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13th-century pages, found by chance at a British library, show a different side of Merlin, the magician who advised Camelot’s king…

Thirteenth-century manuscript fragments discovered by chance at a library in Bristol, England, have revealed an alternative version of the story of Merlin, the famed wizard of Arthurian legend. A team of scholars translated the writings, known as the Bristol Merlin, from Old French to English and traced the pages’ medieval origins, reports Alison Flood for the Guardian.

The manuscript is part of a group of texts called the Vulgate Cycle, or the Lancelot-Grail Cycle. Using handwriting analysis, the researchers determined that someone in northern or northeastern France wrote the text between 1250 and 1275. That means it was committed to parchment shortly after the Vulgate Cycle was first composed, between 1220 and 1225.

“The medieval Arthurian legends were a bit like the Marvel Universe, in that they constituted a coherent fictional world that had certain rules and a set of well-known characters who appeared and interacted with each other in multiple different stories,” Laura Chuhan Campbell, a medieval language scholar at Durham University, tells Gizmodo’s Isaac Schultz. “This fragment comes from the second volume, which documents the rise of Merlin as Arthur’s advisor, and Arthur’s turbulent early years as king.”…

“Rediscovered Medieval Manuscript Offers New Twist on Arthurian Legend,” from @SmithsonianMag.

* “Camelot,” lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner; in Camelot, based on The Once and Future King by T.H. White

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As we meditate on the myth, we might recall that it was on this date in 1297 that François (or Francesco) Grimaldi, the leader of the Guelphs, disguised himself as a monk and led a group of his followers in the capture of the Rock of Monaco.

In the event, François (whose nickname was il Malizia, “the malicious“) was able to hold the territory for four years before being chased out by the Genoese. After his death, in 1309, he was succeeded by his cousin (and stepson), Rainier I of Monaco, Lord of Cagnes. His cousin’s descendants, the Grimaldi family, purchased Monaco from the crown of Aragon in 1419, and became the official and undisputed rulers of the principality, which they hold to this day.

François’ victory is commemorated on the Monegasque coat of arms (the emblem of the Grimaldi family), on which the supporters are two friars armed with swords.

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