Then he took him aside so that they were by themselves, and he said to him, “Your mother will go off and will tell what I have said to her to the man who fathered you. And when he hears that you know it, he will be so frightened that his heart will not be able to bear it, and he will run away out of fear of you. And the devil, whose works he has always done, will lead him to a spring, and he will drown himself. This way you can prove that I know the things that are to come.”

And the judge answered, “If it happens thus, I will never doubt you."

Then they left their private meeting and went back before the people, and the judge said within the hearing of everyone that the child had indeed justly saved his mother from being burned: all those who would see him should know that “to my mind they will never see so wise a man.”

And they answered, “Praise God!”

This is how Merlin’s mother was saved and the judge’s mother found guilty. Merlin stayed with the judges while the judge sent two men with his mother to find out whether what the child had said would turn out to be true. As soon as she reached her house, she spoke to the priest and told him about the wonder she had heard. When he heard this, he was so terrified that he could not utter a word. In his heart he imagined that the judge would kill him as soon as he came there. Thus brooding, he went out of the town, saying to himself that it would be better for him to drown himself than for the judge to give him an
unworthy death. The devil, whose works he had done, egged him on until he made him jump into a pond and drown himself.

Vulgate Merlin