balls.

I, I don't have any place to put them and I know, I know.

Why don't I melt them all into one?

Fuse them into one big ball and we can use it for, for bowling out on the lawn.

But first I'll have to, first I'll have to say the magic word.

Remember the magic words?

Fiddly die fiddly.

D magic billiard balls fuse for me.

Isn't that a large one?

It's heavy too.

It's ver you What?

You like one of your own?

I don't really need it.

I produce these almost every week.

It's a little heavy though, so I'll give it to you.

Could you catch it if I threw it right at you?

Hold out your hands.

Hold 'em out.

Okay, ready?

1, 2, 3.

Oh my, that was heavy.

It, it shook the room.

It was so heavy.

Well, there's one thing about 'em, which I can always defend, and that's the mighty sword.

Excalibur.

Excalibur's right over here in the stone, and he has the theme word on the blade.

So let's make Excalibur rise.

I'll say the magic words and you listen.

Ready?

Good fiddly die.

Fiddly.

D magic sword.

R for me.

Now wait.

Excalibur.

Excalibur.

Slow down.

Hold it.

Excalibur, I wanna talk to you.

That's, no something's wrong here.

Excalibur has never acted that way before.

Maybe you should say the magic words with me and it would work better.

Let's say the magic words together.

Alright.

Altogether, perhaps he'll behave himself.

Then you bad sword.

Let's go right now.

Fiddly die fiddly D, magic sword.

Rise for me.

Excalibur come back.

Weca.

He's going higher and higher and higher into the air.

And now I think Excalibur's coming back.

He's coming down.

Look out here he comes back up into the sky again.

I have never seen Excalibur act that way before in all my life.

And here he comes again.

Look out.

Goodbye Excalibur.

Goodbye.

Excalibur was such, such a nice sword too.

We had so many good times together.

I have a dagger here that one of the pages was practicing with.

He's trying to learn how to become a knight.

And it would be nice, wouldn't it?

If the magic words would appear on this throwing knife.

See that?

That gives me an idea.

When I was a small boy studying to be a knight, I wanted to learn how to throw a dagger and I could do it.

That was about 60 years ago.

About 60 years.

Now I'm going to throw a dagger right at that wooden target right over there.

We have a, a wooden knight carved out and it's quite a distance.

And I'm not as young as I used to be, but if I throw a few of these, maybe I'll, maybe I'll think of an idea for a theme word.

Maybe I'll think of a theme word.

There's my target right over there on that wooden pretend night.

It's the one that the boys do with and throw their spears at.

I'm gonna see if I can, can hit the pretend night with a dagger.

Let's see, as I remember, you put your left foot forward and you aim and throw right in the middle.

I'm gonna try another one.

I hit that target pretty good.

There are two bullseye and I'll just, oh my, that's in there.

Tight.

Oh, oh.

Well look what's written on the back of the target Weapons.

Weapons is written on the back of the target.

That might be a good theme word today.

Weapons, I think we'll talk about weapons right now.

Yes.

You know when man, unfortunately man does fight.

I wish he didn't.

But first when he fought, he used his arm in a fist like that and he actually hit people.

Then he found that if he would put a dagger like I had in his hand, he could reach a little bit further maybe, oh, maybe 10 to nine inches further.

And then he said, well wait a minute, I'll use a sword like Excalibur and I can reach farther than this man way out to here.

And the weapons kept getting longer and sharper all the time.

That's a sword like Excalibur.

And then he said, well wait, if I take a long pole and put a little dagger on the end of it like that, I can reach, oh well the Swiss pikeman have lances that are 23 feet long.

He said, well, I can reach out 23 and I can beat the fellow with a little dagger of the sword.

And later on, later on, man wanted to even be able to reach farther.

And so he took a piece of wood and bent it like that and put a string on it and a real tiny, a real tiny spear.

And he pulled the string back like that.

And he called that an arrow.

And to make it go straight, he put feathers on it.

And the bow and arrow came into being.

But later he wanted even more powerful weapons.

I'm gonna show you one that is used by King Arthur's knights when they try to, well, when they try to destroy another castle, they can't use a spear or sword or a dagger.

That wouldn't be big enough.

So they have to have something they can take in the field with them on a platform like this.

And it's called a catapult.

It has to have a wheel right here.

And I'll see if I can stick another wheel on right here.

Let's put another wheel on.

And now do you know what I'm going to make next?

Well, I am going to put a tall wooden frame.

And this is called a A tribu.

It's a French weapon.

And these particular weapons catapults are called, are assembled in the field.

They're too heavy to drag over the English countryside.

So they're assembled in the field or put together just as I'm putting it together now.

So we'll put this long arm right here.

See this arm goes up like that and it goes down like that.

And a little pivot holds it in place there.

And of course they put a stone in here in the 20th century, you have bullets and bomb, but they put a stone, a huge stone in there.

But they had to have something to make that stone go up into the air.

So they high, they took a a, a big bucket like that and fasten it on here and filled it full of stones.

And then they put a stone in here and let go of this.

And it was thrown high into the air.

And that stone just kept going further and further and further.

And it would hit a, a castle wall just right.

It would make it fall apart.

I'm gonna show you a reel catapult.

A real trache.

This is a real one right here.

It looks just like the one I showed you, doesn't it?

See here's the long arm.

This is the long arm.

And we put our stone right in there.

And there's a weight here.

I didn't put a bucket full of stones because it would take too many stones and I don't have time.

This is the kind of catapult the children play with at Camelot.

Alright, I'll put a stone.

I have one in my pocket.

I'll put a stone in the bucket and I'll crank it down by turning this winch right now.

Here we go.

Now when I count to three, I'm going to hit that little castle, that Japanese castle over there on the table.

Let's see.

The wind is blowing this way.

I better aim it a little bit more.

1, 2, 2 and a half.

Watch it go free.

Oh, and our, it was wonderful, that shot.

It's hard to believe, but the stone went right down in the bottom here.

I could hardly see it in the dark.

The stone went right down in the castle.

It's a very hard stone too.

What I think I'll do is just take this stone right here and I'm going to rub it real hard and maybe I can turn it into something better than the stone.

In fact, I'll just use this handkerchief right here.

And I'm going to use this little castle also.

This is a Japanese castle, and this is the floor of the castle.

This is king Arthur's favorite trick.

I'll put the handkerchief inside of the castle like that, tuck it down and snap my fingers.

And the handkerchief disappears.

It's gone.

It went over here into my pocket.

Well, if I can make it go into my pocket, certainly, most certainly, I can make it go back here.

If I say the magic words, fid, I fiddly D, magic silk return for me.

And here it is.

Would you like to know how it's done?

I'll tell you how we make the silk go out the hole in the bottom of the box into my left hand.

Like this.

What?

Watch.

See we just put the silk down there and then pretend to take it out of our pocket.

That's known as palming.

Yes.

I'll do it once more so you can see it very slowly.

Take the silk, put it down into our little Japanese castle all the way down.

Tucking it out the hole in the bottom into my left hand right here.

Now you can see that as long as I keep my left hand closed, I can show the castle empty and the floor empty.

It's gone.

What's that?

What if someone says look in the hand?

Well, I just blow on my hand.

It disappears and goes back to my pocket.

It's nice to know that trick, isn't it?

We'll put the silk back in the pocket and see if we can make the same thing happen all over again.

Silk is in my left hand pocket.

I don't see it anywhere, do you?

That's because it's flying invisibly around the room.

And when I count to three and say the magic words, it will appear right here in the box.

You must say the magic words together.

Here we go.

You'll actually see the silk appear in the box.

One still invisible.

You must remember.

Take my little magic wand and tap it.

1, 2, 3.

Fiddly die fiddly d magic silk.

Appear for me.

Watch it and you can actually see it coming into the box.

Please keep that trick a secret.

Will you see you later?

Goodbye now.

Goodbye.

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