When these words reached the ears of the judge, he decided that justice had to be done or else who would believe that he must be obeyed?  So he ordered the mother to be brought before him.  When she appeared with her child in her arms, he began to read her sentence to her, according to the law of the land.  However, little Merlin left him no time to finish.  He cried: “My mother still has plenty of time to live, by God’s grace! If all the men and women who have deceived their spouses were to be condemned to death, there would not be many people left!  I know who my father is, but you, Mr. Judge, do not know yours!  Your mother knows better of whom she conceived you than mine knows who my father is!”

The judge, at first speechless with surprise, soon found his voice and cried angrily: “You vicious little slanderer, if you are lying I will have you burnt, together with your mother!”  He sent a messenger to call his mother.  Baby Merlin spoke: “It would be better, Mr. Judge, if you let my mother go free and did not question your own either.”  “Oh no!” retorted the judge hastily, “You will not get away with what you said so easily.  You will burn, mark my words!”

At that time, the judge’s mother arrived and he started asking her questions: "Mother, am I not the son of your legal husband? ”  At first the venerable lady vehemently denied she had ever known another man, but the boy Merlin, who spoke like a man, knew all the details—even the name of the priest with whom she had lain while her husband was away for a day or two. 

At last, the mother of the judge bowed her head and spoke, trembling with shame: “Alas, that it should come out even now.  Thank God that my husband is dead so he will never know.   Yes, the child is right.  God knows where he gets his devil’s wits.  It is true, my son, you are the son of that priest who seduced me.”

The judge, equally ashamed, acquitted Merlin and his mother.  “Tell me, little boy who knows my father, who is yours?” asked he.  “My father was an evil spirit of the type they call an incubus.  God permitted me to inherit the knowledge of the spirits concerning the past, but gave me in addition knowledge of the future, for the sake of my innocent mother whom the devil raped. 

Thus I will tell you that your natural father, the priest, will be told by your mother what happened here, and he will in turn be so ashamed that he will run from his house, fall in a lake, and die.”

That is what happened. The next day, the priest’s body was found.