Though Merlin must have had a childhood, Arthurian tales include little of it beyond his precociousness as a prophet and interpreter of dreams. His parentage varies from story to story: sometimes he was born of a rape, sometimes not; sometimes his father was a demon or even the devil, but sometimes not. What Yolen does in her Young Merlin trilogy—Passager,Hobby, and Merlin—is to offer an account of his psychological development. Her "slant" on Merlin's youth (much as Merlin dreams on the slant) is a modern one: she analyzes the impact of emotional deprivation on the views and actions of someone who is going to be very powerful someday. In Passager, Merlin is abandoned in the woods by his mother and others who are afraid to keep him with them. Thus, one source of isolation for Merlin is fear; the fear of...