Most of the events of Merlin take place in a forest where Merlin has fled. Afraid of what might happen to him if he remains in the city, he instinctively runs toward the sanctuary he knew as a smaller child in Passager—the New Forest, where he can fend for himself and hide among the trees.

He eventually finds himself in the camp of wodewose, the word for the wild people of the forest. This is an irony; when he was abandoned in the woods in Passager, the hope of those who abandoned him was that he would be found and taken in by the wodewose, but in a year of living wild in the forest the only human being Merlin saw was Master Robin, a falconer. In Merlin, he finally meets some of the wodewose, and it seems fortunate for him that he did not meet...