Still, they thought he had lied about the boy's death, in speaking of three deaths when he ought to have spoken of only one. So for many long years his pronouncement seemed an empty one, until the boy himself reached manhood. Then its force became universally apparent, and many were convinced.

While hunting with a pack of dogs, the youth saw a stag hiding in the forest undergrowth. He unleashed the dogs: at the sight of the stag they tore upwards along the rough tracks, filling the air with their baying. He spurred his horse in pursuit, directing the huntsmen by sounding his horn and by shouting, and urged them to come on with greater speed.

There was a high hill, ringed with rocks, with a river running across the plain at its foot. The quarry crossed the hill and fled towards the river in search of its usual type of cover. The young man pressed on and took a straight course over the mountain, looking for the stag among the scattered rocks. But, in his headlong course, his horse happened to slip and went over a high precipice, and its rider plunged down the steep cliff slope into the river. But he fell in such a way that one foot caught in a tree and the rest of his body was submerged in the flowing stream. So then, he fell-he was drowned-he hung from a tree; and by his triple death he proved the prophet a true one.

Vita Merlini