The overwhelming success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has proved we all love a good conspiracy theory. Brown's book, which claimed to reveal the real story of the Holy Grail, tapped into a rich seam of the public's collective imagination and sold millions of copies worldwide. The idea that vast swathes of the populace had been fooled for millenniums by the church and that one book could comprehensively strip away the lies to reveal a startling truth was intoxicating to many.

Now Scottish advocate Adam Ardrey has written a tome which claims to reveal for the first time the truth about the man described as tutor to King Arthur. Ardrey's book, Finding Merlin, The Truth Behind the Legend, not only pushes the idea that Merlin was a man, not just a myth, but suggests a very different life than the one embedded in popular culture.

Evidence for the existence of both Arthur and Merlin has always been sketchy, a fact which has simply fuelled the fire of the legend of Camelot. Curiously, some 2000 places in Britain claim an association with one or both men - quite an achievement in an era without good public transport. Now Ardrey has entered the fray with the bold announcement that Merlin was, in fact, a Scot, not English or even Welsh, and lived for some 18 years from 600AD in dear old Partick.

Nowadays, a flamboyant Merlin character decked out in a star-spangled cape would probably pass unnoticed among curiously-dressed hen parties and pickled local soothsayers in Partick on a Friday night. However, in the seventh century he is likely to have caused much more of a stir, which makes one wonder why such a revelation is only coming to light now.

Ardrey, a former SNP candidate, stumbled upon the connection when he was researching the history of his family name at the National Library of Scotland. He found evidence linking the name to a Scottish warlord named Arthur Mac Aedan, born in 559, who he believes was the legendary Arthur of Camelot. Ardrey went on to discover that Merlin was, in fact, the son of Morken, a Scottish chief, and was born in Cadzow, near Hamilton, in 540. He also states in his book that Merlin spent his latter years with his wife, Gwendoline, in a comfortable house in what is now Ardery Street in Partick, and that he was murdered in 618AD on his way to Dunipace in Stirlingshire and is buried in Drumelzier kirkyard in the Borders.

The Borders connection is one which has been made before. There is a historical note of a Myrddin (Merlin) involved in a battle at Arthuret near the Solway Firth in 573AD and Borders historian Alastair Moffat has previously argued that Arthur himself hails from Kelso.

Ardrey, who lives in Bothwell, argues that since Merlin's death his real story has been suppressed by Christian writers. Our modern image of a hirsute mystic in a pointy hat and surrounded by a puff of stardust has been shaped by the portrayal of him as a magician in films such as Excalibur and the Sword In The Stone, but is wide of the mark. Ardrey argues that Merlin had no such powers but was a politician and a scholar; a druid who spent his life fighting the church that controlled medieval times. For this reason, he claims, his true identity was only passed down orally through the generations. The persona which appeared in written accounts had been strictly censored by writers who did not want to undermine the authority of the church.

Whatever the truth, Merlin joins an intriguing band of would-be Scots who include Pontius Pilate. He is said to have been born in Fortingall in Perthshire. What with all these historical figures milling about and the claim that Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh is the burial place of Jesus himself, it's just as we always suspected: Scotland truly is the centre of the world. Did we mention that Adam Ardrey is a former SNP candidate?