The passage of time is magic here

While I like the medievalist, mythic Merlin, last time out for the episode Lamia, they surely did a boo-boo. Over three nights, three men in a village are stricken with a mysterious illness, rendering them comatose. The wife of the chief elder rides to Camelot over the course of two days. Merlin, Guin(evere) and some of Camelot’s knights take another two days to ride out there; as they ride back they free Lamia from some bandits and she bewitches them to travel away from Camelot. After the two days it should have taken them to get back, King Arthur sets out with his entourage, taking two days to reach the village. Next day, travelling back, they come across a wagon with dead slavetraders and one barely alive slave trader. Lamia broke out of the wagon, slaying his companions and leaving him for dead. Are we to believe that this fellow has lain in the same position out in the open for twelve days in a near moribund state? And that his colleagues have not begun to putrefy - sure the birds and other animals of the forest are scared of Lamia and the path she has taken but bacteria too?
Another great thing about Merlin is the stunning (mostly CGI) castles and monuments, though the number that are deserted and in no need of maintenance against the onslaught of nature and time is striking. The catch-all excuse is that magic keeps up the appearances. Hmmm. The latest one to which Lamia lures the knights even has its windows boarded up in the manner of a northern English town’s high street in the 1980s. Lamia is killed and that is the resolution of the narrative but it doesn’t bear the weight of too much thought afterwards.