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

Come with us now to the secret room of Merle.

The - Welcome.

Welcome.

Once more to my secret room at Camelot.

Come with me.

I'd like to read a letter.

These two letters just came in and I haven't read them as yet.

This one says, dear Merlin, last night, my mommy had to leave right after supper was over, so I cleared off the table all by myself.

My mommy said that this was a very good deed, so please send me a magic wand and a, and a membership card, if you will.

Mommy is writing because I'm only five years old and don't know how to spell yet.

I like your program very much, but I don't like heckle.

The hermit signed sincerely, Samworth, S-P-O-F-F-O-R-T-H, Samworth.

Then he says, PS he said, I'm afraid of heckle, the hermit.

And I'm also afraid that if he keeps the, the sketch pad that he stole the last time, that you'll never get your magic back.

Well, don't worry about it, Sam.

We got sketchpad back again and all the magic has been restored to it.

We'll also send your membership card.

Another one.

Dear Merlin, recently I cleaned my room.

In fact, I did it several times.

I would like to join the Magic Roundtable.

And then this young lady gives her a name and address and she assigns it.

Sincerely, Barbara, Joe Sheldon.

PS I'm in the third grade at Morrison School.

Well, Barbara Joe will also send you your membership card and the magic wand.

Let's join now and make the mighty Sword Excalibur rise into the air and we'll find out what the message is for the day.

Here we go.

You ready?

Good fiddly die fiddly DI hope it works.

Magic sword, rise for me.

Gracious.

The magic word is magic.

You know, we've talked about many things, but we've never talked about magic.

M-A-G-I-C, and so many people ask me about the history of magic.

Where did it all start?

Well, historians say that magic started way, way back in the time of primitive man before science and before there was any religion.

I wonder how it came about.

I wonder what primitive man looked like.

I imagine that he looked something like this and he had a heavy beard because this was before razors.

They didn't, didn't shave in those days.

Well, as the story goes, this very rough and tough and muscular, primitive man discovered something quite by accident that led to one form of magic.

You know what he has in his hand?

Put a big chest on this fellow.

Well, he has just discovered fire, just discovered fire.

And it's a very precious commodity is flame.

This is a stick that's burning.

Now, historians don't know exactly how it happened.

It might, it might have been a bolt of lightning that struck a, a dry tree, or it might have been that accidentally.

Some Ferris material was struck against a piece of flint or flinty like stone that caused a spark.

But he who had the magic of fire, had warmth for his home and his cave.

He could go behind the walls of his stone cave and be secure from the attack of wild animals.

He could be warm in cold weather and he could also, he could also cook his food.

And these early magicians were called fire magicians, and they were looked upon as leaders of the tribe.

They not only had magic and primitive times, but in the colorful era of Egyptian history, it said that some Egyptian magicians would go next to a a statue or a sarcophagus.

Do you know what a sarcophagus is?

Well, it's a tomblike enclosure in which bodies were sealed.

And on the outside they had carved the head of a man.

Funny hairdo, isn't it?

The eyes were always closed.

This is the tomb of a dead king.

And his arms are always folded across his chest in this manner, on the carving on the outside of the tomb.

And it said that early Egyptian magicians, I'm going to make one standing over here.

He's standing alongside of this tomb and he is looking over his right shoulder at the face of the deceased king.

And he's smiling.

Do you know why he's smiling?

Because he's working a feat of magic.

It's a ventral oal feat.

That's kind of a, that's kind of a big word, ventral oal.

So maybe I'd better change it to ventriloquism.

Egyptian men wore a funny kind of skirt, so I'll put one of those funny skirts on him like that.

And also a priest hat.

And invariably it had here a moon, a tiny moon.

You know what he's doing to that mummy?

He's making it talk.

He's making it speak.

It says hello down there, just very much like we would talk to Soko.

And he's speaking without making his lips move.

This was an early type of magician, and many ventriloquist were Egyptian priests who could make stone statues and images talk.

In those days, there was good magic and bad magic.

Bad magic was called black magic.

The type of magic used to hurt people and put spells upon them.

White magic was good.

Magic or entertaining magic both had their place.

But of course, nowadays magic is just used for entertainment.

We're not superstitious.

We know that such a thing as real magic doesn't exist.

It's just done for fun or for your entertainment.

That's the kind of magic we do here in the Secret Room.

Speaking of magicians, we have a modern young magician today who's going to entertain you.

He visited Camelot once before and he has a very, very interesting trick.

It's called the 20th century silks.

I'd like to introduce him now for your pleasure.

Here he is, young Charles of Lin.

- Thank you very much.

And now we're going to do a little trick with some handkerchiefs.

This is an orange handkerchief.

This is a multicolored handkerchief.

That of course means it has a whole lot of colors in it.

And this is a blue one.

Now you see, I want you to watch what I'm going to do because I'm going to take the orange one and the blue one, and I'm going to tie them together.

Now we have to tie them together very securely like this.

And then we're going to put them right in here.

See right inside my gown here.

Okay, now you watch those.

Now we're going to take this silk.

It has all sorts of colors in it.

And this is a little bag, this is a little red bag here, see with a black interior.

And we'll just push this right down in here like this.

Now I want you to hold on.

You keep an eye on the bag, you see, because the bag's very important to this trick because with the bag here and the handkerchief, which is right down in here, can you see it right down in there?

You can't see it, right?

Well, no.

You see, that's because it's over here.

- Very good, very good indeed.

Did you like that?

I wonder if Sarco liked that.

Hello?

Down there.

Hello, Lin.

Excuse me, sir.

Echo, did you like that handkerchief trick?

No, it was all right.

What do you mean?

All right.

Well, I hate to brag, but as a matter of fact, I better You can yeah, come close, tell you, you can really, I don't believe it.

Reco told me that if I tie these two handkerchiefs together like that, just tie them together and, and stick them in my gown that he can do the same thing, the same thing that young Charles of Lynn did.

I don't believe it'll see.

Now, Sarco, you also told me that they would see this vanish, but I wouldn't see the handkerchief disappear.

Is that right?

That's right, that's right.

All right, what's next?

Just grab a little from there.

Sprinkle it on the sill.

Sprinkle wolfel dust on this sill.

Well, I don't know where I'm gonna find any wolfel dust around here.

I'll look around and let's see.

There might be some up there.

Yes, I'll sprinkle over here on this.

I don't, I I don't see the silk, bro.

That's because I'm a good magician.

I, I I don't understand that.

Well, you might have made that silk disappear, but you didn't make it come in between these two handkerchiefs.

And I know what mar Now I thinking from your guy, we move them now.

Yeah.

And and if I do that, will the handkerchief that disappeared be in between, you'll be a surprise.

I, I will.

Okay, here I go.

One, two.

I don't think it's gonna be there.

There, correct.

That's my undershirt.

You know, I've always had trouble with that part of the trick.

And now, wait a minute.

Come back here.

I don't know about that fellow, do you?

I every time he does something, it turns out wrong.

And I, I have something back here will be doggone.

There is the handkerchief.

I really do think that Sir Echo is, is quite a magician.

After all.

We'll take the handkerchief like that and I'll get a little wolfel dust and sprinkle it on there.

And maybe it'll go between.

Well, it's gone, but we still have my undershirt.

That's quite embarrassing.

It's not embarrassing to watch young Charles of Lynn perform and he has a particularly interesting trick.

Now let's watch.

- Now this is a paper bag.

Now you see this paper bag.

It doesn't have anything in it.

That's very important because actually it does have something in it.

It has four balls, a white one, a red one, a blue one, and a yellow one.

Alright, now whoever has the red one, throw that back this way.

Aha.

There it is.

The red one.

And then there's the blue one.

The blue one, and the yellow one.

And a white one.

There they are blue, red, yellow, and white.

And maybe when I come back some other time, we'll do it again.

Until then, we'll just put them in here.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

- Thank you Charles.

Did you enjoy that?

Very nice demonstration indeed.

I hope we can meet together real soon and talk more about magic, the origin, the history of magic, and how it began.

Right now, a puzzle.

If I hold two pieces of candy next to this glass, can you make them go into the glass by throwing them into the air once and twice?

Well, if you try in the regular manner, it won't work.

It's easy to make the first piece go in, but when you make the second piece, go in, don't throw your hand up in the air in that manner.

If you do, it'll drop to the floor.

So do you know how you make the second piece go in the glass?

First piece is easy.

Well, to make the second piece go in the glass, we merely drop the glass under it.

You don't toss it into there.

Watch.

Just drop it under.

Doesn't that work Easy?

One, two, here's the first one.

And now just drop your hand and you've caught the second one.

See you soon.

I'm gonna explain this to Charles so long now.

Right - Sir Echo portrayed by Rick Houser Mer was produced in the studios of Ohio University Television in - Athens, Ohio.