- In the days of King Arthur, they lived in Camelot, A source who entertained the royal court with miraculous feet south, magic high.

Above the castle walls, the ancient Necro meets with members of the magic round table.

Come with us now to the secret room of - Welcome.

Welcome to my secret room at Camelot.

Nice to see you again.

It's always good to see you.

I don't know what this teeter totter is doing here.

Oh, I remember now.

I was supposed to give Chauncey a medal because he's become an acrobat and I suppose this has something to do with the board.

And, hello Chauncey, nice to see you again.

Are you going to, before you do your acrobatic trick, I'll give you this medal.

Put it on your chest here.

You gonna do this alone or do you need a helper?

Okay, a helper.

I think Gerald the Acrobat is going to help you today.

Hello Gerald.

Good to see you.

Hello, - Merlin.

- Nice to see you.

Gerald, you are going to jump on this board and propel Chauncey into the air.

And then who catches you If you're gonna do a flip and I catch you.

Well, let's see if you're gonna stand on that.

I should be over here.

I don't want you sure you know how to do this.

Do you think?

You think he does?

Alright, if whenever you're ready, I'll stand in back.

And you trust me, don't you?

Alright, whenever you're ready, Gerald.

I think we're going to be ready in just, I wanna make sure this is the right distance.

Two steps.

And you're gonna go high in the air.

A somersault in my arms.

Alright, I'll catch you.

Chauncey.

Chauncey, you're, you're supposed to go into the air.

You, maybe they're both a little bit too heavy.

Gerald, perhaps we can try this again.

I better take the metal back.

Thank you, Chauncey.

They, they, none of us should weigh too.

All right, I'll keep the metal.

Yes.

Well, he tried.

Thank you, Chauncey.

He was supposed to go way up into the air and I was supposed to catch him.

I think Chauncey's had too much, too much to eat lately.

It's all right to eat.

As long as we exercise and keep in good physical condition, maybe he can come back again and, and do that trick for us.

I, I hope he can.

Oh, I, I almost forgot a young lady from Rialto, California.

Her name is Valentin.

V-A-L-A-N-T-I-N.

I hope that's the right, the right spelling.

Call K told me that she's practicing magic.

But whenever I get to do a trick, she says, someone grabs a trick out of my hand and they discover the secret.

Well, I'm very sorry about that, Valentine.

You'll have to protect your tricks and not let anyone take them out of your hand.

And Valentine also said that she'd like me to do a trick for her.

Any kind.

Well, Valentine, I was in hopes that that Chauncey and Gerald the Acrobat could do a trick for you.

I know.

I'll do one later on with a star.

Would that be all right?

A special satellite trick.

And I hope you and all the round table members like it Now though, it's time for us to make the mighty sword.

Excalibur rise from the stone.

Are you ready to help me?

Good.

Let's say the magic words together.

You know what they are, don't you?

Good.

All together now, fiddly die fiddly.

D, magic sword.

Rise for me.

The magic word.

Can you pronounce this?

S-T-A-R-S. Stars.

I'm sure you've perhaps said a little poem about stars, but you've never thought about it too.

Seriously.

Remember the, the poem Twinkle, twinkle Little Star.

How I wonder what you are.

That poem concerns stars and many stories concern stars because stars have been an important part of man's life from the beginning of time.

This fellow right here is interested in a star, this man that I'm going to draw for you.

He's quite interested in a star.

He's looking up in that direction.

I don't know if you can, can make out what this fellow is, but he's looking up in this direction.

His hand is over the railing of the ship.

This is a bow of a ship.

And he's concerned about where this ship is going.

And he knows that he's going in a certain direction if he can see if he can see a certain combination stars.

And he sees up here a star in one here.

In one here, stars aren't really, really star shaped, actually they're round, but they twinkle and give off light.

And so we make them look star shaped in our drawings.

Actually, they're round just like the Earth.

He's looking at the Big Dipper.

And it has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 stars.

There's also another little star right up here above the handle of the Big Dipper.

And it's called A-L-C-O-R. Indians used to think early Indians thought that the four stars here, the Dipper itself was a stretcher and that there was a sick man in the stretcher.

And then the arm right here, that was a medicine man.

And that was a medicine man's wife.

And Alco was their papoose.

And over here was the dog that belonged to the squall or the medicine man's wife life.

Arabian used to think that this was a rider, and Al Corre was riding and stride this horse.

Now the Dipper is very important for quite a few reasons.

I'm gonna draw a little bigger picture of the dipper and explain just what I mean.

Let's draw the Dipper like this is now, ever since the beginning of time, man has used the big dipper to navigate to find out just where he is on the globe.

I mentioned this briefly when we talked about ships one time, because the Big Dipper is very, very important to sailors.

The big Dipper is in the northern sky.

If you're at the North Pole, it's right over your head.

If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, it's usually about 45 degrees to the north.

And by going down the handle of the dipper like this and looking up here, you'll find the north star.

And that's called P-O-L-A-R-I-S. And the Dipper hand, it rotates right around the north star.

And the North star Polaris always stays in one place, but this big hand rotates constantly.

And it's a clock in the sky.

It kind of tells time.

Early, early man also thought that the stars were good for telling fortunes.

And he devised what?

What is known as a horoscope or an astrological chart.

That's a big word.

But he believed, the astrologer believed that if you were born at a certain time in a certain month, for example, between December 12th and November, or be December 21st, I should say in November 21st, you were born under the sign of Sagittarius, the archer.

This is a man with a bow and arrow.

He's an archer.

And he thought that if you were born under this sign, he could tell your fortune and things that would happen to you the rest of your life.

The astrologer frequently wore a hat like that.

And this particular astrologer, I'm told, carries a little star under his hat.

Remember, stars aren't aren't pointed.

They're round like this.

Perfectly round.

Now, I don't know, but I've heard this astrologer tell this story.

And he said, pretend that the black cloth, this black cloth right here, pretend that it's the sky.

So we'll do that.

We'll pretend the black cloth is the sky and I'll cover this cloud.

Or rather, I'll cover this star with the black sky.

Now remember, we have a star.

It's covered with a black sky at night and something should happen.

Look, you'll see the star move, just like the big dipper moves.

Seems to be moving.

- This is, this is, - You never know what it's going to do.

Where do you suppose it is now?

What's that?

It's slowly rising.

Just like the sun or the moon rising there.

It's what's coming towards me.

Maybe I better, maybe I'd better blow it away.

Me this star.

It moves so fast.

I never know what it's going to do next.

There, it's down.

Oh, there you go.

Stay there.

Well, that's the story of the Astrologers star.

Remember about the Big Dipper.

Remember how to find it.

And incidentally, when you do write to Merlin in care of this station, I have a game with stars.

Inside of your membership card, there is a big star like that.

On the top of the star, there is a picture of Sir Jacque, the English Mastiff.

And over here is a picture of Sir Echo's vase.

And over here is a picture of Donna the Dove.

And over here is a picture of Chauncey.

Our very good friend Chauncey.

And over here is a picture of George.

George.

The Genie is a snake that lives in a basket and the trick is called Magic Spell.

Any one of your friends can think of any of these characters and you can tell what's on their mind.

It's a good mind reading.

Pick magic spell.

Just write to Mer and care of this station and I'll send it to you along with your membership card and your magic wand.

Buy now.

See you soon.

- Gerald.

The Acrobat was portrayed by Jerry Davis Chauncey The clown was portrayed by Joe Berman.

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