- Days of King Arthur there lived a sorcerer who entertained the royal court of Camelot with miraculous fes of magic.

Come with us now to the secret room of Merles, the magic.

- Welcome, welcome once more to my secret room at Camelot.

Nice to see you again.

I was supposed to remember something.

Oh, I forgot the, the, the letter from my round table members today.

I have a couple letters, actually.

Excuse me while I go get them.

Don't go away.

I I'll be right back.

Alright.

- Greetings.

Round table members are and am sling the s spook.

While Merlin is gone.

I must let you in on my little surprise.

When Merlin returns shall suddenly appear and scare him, I'm going to fright him the wit out the old faker.

Here he comes.

Now - I have a letter here from a very good friend of mine.

Her name is, let's see, as I was saying, I have a letter here.

Boo.

He's trying to frighten me again.

Smedley the spook.

Shall I really scare him?

Watch HaBO.

- Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't do that.

It scares me.

That wasn't very nice.

Merlin.

I'm sorry.

I, I think I'm going to cry.

No, no, please.

You'll get the floor all wet.

Don't cry, please.

But you frightened.

- Well, you know, we don't, we round table members don't believe in spooks anyway.

But if there were such a thing as a spook, a ghost, I would certainly say that Smedley is a very, very sensitive one, isn't he?

He's a, he's sort of a crybaby.

As I started to say before, I received a very delightful letter from a round table member, Susan Jenkins, and she said, dear Merlin, my name is Susan Jenkins and I am four years old.

I watch your program every day, and I enjoy your tricks.

Please make me a member of the magic round table.

And then she tells why.

She tells about her good deed, helping mother pick up the toys and making the beds and so on.

And this last part is very important to all of us.

This last paragraph, she said, I go to church in Sunday school every Sunday and say my prayers to God before I go to bed, thanking God for all the good things that I have in life.

Love Susan Jenkins.

Mighty important to go to the church or Sunday school of your choice every week, isn't it?

And that sets a good lesson for us.

Susan, I'll send you your membership card.

Thanks for the fine letter.

Oh, I mustn't forget.

There's, there are some new members also, I think the, the youngsters of the Fahe family.

There's Gordon and Eileen and John three youngsters, Gordon, Eileen, and John Fahe, the latest members in the magic round table.

Congratulations, kitties, and keep up the good deeds.

And an old member, an old member, Vicki Rudolph, asked if I would send her a magic sky hook.

I shall send it.

Really?

I'll send you the plans and you can make the own your own sky hook.

And all you new members, please join me in saying the magic words to do.

What do you remember, right?

To make the sword Excalibur rise.

And when Excalibur rises, then we'll find out what the magic word is for the day.

Let's, let's all do it together.

You ready?

Fiddly die.

Fiddly.

D magic sword.

Rise.

For me, the magic word today is snow.

SNOW.

Pretty pretty, isn't it?

Snow, magic white stuff.

So fluffy, so beautiful.

In the wintertime, I'd like to talk about snow just a little bit via the medium of the, of the magic sketchpad, because we can really have a lot of fun in the snow.

We can, oh, we can make something like this.

You know what I'm, what I'm drawing, have you any idea what this might be?

Snowman.

Right?

And it's a lot of fun to make Snowman.

We put a little piece of coal up here and one here, a carrot for nose and one of daddy's old hats and maybe some coal down the front of his vest for buttons.

Yes.

You know, I like the snow for many reasons, because I can play games in the snow and read the snow.

Did you ever hear, you've read a book, but do you ever read the snow?

Well, if we saw a path coming over the hill like this, making two ruts in the ground, that would tell a story.

And if I read that story, I'd say, now I think those ruts are telling me that a wagon passed over here not long ago.

And then if I look next to the ruts in the ground and found something like this, this would tell a story too.

What would that tell you?

What kind of a story they're fairly deeply engraved or sunk into the snow.

What do you think that might be a track of?

Have you any idea?

Well, that story there, if I read that correctly, that would say that a man passed by here.

And then I can read other, other signs too.

What might this be, for example, in the snow?

Well, these are little bird tracks.

Yes.

Speaking of birds, don't forget in the, in the wintertime to make your bird house high up from the ground where the cats won't be likely to catch our feathered friend.

This bird house incidentally, is, is covered with snow.

It's heavy with snow.

And right at the base of my bird house, I always put a lot of breadcrumbs around like that.

You might do that.

You might do that in the wintertime too.

It's very hard for birds to find enough food to keep them alive.

Now snow can also, can also be a better move.

This page, it's a little black, I think.

I think perhaps the Chauncey the clown was drawing on that one.

But there are some other things that we can talk about concerning snow of an important nature to man snow melts and turns into water.

We need water to drink, don't we?

It's very important.

Fish need water to swim in, but up.

Well, I'm not gonna tell you where the place is.

You tell me what, if you saw something like this?

What if you saw something like this?

I wonder what this would be.

Well, whether you would recognize it or not, it's a home.

Do you know what the home is for or for whom the home is intended?

Well, this is way up north, far north, and over here is the midnight sun.

They only see the sun up at point Barrel, for example, an hour and a half in the middle of December.

Not much sunshine.

Now snow is very beautiful and we take it for granted.

But did you ever wonder what a snowflake really looked like?

Well, I'm gonna draw a snowflake on this piece of paper, right?

It's a black piece of paper.

How am I going to, I'll just draw a magic snowflake and pretend here.

We'll draw a snowflake right here.

There is my snowflake.

You see it materialized there.

That is a snowflake.

That's one kind of snowflake.

Would you like to see another one?

We'll make this disappear.

Now, would you like to see another snowflake?

Here it is.

There it it's lovely snowflake.

That's a six sided one.

That's hexagonal.

I'm gonna show you one more.

A combination of the six pointed one, the star and the hexagonal.

First, we'll make this one disappear.

Now watch this magic snowflake.

Isn't that lovely?

Oh, that is just the, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Now we'll make this one melt, shall we?

It doesn't seem to wanna melt.

It doesn't seem I know what We'll make it melt with a sun.

We'll pretend there's a sun here.

I can feel it warm up already.

It's getting warm.

And look at our snowflake melt, sir.

There it's turning into water.

Yes.

I'm going to talk to a friend of mine.

I don't know if he knows anything about snow at all, but his name is, guess his name Sir.

Echo.

That's right.

Yes.

We might talk to him.

He's rather an interesting little fellow.

He lives over here in the vase.

Yes.

He lives over here in the vase.

He's only Oh, about that tall.

Hello?

Down there.

Hello.

Up there.

Say Sarco.

Why did you leave this icicle in my vase?

I don't see my magic wand.

Just an - Icicle.

You.

Well, Merlin, I turned your wand into an icicle by magic.

And it's a magic icicle too.

It plays fine music.

Oh, really?

- Could I play music on it?

- Yeah, certainly.

Merlin.

Go ahead and, and, and tap it with your finger.

- I'll tap it with my finger.

Yeah.

All right.

That doesn't sound very good.

No, Merlin.

You, you tapped it on the wrong end.

Oh, I I, I'll tap it on this end you all now, now do it.

Careful.

All right.

That, that didn't sound very good either.

- You well, it was better, but, but I'm even better at playing on icicles than you are.

Break off a piece and drop one down into my vase.

I'll show you how - You mean.

Break one off here and put it down there for you to play.

- You are right.

Oh, I don't know.

I'm an expert icicle player.

- I shall we do it.

Alright, I'll break off a little piece and I'll put it right down in here.

You get it?

- I, I, I, I I got it.

Merlin.

Now, now just, just listen to this masterpiece.

I'm listening.

- That sounded pretty good.

- You.

Oh, I told you I was gifted.

Can I do anything else with this?

I, you're, well, let's, let's see Now you well, by, by waving an icicle in the air and the saying of the magic words, you can make it - Snow.

All right.

I'll try it.

I'm gonna wave it gently in the air like this.

Fiddly die.

Fiddly.

DI don't believe this can happen.

- You go on Merlin.

- All right.

I don't believe it.

- You sure?

It'll - Work - You well with a little bit of, of goodwill and imagination.

I It's going to snow.

- Alright.

Philly, die.

Philly.

D magic icicle.

Make it snow for me.

Oh, it is starting to snow.

I believe you're seeing Merlin.

Oh, that's wonderful.

Yes.

Wonderful.

Oh, it's snowing.

Beautiful white snow.

- Yo, how - Do I turn it off?

- Merlin.

It's getting, it's stopping up my - Face.

Oh my goodness.

I lost the icicle.

Here I'm gonna throw one of these to my round table members.

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